13 May 2020
InHealth have risen to the challenge of COVID-19 by repurposing clinical teams and redeploying more than 930 staff who work in services where volumes of patients have decreased or been suspended to support the NHS.
Repurposed and retrained
InHealth has dedicated its entire fleet of 14 CT scanners to the NHS and adapted 12 hour a day capacity to a 24/7 model of operation. To support the London Ambulance Service, InHealth has repurposed a 120-seat Patient Referral Centre to support the demand for calls to 111 and in the first few weeks handled over 50,000 calls. Staff have been retrained to support the purpose-built Nightingale hospitals and invested in 14 remote reporting stations to allow appropriately qualified reporting radiographers to report from home.
InHealth has dedicated its entire fleet of 14 CT scanners to the NHS and adapted 12 hour a day capacity to a 24/7 model of operation. To support the London Ambulance Service, InHealth has repurposed a 120-seat Patient Referral Centre to support the demand for calls to 111 and in the first few weeks handled over 50,000 calls. Staff have been retrained to support the purpose-built Nightingale hospitals and invested in 14 remote reporting stations to allow appropriately qualified reporting radiographers to report from home.
Swift adaptation and flexible working
The team who usually administer bookings for the Diabetic Eye Screening Programme in the south west have swiftly adapted to a COVID-19 test booking system for NHS staff across Portsmouth, Exeter and Bristol and the Surrey Breast Screening service have repurposed their services to provide a diagnostic facility.
Staff who work on the mobile MSK service in Manchester have now adapted the Mobile Clinical Unit (MCU) to be a hot-hub for COVID-19 patients.
Remote appointments
In person appointments for pain–management and MSK services have been temporarily replaced with virtual consultations using telephone and video-conferencing technology. Over 7,000 appointments have taken place in this way to allow the service to continue and patients to get access to advice and treatment.
InHealth has acted swiftly to adjust their services in the face of this unprecedented challenge. Wendy Wilkinson, Director of Clinical Quality said, “I am so proud of the way everyone at InHealth has supported the NHS and each other during the pandemic.”
