Mr. Yusuf Gray, from the University Hospitals Derby & Burton NHS Foundation Trust, talks about Royal Derby Hospital’s robust point of care testing in its virus management programme, and how implementing year-round RSV testing last year resulted in the discovery of an unexpected summer surge in cases.
Royal Derby Hospital has been leading the way in infection control through point of care testing since 2018, understanding its importance not only for patients with regards to safety and how it impacts their progression through treatment pathways, but also for staff, and how they can effectively do their jobs in safe environments.
In 2018, Public Health England declared that flu was rendering the largest number of people seriously unwell since the winter of 2011, with figures showing that more than 30,000 people visited a GP in January as a result of influenzalike illness. That year, 1,598 people lost their lives to flu across the UK.1
Unlike most hospitals, by the end of 2018 when its winter flu management scheme began, Royal Derby had recognised a need to strengthen its defences against the impact of higher hospital admissions, as well as making its testing capabilities more efficient to enable it to treat flu patients quicker and discharge them from the facility. In response, Royal Derby opted to invest in Abbott’s ID NOW for molecular point of care testing, which at the time could detect Influenza A & B, and Strep A in less than 13 minutes.2
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