Supporting the frontline during a time of need

The frontline staff at Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust (CHFT) have been working extremely hard to keep patients safe and during this pandemic they have been putting their own lives at risk to care for the sick. We at The Health Informatics Service (THIS) have been supporting the Trust and our frontline staff to reduce pressure and allowing the ability for more staff to work from home.

Through the reconfiguration of our services and processes, we have been able to enable circa 160 THIS staff (80%) to deliver services remotely including our Service Desk and Clinical Coding team.

The majority of CHFT Corporate functions are now safely working from home with access to the required systems including HR, Finance and Procurement. We’ve also supported 4 Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) headquarters and Spectrum to be able to safely work from home with access to the required systems they need to complete their day to day tasks.

We’ve developed and communicated support and advice documentation on technology, working from home and health and wellbeing to our staff.

Doing this has reduced the amount of staff travelling to our hospital sites, which is helping suppress the spread of COVID-19 therefore helping to protect our frontline staff and our patients.

CHFT’s Inpatient Therapy Team at HRI sharing the importance of staying at home to protect the NHS.

Please remember to follow the government guidelines. Stay at home, protect the NHS, and save lives.

Published by Sophie Thomas on 29.04.2020. Written with the support of Peter Howson and Rebecca Wootton.