Team UHDB Award: Fit Testing
Our UHDB colleagues have done an incredible job providing our Covid-19 patients with the excellent care they deserve in recent months – but none of this would’ve been possible without the tireless efforts of the Fit Testing team.
Made up entirely of colleagues temporarily redeployed from a number of different departments, the team have worked around the clock to ensure as many staff as possible have been properly fitted with PPE that is sealed correctly, in order to keep them safe.
Around 9,000 UHDB colleagues have now been fit tested at Royal Derby Hospital and Queen’s Hospital Burton, with the team’s thoroughness and attention to detail helping to protect staff and allowing them to carry out their valuable work with our patients.
It has taken a truly monumental effort from everyone in the Fit Testing team to make this possible, with UHDB colleagues being redeployed from Audiology, Strategy and Improvement, Learning & Education and Ophthalmology, while Medical and Forensic students have also made up the team.
The team have also recruited more than 200 members of staff to take part in an NHS England and NHS Improvement project to improve future procurement of respirator masks, with data collected from the study also contributing towards the design and manufacture of a potential new mask for NHS staff.
It was entirely fitting then that the Fit Testing team was presented with a well-deserved Team UHDB Award, which was presented to the colleagues at both Royal Derby Hospital and Queen’s Hospital Burton.
Kevin Downs, Executive Director of Finance and Performance, said: “To have done as many tests as the team have done is absolutely phenomenal. The Fit Testing team have done a great job keeping our hospitals running as normal and we couldn’t have done what we’ve done without them. The role they have played throughout this has been just as critical to helping those people who have managed to walk out of hospital as those colleagues who have been working on the frontline treating patients.”
