COVID-19: Updated guidance for maintaining services within health and care settings: Infection prevention and control recommendations
Amendments have been made to strengthen existing messaging and provide further clarity, including updates on hierarchy of controls, clarity over use of valved respirators, and highlighting need to protect those previously shielding and considered clinically extremely vulnerable.
Source:
Department of Health and Social Care
SPS commentary:
BMJ news report highlights from updated guidance that more NHS staff caring for patients with suspected or confirmed covid-19 will have access to higher grade personal protective equipment (PPE), including FFP3 masks. The guidance update follows a review by SAGE, which found that while respiratory diseases were “conventionally classed as either airborne or droplet in a clinical context,” current evidence suggested that SARS-CoV-2 fell between these two categories with transmission “possible through inhalation and mucous membrane exposure to a range of particle sizes, as well as potentially through fomites.”