Monthly archives: January 2018
New hospitality menus
Our catering team are committed to delivering high quality catering services which will meet all of your hospitality needs, with a range of menus to suit all tastes and budgets.
You can download the brand new menu below and order forms below:
Hospitality Internal Booking Request Form 2018
To order catering for your meeting or event, please contact the team who will be able to assist with your query:
City Hospital
Stella Meek – extension 3191
stella.meek1@nhs.net
Sandwell Hospital
Dawn Bradnick – extension 4060
dawn.bradnick@nhs.net
Rowley Hospital
Rosie Beswick – extension 6312
rbeswick@nhs.net
Find out more about our homeless patient pathway
According to the charity Crisis, the average age of death for single homeless men is 47 and age 43 for homeless women – a shocking 30 years younger than the national average population. Homeless people face rates of physical ill health several times higher than the general population, often made worse by mental ill health and substance misuse. Depression is also extremely common, with homeless people being nine times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.
Such a combination of complex health and social issues often leads to homeless people becoming entrenched in their lifestyle, with little sense of hope for change. A lack of a settled address, a transient and chaotic lifestyle, and hard to access healthcare all conspire to make health care a huge challenge for homeless people.
The Homeless Patient Pathway within our organisation is a small team of two and consists of a Lead Nurse, Helen Taylor and Housing Navigator, Louise Edwards. The main aim of the pathway is to ensure safer discharges for homeless patients into accommodation as oppose to rough sleeping, to improve patient journey and maximise service referrals / access to health care, along with reducing re-admission rates.
Following discharge the team will complete a home visit to ensure that patients are engaging with the relevant services and sustaining their tenancy. They will identify and register with a local GP and ensure that they have adequate prescribed medications. Registering with a GP can be a lengthy process specifically for homeless patients that often do not have any ID therefore the lead nurse can provide them with vital interim prescriptions as a bridging gap between secondary and primary care thus reducing potential re-admissions for deterioration/non-compliance of medications.
The referral process into the team is quick and easy, either set the homeless flag on EBMS or simply telephone one of the team on the contact details provided. In addition the homeless team can also provide advice and support, clothing, food and toiletries on request.
Helen Taylor (Lead Nurse) – 07580 677913
Louise Edwards (Housing Navigator) – 07580 677884
FGM Conference, 8 March
Sandwell and West Birmingham CCG are hosting a female genital mutilation conference (FGM) on 8 March, 9am-2pm at the Bethal Convention Centre.
The purpose of the conference is to explore the challenges of FGM, identify early warning signs and to inform practitioners of their professional responsibilities and duties.
For more information, please contact Sandwell and West Birmingham CCG safeguarding team on 0121 612 2015 or e-mail safeguardingchildren@nhs.net
LGBT network meeting – 31 January
The LGBT Staff Network meets every two months across and the January meeting takes place today (31 January) at 2pm in Meeting Room 1, Old Management Block, City Hospital.
An open invite is extended to all those who self-define as LGBT and allies. They will be discussing the LGBT Safe Space, LGBT History Month starting on Thursday and attendance at Birmingham Pride.
NHS supply chain code changes
There are number of NHS supply chain code changes taking place from 5 February.
Old Code New Code
KFK137 – 21g blood collection set KFK134 (you also need to order the holder KFK322)
GDW056 – Urine 2 litre bag GDW091
FDD545 – Tracheostomy mask FDD389
Thermometer Probe Covers – over the next few weeks wards and departments will be receiving new oral/axilla thermometers (SureTemp) which will replace the current Genius 2 (Covidien) tympanic thermometers. The ordering code for the new thermometer (SureTemp) probe covers is FWH370 (boxes of 250) and can be ordered from NHS Supply chain.
If you have any queries concerning the SureTemp thermometers then please contact medical engineering ext 4070.
Continence Products
As you are aware training has been taking place across the organisation on new continence products from Ontex, all Tena pads will be ‘masked’ from w/c 5 February. All materially managed wards and departments will automatically start receiving the new products detailed above.
If you have any queries concerning the above please do not hesitate to contact any of the procurement team below :
Mark Shervington ext 4937
Jackie Graham ext 4939
Peter Lowe ext 4699
Rebecca Vanes ext 2689
Debra Chetwynd ext 2823
Gurprit Galsinh ext 2824
Fraud Attempts – Calls asking for username / password
We have had reports of staff being called and asked for their login details and passwords. Staff will never be asked for their login details and should decline. Incidents should be reported to the Governance team.
Acute pain nurses
Please be aware that there will be a very limited Acute Pain service at both City and Sandwell Sites this week, due to sickness.
They will aim to answer the bleep and support/offer telephone advice where able, but if no one is available, please contact the on call anesthetist via the switchboard.
Getting to know our safeguarding team
All colleagues across our organisation must ensure they are aware of who our safeguarding leads are and how they can raise a concern.
Today we feature Clare Cotterill, Adult Safeguarding Nurse who talks about how she takes a multi-professional approach to achieve the right outcome for patients. Clare also stresses the importance of sharing your concerns and seeking advice as quickly as possible.
You can play your part by ensuring you are up to date with safeguarding mandatory training.
For further information Clare can be contacted at clarecotterill@nhs.net
Disability and long term condition Chairs elected
Congratulations to Richard Burnell and Andrew Mould, who have been elected as chair and vice-chair of the Staff Disability and Long Term Conditions Network.
Thank you for engaging with this vital network since its inception last September. Going forward we will identify strategies and areas that we would like to take forward and work to improve within our organisation.
The next meeting will take place on 19 March, 10am – 12noon, please come along and support the work of our network.
Unity Walkthroughs taking place soon
The Unity IT system is now built and almost completely tested from a software perspective. It’s had input from over 150 colleagues over the past 18 months in how it should support and fit in with how we deliver care. We’re now at a point where we need to test that it works in the real world.
Each walkthough is an opportunity to set through a small number of clinical processes and verify that Unity fits within them. In many cases this is a straight swap for systems such as CDA and ICM. In others, notably ePrescribing and medication administration, it changes how we work fundamentally. The walkthrough is not a demo of the system (which we can arrange) nor is it an opportunity to redesign how it is built.
For example, in the Capacity Management walkthrough we intend to ensure that the management of beds, ward cleaning and porterage continues to work correctly and the information flows the capacity team is used to continue. In the board round walkthrough we wish to see how Unity can support the clinical discussion.
The walkthroughs will be by invite only. For more information on who will be involved in your area, please see the document below.
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