Monthly archives: February 2018
LGBT History Month – Yirka-Laul
February is LGBT History Month and the SWBH LGBT Staff Network and the Trust wanted to take the opportunity to share an insight into the Geography of LGBT History looking at the gender diversity through time and cultures.
Today we highlight Yirka-Laul: Among the 19th century Chuckchi of Siberia, people who were assigned male at birth but displayed “feminine” behaviour were considered to be third gender shamans. They adopted “feminine” hairstyles, then “female” clothes, and finally married men. They were hated, scorned, and also feared by the rest of the Chuckchi, as they were considered to be much more powerful than other shamans.
#LGBTHistory – Claiming our past, celebrating our present and creating our future.
LGBT History Month – the agender flag
February is LGBT History Month and our LGBT Staff Network are using this month to share an insight into the geography of LGBT history, looking at flags used to celebrate our identities.
Today we highlight the Agender Flag: A person who feels like they have no gender at all.
#LGBTHistory – Claiming our past, celebrating our present and creating our future.
PDRs – Managers Are You Ready?
Have you made arrangements to complete PDRs within your area in April, May, or June?
In preparation of the new PDR process, managers must upload the proposed PDR date for each member of your team onto ESR before 19 March.
The guidance notes below will provide you with a step by step instruction on how to do this.
Entering AtE Booked Appraisal Dates
For further support please contact your HR Business Partner or Bethan Downing bethan.downing1@nhs.net
Drug recall – Ventolin Accuhaler 200mcg
Ventolin Accuhaler 200mcg lot numbers 786G & 754P) are being recalled by Glaxo Wellcome because a manufacturing issue with these lots has been identified which has resulted in a small number of Ventolin Accuhalers 200mcg not delivering the full number of doses.
Lot number & expiry date are printed on the accuhaler and the outer packaging (see images below).
Colleagues are asked to:
- Check the lot number on patients’ Ventolin Accuhalers 200mcg (include any patients own drugs that may have been prescribed by their GP or another service).
- Arrange for replacement stock if any of the affected lots are found.
- Quarantine any affected stock and return to Pharmacy.
Note: Pharmacy stock, ward stock and an initial check of patients own drugs have been carried out but it is possible that patients may be admitted with Ventolin Accuhalers that have not been checked.
For further advice please contact medicines information.
Purple Points go live tomorrow
There is just one day left until our Purple Points go live around our hospital sites.
The initiative will mean that inpatients and their relatives are able to raise concerns, or compliment excellent care using phones at our Purple Points. They have been installed around all inpatient ward areas and the phone line will be answered by members of our Purple Point team, who sit within the Governance Support Unit.
If you receive a call from the team, then please respond as quickly as possible so that any concerns raised are addressed and resolved in a safe and timely manner.
It is important that you keep the patient and/or the relative who has reported the concern, updated throughout the process and that you ensure issues are resolved whilst the patient is still in our care. In getting this right, we will reduce complaints, responding to issues as they arise, resolving problems before they escalate improving the patient experience.
It means we can make a difference at the time, rather than when they have gone home.
Purple Points will go live at Sandwell and Rowley Regis Hospitals on 27 February and at City on 28 February.
With your help we can get our care right, every time for everyone
For more information click here.
Message for recruiting managers
The business case you complete when submitting a vacancy approval has changed. Please use the new form (below) with immediate effect. Your VAF will be declined if you continue to use the old form.
Business Case – Vacancy Approval Form
Please contact the recruitment department on 0121 507 5070 if you have any queries.
Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 23 February
Next week sees the go live for Purple Point. This is a seven day service to hear from patients and their relatives about what we do well, but also to get feedback and take immediate action on concerns. The service will operate in various local languages and run from 9am until 9pm. Any one of us could get a call from the governance support unit team. When you do there are two questions:
- Can you take steps to address the concern please?
- Can you get in touch with the person who has raised the concern and talk them through either what you have done, what you are about to do, or why their concern is not one we share?
David Carruthers and Elaine Newell have released brief explanatory short films outlining what the service is for and why it matters. Time and again I hear a conversation questioning whether we take Patient Experience seriously here. I think we do. That is why we changed the eye casualty model. Why we have moved our emergency gynaecology unit? Why we have made several recent investments to change our environment? But this service is a huge change and commitment to wanting to get things right for every patient, and crucially for their carers, friends and family too.
Do feel free to use the service if your loved one is with us, and to draw it to your patients’ attention. It is not instead of what CNPs, shift leaders, and many others do each day to address concerns face to face. But it does provide a safety net. Another option. An unambiguous opportunity to make sure we can hear about problems while something can be done to address them.
Next week sees a a couple of other things too. Including more digital champion training! The Board meets and will consider further proposals on specialist pathology services, our staffing establishments for ward inpatient areas, and our future capital programme. Our strategy remains to invest. In technology, in our estate, and especially in training and staffing. But of course our one off spend, our capital, is funded through our income per patient, our revenue. As we go into next year we have balanced our books using some one off items, and we know we need to reduce expenditure safely from April. If we do not succeed, then we will need to cancel or defer capital spend. That would be the first year that that has been our approach, but if we are to remain a going concern, and manage our finances prudently then that is the right approach. The best way to invest is therefore safely to save, and I know everyone is looking for ideas and working to spend wisely. If you do have more ideas on how we can save money without damaging safety standards do get in touch, or if you prefer to email our finance team, please do so via swbh.finance.reports@nhs.net
The trust board is also holding a strategy away day. This will happen with our senior clinical leaders. It will also include a number of local GPs. This is because to deliver our 2020 Vision, and certainly to create our 2025 Ambitions, we need to do that not as an organisation but as a system, and in particular working smartly and effectively with GPs. From April a significant number of follow up outpatient appointments in certain key specialties will be undertaken for us by local primary care organisations. This will create time and space for us to give more attention to new referrals, in other words patients without a definitive diagnosis or agreed treatment plan, who need our expertise. After a number of years of good pilot work to integrate care, and of course some large scale successful changes in diabetes in particular, the year ahead will see us try and move much more quickly to integrate what we do with local general practice. My sense is that most frontline clinical colleagues support this strategy, but if you do have reservations or questions, do get in touch, or contact your Group Directors. If you have specific questions about the arrangements with Modality in terms of outpatients, please raise those with Liam Kennedy or Dottie Tipton.
Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 23 February 2018
Next week sees the go live for Purple Point. This is a seven day service to hear from patients and their relatives about what we do well, but also to get feedback and take immediate action on concerns. The service will operate in various local languages and run from 9am until 9pm, with an answering service after that. Any one of us could get a call from the governance support unit team. When you do there are two questions:
- Can you take steps to address the concern please?
- Can you get in touch with the person who has raised the concern and talk them through either what you have done, what you are about to do, or why their concern is not one we share?
David Carruthers and Elaine Newell have released brief explanatory short films outlining what the service is for and why it matters. Time and again I hear a conversation questioning whether we take Patient Experience seriously here. I think we do. That is why we changed the eye casualty model. Why we have moved our emergency gynaecology unit? Why we have made several recent investments to change our environment? But this service is a huge change and commitment to wanting to get things right for every patient, and crucially for their carers, friends and family too.
Do feel free to use the service if your loved one is with us, and to draw it to your patients’ attention. It is not instead of what CNPs, shift leaders, and many others do each day to address concerns face to face. But it does provide a safety net. Another option. An unambiguous opportunity to make sure we can hear about problems while something can be done to address them.
Next week sees a a couple of other things too. Including more digital champion training! The Board meets and will consider further proposals on specialist pathology services, our staffing establishments for ward inpatient areas, and our future capital programme. Our strategy remains to invest. In technology, in our estate, and especially in training and staffing. But of course our one off spend, our capital, is funded through our income per patient, our revenue. As we go into next year we have balanced our books using some one off items, and we know we need to reduce expenditure safely from April. If we do not succeed, then we will need to cancel or defer capital spend. That would be the first year that that has been our approach, but if we are to remain a going concern, and manage our finances prudently then that is the right approach. The best way to invest is therefore safely to save, and I know everyone is looking for ideas and working to spend wisely. If you do have more ideas on how we can save money without damaging safety standards do get in touch, or if you prefer to email our finance team, please do so via swbh.finance.reports@nhs.net
The trust board is also holding a strategy away day. This will happen with our senior clinical leaders. It will also include a number of local GPs. This is because to deliver our 2020 Vision, and certainly to create our 2025 Ambitions, we need to do that not as an organisation but as a system, and in particular working smartly and effectively with GPs. From April a significant number of follow up outpatient appointments in certain key specialties will be undertaken for us by local primary care organisations. This will create time and space for us to give more attention to new referrals, in other words patients without a definitive diagnosis or agreed treatment plan, who need our expertise. After a number of years of good pilot work to integrate care, and of course some large scale successful changes in diabetes in particular, the year ahead will see us try and move much more quickly to integrate what we do with local general practice. My sense is that most frontline clinical colleagues support this strategy, but if you do have reservations or questions, do get in touch, or contact your Group Directors. If you have specific questions about the arrangements with Modality in terms of outpatients, please raise those with Liam Kennedy or Dottie Tipton.
Romanian speaker needed
If you are fluent in Romanian and confident on camera, then we need your help!
The communications team is looking for a Romanian speaker to be part of a patient information video.
If you are interested in this opportunity, please contact Anuji Evans, External Communications Manager, at Anuji.evans@nhs.net.
Maternity mandatory training is changing
Training will take place over two days, one of which will be PROMPT (Practical Obstetric Multi-Professional Training). PROMPT training includes basic like support, resus of the newborn, ‘normality’, skills drills and human factors. This training is aimed at any professional with an interest in maternity.
Please see the document below for further information:
To secure a place email: jenny.cartwright1@nhs.net or olivia.agar@nhs.net
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