Monthly archives: April 2018
Anticoagulant Service – do you know how to refer?
Unsure of how to refer patients to the anticoagulant service?
Do you require an anticoagulant follow up or a new patient appointment?
Do you have a patient on your ward taking oral anticoagulants and need advice?
Is your patient having a planned procedure that requires them to stop anticoagulation?
The anticoagulant team can be contacted Monday to Friday 8.30am to 4.30pm
Email: swb-tr.SWBH-GM-anticoagulant-services@nhs.net
Telephone: ext. 3615.
Service is closed during weekends and bank holidays.
Experiencing grief & loss course
This is a structured course aimed at anybody who would like to learn self-help techniques in dealing with bereavement. We will be exploring our understanding of grief and skills to cope with loss.
Come along to learn some new skills and chat with people who are in similar situations to support each other through this difficult time.
Date: Thursday 24 May
Venue: Anne Gibson Baord Room, City Hospital
Time: 10am – 1pm
For bookings or more information please contact Jatinder Sekhon or Emma Williams on ext. 3306.
SWBH Disability and Long Term Conditions Staff Network survey
The SWBH Disability and Long Term Conditions Staff Network are asking about your experiences and views of our working lives and how you feel the Trust is supporting you.
Please take just five minutes to answer these ten vital questions – we would appreciate you filling this in before the 25 May.
EpiPen 300micrograms shortages
There is currently a shortage of EpiPen 300micrograms in the supply chain, with no further information on future availability.
In the interim, Pharmacy have sourced an alternative product:
- Emerade (which comes in three strengths)
Clinicians should note that the dose of Emerade for both children and adults is different to Epi-pen.
Demonstration devices are on order from the company and will be distributed to clinical areas.
However usage is very similar to other products.
The method for using an Emerade pen can be found here.
For more information and updates, please contact Sehjal Kanta on ext. 5259.
Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 27 April
Today’s Friday message is in part a tribute to one person – Elaine Newell. But it is also an invitation to all of us to join in with something important, clinical, life changing and entirely free. Being in a hospital, specifically a hospital bed, is part of the service model we have. Wrapping care, rest, attention and medicine around someone else. Yet being in a hospital bed has some negative consequences. We have an amazing record of infection control in our Trust, so much so that I sometimes fear we take that for granted. We have fought to get the right microbiology model within Black Country pathology, able to support at the bedside. MRSA screening remains part of our core standards and we can, in all honesty, do better.
Now, being in hospital is, despite our outstanding rating for caring, an isolating and fear inducing experience. Cooped into a bed. In a gown or pyjamas. We deliver food and warm drinks. Respond to bells or calls and help someone to the toilet. Now we “let” visitors come and see their loved ones, and watch us work. We provide a bed for those visitors (talking of which do you know how to access one? If not contact Debbie Talbot). But, typically, our patients are confined, or confine themselves to bed. Talking to our nurses and therapists, when we then come to support going home, or discharge, we find deconditioned people, less able to look after themselves than the day before they came into our hospital. And the effect of that deterioration lasts, well after discharge. Perhaps for a lifetime.
We can change this. We should. We will. But all of us have to play a part. The Chief Nursing Officer for England, Jane Cummings, has set out to lead a campaign to end PJ Paralysis. Seemingly this campaign is opposed by the Daily Mail. Take your choice then. I am with Jane, and you can see from our photo so is Elaine Newell, who retires as our chief nurse today. And Paula Gardner, who hundreds of you will have met during her induction, and who starts work tonight as one of two clinicians serving on our Trust Board. Heartbeat next week has an interview with Paula, alongside David Carruthers, our medical director, who started in post this January; Pun Sharma, our chief pharmacist who is leading work to have us ready in August for electronic prescribing, and Lydia Jones who in June becomes our director of therapies, having started here as an apprentice. My point is that our clinical leadership is a multi professional team. And that team stands behind a campaign to change the patient experience of our inpatients, at Leasowes, Rowley Regis, City, Sheldon and Sandwell.
We will not be banning pyjamas. In fact our forthcoming ward welcome packs will provide little dignities and comforts like a toothbrush on admission. But what we will be doing is starting to make it normal, routine, accepted, and encouraged to be up out of bed. Once we get to Midland Met, we will have kitchens for patients to cook in, inspired by our Newton 4 team, and a brilliant huge amenity space for patients to use with their visitors, off the wards, but near to them, our Winter Garden.
Now Elaine does not want a fuss, so this tribute is brief. A short time as chief nurse has seen us transform recruitment, and begin to deliver consistency of care in our medical wards. Diane Eltringham joined us as director of nursing for surgery last week, while Claire Hubbard has been with us for a while now in medicine. Rachel Carter is the mainstay of the regional maternity system, and Tammy Davies has led our outstanding end of life care service, and now champions safe discharge across the Trust (see the TeamTalk video above). In other words, alongside Debbie, Paul, Gemma and others, Elaine leads a cadre of fantastic professional nurse leaders, making a difference across our Trust. Before that Elaine was our director of midwifery during a ten year period when outcomes were changed for the better and services rationalised onto the city site. Serenity is one of the largest midwife led units in England. The quality of which our mums and dads tell us about in survey after survey. Any career is judged by legacy. The huge quantity of gin we bought Elaine to say goodbye cannot obscure that legacy – thank you.
#hellomynameis….Toby
Contact LeDeR if you know someone with learning disabilities who has recently died
Do you know someone with learning disabilities who has recently died?
SWBH NHS Trust is now a live site submitting Learning Disability patient deaths to the National LeDeR (Learning Disabilities Mortality Review) programme.
Should you have any queries regarding Learning Disability deaths, please contact:
Dr. Carol Cobb, Trust Mortality Lead at carolcobb@nhs.net or Mumtaz Goolam, Clinical Effectiveness Facilitator- Mortality at mumtaz.goolam1@nhs.net
Pay dates for Bank during Mayday and the Spring holiday
The Payroll timetable for Mayday and the Spring holiday period 2018 is now accessible for bank colleagues.
For more information please contact ruth.gardner4@nhs.net.
Wellbeing taster treatments available at City: April – May
Holistic and Beauty Therapist, Tracey Moore is offering wellbeing taster treatments at the Active Health Club Gym (Ellis House) at City Hospital until the end of May.
Treatments include:
- Reflexology: Taster treatment 30 minutes – £20 (full treatment 1 hour – £30)
- Foot spa: 45 minutes – £20
- Mini facial – £10
- Hopi candles – £17
For more information contact Tracey on 07716 811038 or email tracey.moore7@btinternet.com
Manic Street Preachers: discounted tickets
The organisers for Manic Street Preachers concert have kindly offered Trust employees a limited number of discounted tickets for their concert on Friday 27 April 2018 at Arena Birmingham.
Selected tickets are complimentary with a £2.90 admin fee per ticket plus a £2.55 fulfilment fee per order.
Tickets can only be collected from the venue Box Office and the collection option must be selected when booking.
Book your tickets here, using promo code “EVERLASTINGNHS” when prompted then simply select ‘£A * £2.90 to £54.10’ and look for the gold star NHS Offer.
There is a maximum of 4 tickets per order and you will need to bring your NHS ID Card with you to the concert as it may be checked.
Offer valid until 00:00 on Thursday 26 April.
For more information please contact amir.ali1@nhs.net
Furosemide injection shortages
Manufacturers are currently unable to supply furosemide 50mg/5ml injections and do not have a date when supply will become available.
Pharmacies are however receiving intermittent supplies of 20mg/2ml and 250mg/25ml.
Please consider if your patient could have oral furosemide instead of intravenous.
Also consider reviewing patients receiving intravenous furosemide regularly and step down to oral as soon as clinically possible.
For more information and updates, please contact Sehjal Kanta on ext. 5259.
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