Monthly archives: July 2018

Overwhelmed by information?

The Library is launching a new resource called KnowledgeShare. KnowledgeShare is our targeted evidence update service. Whenever we find high level articles, guidelines or reports in your area of interest we will collate them and then send you an email once every fortnight.

To register, come into the library or fill out the online form here https://swbhlibrary.wordpress.com/knowledgeshare/

If you have any questions please contact the library team on ext. 3587 or swbh.library@nhs.net .

Note: You will need to be a member of the library to use KnowledgeShare. 

Need help with basic IT and digital skills training?

The e-Learning Hub (Coffee Pot) at Sandwell Hospital is now available for individual bookings on the following dates with sessions running from 9am-5pm.

• 9 August
• 10 August

You can book as many hours as you need from 1 hour upwards although we would advise an minimum of 2 hours. Sessions will be facilitated, so if you need any help identifying the correct courses or where they are located help will be available.

For booking and information please contact jessica.ward6@nhs.net.

Lunchtime walks at Sandwell and City

Lunchtime walks at Sandwell – Meet every Wednesday prompt 12.30pm at Hallam Restaurant Entrance. The walk will be to Dartmouth Park and will take around 30 minutes and cover around two miles.

Please register your interest with Jatinder Sekhon /Emma Williams on Ext 3306 so that we may send you a registration form prior to you attending your first walk.

Lunchtime walks at City – Meet every Friday from 12.30pm at Western Road. The walk will last for 30 minutes and cover around two miles.

For more information contact Sarah Clifford extension 5008 or e-mail s.clifford1@nhs.net

If you register, you will receive a free pedometer.

Note: Please ensure you have suitable footwear and bring a water bottle.

We’re also offering Trust colleagues a free healthy lunch voucher when you ditch the car as part of our ‘Get Active, Eat Free’ campaign.

Join us for five of our lunchtime walks or cycle a return journey to work five times and get a free healthy meal for the value of up to £3.

For more information on regarding the lunchtime walks contact  jenny.wright9@nhs.net and for more information on cycling, contact  Francesca.silcocks@nhs.net.

Bring your own cups and mugs to work and reduce impact on environment

The Trust orders over 4.5 million disposable cups each year! Help us reduce our impact on the environment and the amount of waste we generate by bringing in your own cups and mugs for your drinks instead of using disposable cups. Disposable cups should only be used for patient drinks in your work area.

Note: this excludes the Trust retail outlets where disposable cups are in use.

National Audit of Dementia questionnaire

You are invited to complete a questionnaire for the fourth round of the National Audit of Dementia (NAD). The audit examines the care provided to people with dementia in acute hospital settings in England and Wales.

The questionnaire asks about the support and resources you can access to provide good care to people with dementia. We would be grateful if you could spend 10-15 minutes completing the questionnaire.

Every colleague who completes this questionnaire will have the chance to enter a prize draw to win one of five £50 vouchers for a high street store of your choosing.

This is an anonymous questionnaire, and you will not be identifiable by your responses. Your feedback will help improve patient care and help define the performance of our hospitals and others in England and Wales, we would be very grateful if you could take the time to complete it.

Please complete the survey online at www.nadstaff.uk

You will be asked to enter our unique hospital code at the start of the questionnaire.  It is important you enter this correctly otherwise your responses will have to be deleted.  The codes for our hospital are:

• WB82 (use this code if you are mainly based at City Hospital site)
• SB81 (use this code if you are mainly based at Sandwell Hospital site)

The deadline for submitting questionnaires is 21 September.

Heartbeat: Full dress rehearsal of Unity coming in September

A run through of all activities that will take place during go-live of Unity will start on Monday 10 September.

This will be the full dress rehearsal (FDR) of Unity which will identify any issues ahead of go-live.

Be sure to check out the above short clip of Emma Hibbs, Advanced Physiotherapist and Hannah Foxley, Advanced Occupational Therapist sharing their experiences of going through the first dress rehearsal of Unity held in April and what they’re doing to prepare for the new electronic patient record.

This will be the full dress rehearsal (FDR) of Unity which will identify any issues ahead of go-live. Heartbeat caught up with Shafiq Ullah, Unity Cutover Manager who explained more.

“My role as cutover manager is to make sure that we have everything in place ready for when we cut over from the old systems to Unity. The full dress rehearsal will review, assess and measure both the cutover plan and the electronic patient record both technically and operationally prior to go-live.”

A selection of operational areas across our sites will take part in FDR activities, replicating the steps that will be carried out during cutover. These will include activities like:

• Logging into Unity
• Entering patient alerts
• Allocating patients into beds
• Managing patient movements
• Entering clinical information.

Shafiq said: “FDR is an opportunity for our operational teams supported by our digital champions and the Unity project team, to use Unity and prepare for the cutover. Additionally any issues identified during FDR will be escalated for resolution and the plan and logistics updated and documented for the cutover and go-live.”

The Unity dress rehearsal will ensure that each role will be able to provide patient care in their respective roles. The first dress rehearsal of Unity took place in April and was well received by colleagues who commented that they appreciated the opportunity to use Unity in a live setting.

Emma Hibbs, Team Lead, Rapid Response Therapy Service said: “Going through the first dress rehearsal was a good opportunity to see Unity in action. As part of the rapid response team, I work in the emergency department and AMU and currently have to access different systems to look at patient information. It’s great to see that this will all change when we go-live with Unity as we will have a single point of access for all patient records. This means the information will be timely and accurate which is a positive thing for our patients.”

Lis Hesk, Gynaecology Matron added: “Having taken part in the first dress rehearsal of Unity it made so much sense to me and the team to follow a real patient through the pathway from admission to discharge. Unity ensures patient records are maintained in a standardised way and allows the whole team to be involved in the care of patients.”

During FDR a number of users including nurses/midwives, healthcare assistants and ward clerks will work on Unity while their colleagues will be carrying out their usual processes on our current systems.

Those taking part in FDR will be fully briefed beforehand. If you are taking part in FDR it is advised that you attend Unity end user training before 17 September. FDR will take place on the following dates:

• 10 September – for technical activities, with operational activities from;
  • 17 September – Sandwell ED, Sandwell inpatient wards
  • 18 September – City Hospital ED, City Hospital inpatient wards, Community inpatient areas
  • 19 September – Outpatient areas
  • 20–21 September – wrap up

For more information email swbh.trustindigital@nhs.net

Heartbeat: Putting our waste to good use

Eighteen months ago, Justin Mitchell, Assistant Director of Procurement, was looking for ways to recycle products that pile up across our Trust in tonnes. Rather than pay for a company to collect it and dump it in landfill, the aim was to process the waste in an environmentally friendly manner at zero cost.

Justin was then introduced to Tom O’Brien, from Trust-Reclaim Ltd who specialises in reducing NHS disposal costs through recycling and giving to communities. Justin liked the idea of squeezing out residue value from condemned stock and adding to people’s lives. This started an agreement with Trust-Reclaim Ltd initially just dealing with stock from scrap items held in the old laundry, but since then has grown into other projects.

Over the past year, Trust-Reclaim Ltd has collected over 200 tonnes of waste from our sites. By carrying out an up-cycling process which is sustainable and ethical – the Trust has made an income of £8k in the process.

“The process of working with a social enterprise to recycle our waste is a no brainer,” said Justin. “Not only are we helping the environment, the proceeds are going to good causes and we are also able to make this process as an income stream for the groups just by recycling in an ethical way.”

Good causes that have benefitted from our work with Trust-Reclaim Ltd include providing furniture to homeless people that are in the process of being rehoused, through charities such as the ‘Ladywood Furniture Project’ and ‘Langar Aid’.  Proving this way of working is really adding social value at street level. Some containers, full of waste stock have even gone to help projects abroad in Sri Lanka, Syria and Yemen.

Justin said: “Recycling our scrap is just the tip of iceberg. As a large organisation we generate 1,000s of tonnes of waste every year. The procurement team are now working with teams across the Trust to help them realise the benefits that could be had by recycling ethically.”

Tom added: “We are able to provide recycling at zero cost as Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals has given us the opportunity to carry out a variety of recycling work. It’s great that the Trust is really beginning to embrace ethical recycling. There are so many opportunities that could help save the environment and help provide potential employment for local communities. Partnerships can be developed to help grow the Trust with other social enterprises that will help meet the organisation’s goal of becoming truly sustainable.”

The procurement team manages the governance and has an audit trail of all the waste that is taken off site by Trust-Reclaim Ltd including indemnity. Any profit made is paid directly to the cost centre code for that particular area.

To find out how your area can get involved please email Justin justin.mitchell@nhs.net

Children’s safeguarding update: Child sexual exploitation

Current figures show 227 open cases of CSE in Sandwell this includes Low, Med and High risk. We only flags cases risk rated Medium and High, which accounts for 29 cases. Please check the alert system which can be viewed on Patient First, CDA, Lorenzo and SystmOne as part of your assessment.

We have a CSE champion in ED who covers cross site City and Sandwell and will support in delivering key findings and supports staff within ED. The CSE screening tool supports practitioners to make an assessment of vulnerable young victims and supports making a Multi-Agency Referral (MARF) -Sandwell/Request for Support Birmingham children at risk CSE.

Recent audits have shown that there has been an improved response in activity with staff contacting Children Social Care.

Our allergy service is first to use hay fever busting machine

We have become the first NHS Trust in the UK to introduce a new device which can help combat the symptoms allergic rhinitis – more commonly known as hay fever.

The Rhinolight machine, has been loaned to our paediatric allergy service by the Hungarian company that first developed it.

Dr Nick Makwana first heard of the device during a conference and was interested to hear that it was used in many European countries as well as Australia, and closer to home, in Ireland but had not been used in the UK yet.

The device is used to direct controlled doses of uVA, uVB and visible light up each nostril with the aim of reducing the symptoms.  It zaps the cells that cause hay fever and reduces the chemicals that lead to the inflammation.

It is usually administered during the hay fever season when symptoms have begun. The patient would undergo six sessions over a two week period which should lead to symptom reduction for the rest of the summer.

Play Specialist, Beena Parmar helped raise £1,100 towards the final purchase of the device through organising events through her Gujarati community.

Dr Nick Makwana, Consultant Paediatrician, said: “We are very grateful to Beena for her fundraising efforts.

“It means that if we can demonstrate that the device works in our young population then we will be leading the way in treating young patients who suffer from hay fever and the money raised will go towards the purchase of the Rhinolight.

“This year in particular has seen a rise in the number of people showing symptoms because of the heatwave across the country, but studies have shown that this treatment works very well in tackling hay fever, and the patient will most likely be cured for the rest of the season.”

He went on to explain how the machine works: “The probe has a special ultra-violet light mix which is inserted into the end of the nose and then changes the cells in the nose which usually trigger the allergic reaction.

“There is no pain involved which is why it is a great treatment for children.  This will also save money for the NHS as, if the symptoms become controlled, then there will be less visits to the GP and less prescriptions for medicines to help battle the symptoms of hay fever.”

Beena, who has worked at our organisation for 21 years, said: “Every year my temple, BPM Krishna Mandir in Sparkbrook, has a chosen charity which it fundraises for.

“There are many children within the Gujarati community who suffer from allergies and I wanted to raise more awareness around it, so they agreed to hold a dinner and dance in aid of our paediatrics department.

“Dr Makwana visited the temple and told them that the money would go towards the Rhinolight machine.

“We raised a total of £1,100 and I am so pleased that we were able to fund the purchase of this machine.

“It is going to help a lot of children coming to use our service.”

Junior Doctor prizes: 2017-18

We are pleased to announce that the winners of the following Junior Doctor prizes for 2017-18 are:

• Dr Melikian FY1 Prize (voted for by wards and departments around the Trust): Dr Joseph Sturman
• Tim Weller Prize – Team Player (voted for by junior doctors): Dr Helena Lee

Other trainees nominated for the Tim Weller Prize were:

• Dr Joshua Manning
• Dr Ananth Srinivasan
• Dr Helen Millner
• Dr Zeinab Majid
• Dr Joseph Sturman

The Trust would like to congratulate both winners and all nominees and wish them all the best for the future.