Monthly archives: September 2018

Patient tells how he delivers free CPR courses

Featured on Huffingtonpost.co.uk

I am amazed by this following story and realise how incredibly slim are the chances that I am alive to write this, with a fully functioning brain to boot.

Let me explain. 

On the morning of 15 April 2017 my wife, Ann, and I had been exploring a guided walk I was planning to lead for our rambling group around the historic parts of the Digbeth area of Birmingham.

It seems, from notes I took as we were exploring, that we had almost completed our three-mile perambulation and were heading for our favourite vegetarian restaurant, The Warehouse Cafe, for lunch. Nearly there, I suddenly keeled over on to my right side on the pavement. Ann thought I had tripped but soon realised I wasn’t responding. Soon a group of onlookers had gathered to witness the scene, one had phoned for an ambulance but no-one was offering further assistance. Then suddenly a passing motorist, Judy, was there. Ann was trying to rouse me by shaking my shoulders and Judy said, “Don’t do that, he’s had a cardiac arrest”.

Judy just happened to be a nurse. She immediately took control of the situation, and started cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Another bystander (unknown and untraced) offered to help and between them they kept my circulation and breathing going until two ambulances arrived. With all their fancy gear they defibrillated me twice on the pavement and once more on the way to City Hospital, Dudley Road, Birmingham.

I have since done some investigations and discovered that the chances of surviving, in this country, what is medically known as an out-of-hospital VF Cardiac Arrest is around 4-10% (with or without brain damage) and then, only if a competent person is on hand at that very moment to apply CPR. A lot of people might think they could do it but not many would be confident enough to apply enough pressure to fracture several ribs in the process (a necessary and painful side effect that I am not moaning about). Survival chances are significantly increased if a defibrillator is to hand.

At the hospital I was quickly transferred to the catheter lab where three stents were put in my right coronary artery by Dr Derek Connolly, following which I was transferred to critical care where I was kept in a coma for three days before learning what had happened.

Over the following weeks and months I was gradually able to resume normal life. Amongst a lot of other activities, this involves several Tai Chi classes per week. At the same time I was developing strong feelings of wanting to “give something back” by making it my mission to try to get as many people as possible trained in how to apply effective first aid to people going through what I did.

By chance I discovered that Mike Bennett, a fellow Tai Chi student but in another of our school’s classes, was the lead resuscitation officer for Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. He kindly offered to freely give his time to teach any courses that I could organise. Then up popped two others from our school, Barbara and Dawn, volunteering to come on board. As long as I could find venues and attract people, we were ready to roll.

We have been incredibly lucky to have been offered local venues free of charge, meaning our courses are completely free to the participants. This is great because we have no funding and have very much been relying on word of mouth to keep going, and going well so far. As of August 2018 we have seen 226 people trained over six courses in Sutton Coldfield and Aldridge. But, we can’t be complacent; as yet we have barely scratched the surface.

We now have a blog where people can be kept updated about future courses and other useful information from the world of basic life support. 

For more information, visit CPRcounts.wordpress.com and better still ‘follow us’ when you get there. 

Colleagues can breathe easy as we count down to going smoke free in 300 days

Colleagues can breathe a breath of fresh air as the countdown to our workplace becoming completely smoke free begins this weekend.

Saturday 8 September will mark 300 days until a complete ban on smoking across our sites comes in to play and colleagues are being encouraged to kick the habit.

If you want to quit smoking you can now access free stop smoking services during working hours, where you can find support to quit smoking and to improve your health and wellbeing. Alongside traditional coaching and support, 12 weeks of free nicotine replacement therapy to help manage cravings is also available.

Stop smoking clinics are available at Sandwell and City hospitals with sessions taking 20-30 minutes.

• Sandwell clinic Monday: 8.30am-12.30pm
• City clinic Tuesday: 9.30am-1.30pm

If you would like to take the opportunity to begin your journey to quitting smoking, contact the Occupational Health and Wellbeing department on ext. 3306 or email jatinder.sekhon@nhs.net.

Magical celebration ball – Saturday 6 October

Your Trust Charity are inviting you to the magical celebration ball on Saturday 6 October.

Enjoy a magical evening of great food, cocktails, raffle, live music and dancing at Sandwell Education Centre with tickets priced at just £29.50 each.

The glitzy ball will run from 7pm-12pm with all proceeds going towards Your Trust Charity and The Healing Horse Sanctuary.

For tickets and information please contact amanda.winwood@nhs.net.

Operation Donation comes to City Hospital on Friday

Colleagues will have the chance to play a life size version of Operation for this year’s Organ Donation Week when it comes to City Hospital, Birmingham Treatment Centre today (Friday 7 September) from 10am-4pm.

NHS Blood and Transplant and the board game company Hasbro have created ‘Operation Donation’ which challenges people to have a go at removing organs from ‘Cavity Sam’ and match them up with some facts and figures about organ donation. Like the popular game, players have two minutes to complete the task, but if they make a mistake they set off a buzzer and have to start again.

The game is touring the country as part of this year’s Organ Donation Week, which runs from 3 to 9 September with the theme ‘Words Save Lives.’ It will be at City Hospital on Friday, September 7, in the Birmingham Treatment Centre from 10am-4pm.

Judith Martin, Specialist Nurse Organ Donation, said: “It’s a fun and interactive way to learn about organ donation and this is what we’d like people to do with their families for Organ Donation Week – just have a chat.

“If you are unsure about donation, please ask yourselves as a family; what would you do if one of you needed a transplant?  Would you accept a life-saving organ? If you’d take an organ, shouldn’t you be prepared to donate?”

Meanwhile if you’re at Sandwell today, the organ donation team will be raising awareness in the foyer of Hallam Restaurant by hosting a stand.

Join the Register at organdonation.nhs.uk

Dress rehearsal of Unity – what you need to know

The week starting Monday 17 September will see a number of clinical teams take part in a dress rehearsal of Unity which will identify any issues ahead of go-live.

Seventeen areas have been identified to take part in the dress rehearsal – a number of briefings sessions will take place and details of these will be available on Connect.

This is the second Unity dress rehearsal and is an opportunity for our operational teams supported by our digital champions and the Unity project team to use the electronic patient record and prepare for go-live. Any issues identified during the dress rehearsal will be resolved to ensure the smooth launch of Unity.

The dress rehearsal will take place on the following dates and times:

• • 17 September (9am–5pm) – Sandwell ED, Sandwell inpatient wards
  • 18 September (9am–5pm) – City Hospital ED, City Hospital inpatient wards, community inpatient areas
  • 19 September (9am–5pm) – Outpatient areas

Activities taking place will include testing Unity processes and devices; A4 printing, wristband, specimen label and barcode scanning.

The technical dress rehearsal will take place from 10-14 September.

Think glucose champion update venue change

The think glucose champion update scheduled for Friday 14 September will be moving location to the Sandwell Medical Education Centre Conference Room.

Note: The scheduled time of 9.15am-4pm will still remain the same.

For more information please contact wyn.burbridge@nhs.net or lynne.braycotton@nhs.net.

Vote for your favourite Sandwell green space

Colleagues have the opportunity to vote for their favourite green space as part of Keep Britain Tidy’s Green Flag People’s Choice Awards, with 10 Sandwell sites in the running.

Sandwell’s 10 Green Flag parks and green spaces are:

• Barnford Park, Oldbury
• Brunswick Park, Wednesbury
• Dartmouth Park, West Bromwich
• Haden Hill Park, Cradley Heath
• Sandwell Valley Country Park, West Bromwich
• Sandwell Valley Crematorium, West Bromwich
• Tipton Cemetery
• Victoria Park, Smethwick
• Victoria Park, Tipton
• Warley Woods, Bearwood

Voting closes on Sunday 30 September.

The 10 most popular parks and green spaces in the UK will be announced in October.

For more information and to vote for a Sandwell site please visit to www.sandwell.gov.uk/greenflag.

Heartbeat: NHS Hero – Rob Kemp, Decommissioning Project Assistant

Our organisation is full of remarkable, motivated people, who give a lot to the communities we serve. Since 2014, we have been recognising our quiet heroes who come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and do a wide variety of jobs across our organisation. Each week we shine a spotlight on one of those heroes, and following an interview by our press office the Sandwell Chronicle publishes these inspirational stories.

From delving into air raid shelters, to sifting through the archaic belongings of nurses – Rob Kemp’s job is certainly not a role you’d expect to find within the NHS.

The dad-of-two, from Kingstanding, works as a decommissioning project assistant to empty buildings which are no longer used within our organisation. It involves salvaging items which can be reused within the Trust, whilst recycling and donating other materials.

Rob, who works with another colleague, explained: “I think the most memorable project to date had to be when we went into the air raid shelters at City Hospital.

“There are two which were built we believe, in the early 1900s. After the Second World War they were used mainly for storage and some of the things we found there were astonishing.

“There were old birthing registers dating back to the first half of the 1900s.

“We want to preserve these sorts of important documents and so have given them to Sandwell and Birmingham Libraries for safe keeping.

“We also found a document which showed a list of alcohol that was given to patients at Christmas,” added Rob.

“There was wine and whisky on there. I was amazed at how hospitals used to order in alcohol for patients – obviously that wouldn’t be the case today.

“It’s like having a mirror that looks straight into the past. Quite a high percentage of our job is about going into the old buildings that we have and there are some truly interesting finds. We want to make sure that nothing is left behind. Another recent project has been looking through the sisters’ home, at City Hospital.

“It ceased to be in use in 2001, and there were a lot of items in there that we were able to save. There were some really interesting artefacts and newspaper cuttings.”

Working in the old buildings means Rob comes across all sorts of creepy crawlies, so it’s ironic that it is spiders that he fears the most. “I have a real phobia of them, but there are plenty of spiders, and quite big ones, lurking about in the buildings. Luckily my colleague is on hand to move them away from me, so I don’t have to touch them.”

Before Rob joined SWBH, he worked as a bus driver – and would pass City Hospital every day, whilst he was behind the wheel of the number 82 and 87 buses.

So what does he enjoy most about his job?

“I meet a diverse amount of people – from domestic staff, to care takers and consultants. It’s very interesting, and you never know what you are going to discover that day.”

In his spare time dad-of-two Rob is a fully qualified FA coach for the team Premier United and he likes to escape from it all by holidaying with his family on the Lincolnshire coast where he has a caravan.

So who is Rob’s hero? “It has to be Superman,” he laughed. “He’s a true superhero and I’m a huge fan of the comic book character.”

Unity Dress Rehearsal – what you need to know

During the week beginning Monday 17 September a number of clinical teams will take part in a dress rehearsal of Unity with the aim of identifying any issues ahead of go-live.

Seventeen areas have been identified to take part in the dress rehearsal – a number of briefings sessions will take place and details of these will be available on Connect.

This is the second Unity dress rehearsal and is an opportunity for our operational teams supported by our digital champions and the Unity project team to use the electronic patient record and prepare for go-live. Any issues identified during the dress rehearsal will be resolved to ensure the smooth launch of Unity.

The dress rehearsal will take place on the following dates and times:

• 17 September (9am – 5pm) – Sandwell ED, Sandwell inpatient wards
• 18 September (9am – 5pm) – City Hospital ED, City Hospital inpatient wards, community inpatient areas
• 19 September (9am – 5pm) – Outpatient areas

Activities taking place will include testing Unity processes and devices; A4 printing, wristband, specimen label and barcode scanning.

The technical dress rehearsal will take place from 10 – 14 September.

NEST Pensions: Scam emails currently circulating

Colleagues are advised to be vigilant regarding emails that appear to be from NEST pensions.
These emails appear to be sent from ‘reply@mail.nestpensions2.org.uk’ and suggest that the employee has been reported to the Pensions Regulator for a late payment and asking to clear the overdue contributions immediately.

Often these emails also have an attached file informing you what is overdue.

NEST pensions are aware of the emails and have advised that colleagues should delete these emails immediately and not to open any of the attachments.

If you have received and opened an email from Nest pensions which you feel is suspicious please inform IT as soon as possible on ext. 4050.

Suspicious emails from Nest pensions can also be returned to Nest for review, please forward these to phishing@nestpensions.org.uk.