Monthly archives: December 2018
Recycle your Christmas cards at Sandwell and City
Once again this year, the courtyard cancer information and support service are encouraging us all to recycle our unwanted Christmas cards.
Drop off points are:
- Sandwell Hospital: Courtyard Centre, cancer information and support service (next to Bryan Knight Suite)
- City Hospital: Supplies department/stores
For more information please contact emma.hunstone@nhs.net
New ‘red bag’ scheme for care home patients
Red Bag Sandwell is a new initiative, designed to help care home residents should they need to go into hospital.
Care home residents who are part of the scheme, will be given the red bag which contains standardised paperwork, their medication and their personal belongings. The bag will stay with them from the time they leave the care home, until they return following their discharge from hospital.
What is the process?
On admittance to hospital
- Ambulance staff will pass on the red bag and checklist to hospital staff and inform them that the paperwork is complete and discuss any issues.
Whilst in hospital
- Please ensure that the red bag stays with the patient at all times
- Colleagues should ensure that an indicator of the red bag is included in the patient’s folder, so everyone is aware that the patient is a resident in a care home and they have a red bag with them.
On discharge from hospital
- When the patient is ready for discharge, colleagues should pack the red bag and complete the checklist which will ensure all the patients belongings and medications are returned to the care home – this should include any medication which has been prescribed during the patient’s stay with us.
- The completed checklist should be handed to the patient transport team, along with the red bag.
Sandwell Council have produced a number of guidance documents about the scheme, including a copy of the checklist. Please do take the time to familiarise yourself with the process and the paperwork.
Downloads:
For further information please visit http://www.sandwell.gov.uk/redbag
Team Talk Briefing – December 2018
TeamTalk, our refocussed team briefing sessions took place last week where attendees were given an update from the Clinical Leadership Executive and were also briefed on national and regional updates.
As part of the session, the major topic for the month was around audiology but more specifically patient experience questionnaires and how moving to a digital based questionnaires benefited the service.
If you were not able to make one of the sessions you can download a copy of the briefing presentation and the latest TeamTalk video from our Chief Executive, Toby Lewis.
Heartbeat: welearn – announcing the winners of our first QIHD poster competition
Earlier this month we crowned the winners and runners up of our first ever welearn poster competition. After almost 500 votes and a director-level judging panel, the shortlist of 13 was whittled down to just four.
The 13 shortlisted finalists had an opportunity to showcase their posters to a room full of their peers and judges and share their good practice, quality initiatives, innovation, research and partnership work, highlighting how it had resulted in an improvement for patients, relatives and colleagues.
Under the watchful eyes of the judges; Acting Director of Finance, Dinah McLannahan; Director of Innovation and Partnerships, Dave Baker; Professor Elizabeth Hughes and Non-Executive Director, Professor Kate Thomas, the 13 finalists were given the opportunity to present their idea via a one minute video.
The first winner was for the poster which received the most votes from colleagues and was presented to ‘Pets are Woof-ing in Stroke’, by Laura Wheeler, Sachin Vasishta and Lorena Chua.
Dinah announced this award and said: “This is a simple concept that is easily transferred and can make a huge experience and quality difference to patients. It’s a great idea showing real benefit and the team has produced an entertaining poster.”
The two highly commended posters were announced as ‘Improving Perioperative Outcomes for Patients Undergoing Elective Lower Gastrointestinal Surgery’ by Ahmed Gilani and Subash Sivasubramaniam and ‘A Child Friendly Phlebotomy Service’ by Ajit Kaur Sagoo.
Both projects were highlighted for their clear links to our organisation values and vision, great evidence and succinct and powerful messaging. All three received £500.
The winner of the £5,000 prize was announced by Chief Executive, Toby Lewis and went to ‘Think Drink – Improving Pre-Operative Patient Experience’, by Ahmed Gilani, Christopher Horner and Santhana Kannan.
Toby said: “This is a clear and eye catching poster, showing good results and challenges long held beliefs that patients should be nil-by-mouth before surgery.
“It is a great project based on a simple but longstanding issue and focuses on patient experience outcomes.”
Closing the ceremony, Kam Dhami, Director of Governance said: “I’m delighted to say that we had an amazing turn out for our first welearn poster competition with everyone thoroughly embracing the idea of sharing good practice and innovation.
“Congratulations go to this year’s winners and finalists but also to all of the other teams who developed posters and shared their ideas.
“The posters will now be on display at Sandwell Education Centre and Hallam Restaurant after which they’ll tour the organisation.
“Enjoy viewing the posters and finding out about the great quality improvement initiatives taking place throughout SWBH, and encourage your colleagues to do so too.
“Following this year’s success, I am pleased to announce that we will run the poster competition again next year so starting thinking about your entries for 2019.”
Pharmacy opening hours during the festive period
Please order in advance or liaise with your pharmacy team any stocks, controlled drugs and IV drugs required for your wards, and where possible plan discharges in advance to avoid delays.
Please see below festive period opening hours:
| Date | Opening hours |
| Friday 28 December | 9am-5pm |
| Saturday 29 December | 10am-5pm |
| Sunday 30 December | 10am-5pm |
| Monday 31 December | 9am-5pm |
| Tuesday 1 January | 10am-1pm |
| Wednesday 2 January | 9am-5pm |
For more information please contact the pharmacy department on ext. 5259.
What your colleagues are saying about Unity
Sandra Kennelly, Clinical Team Leader, Integrated Care Service:
“Working as part of the community admission team in iCares, we assess people at home with the aim to prevent an unnecessary admission, if appropriate. Having timely access to inpatient information helps the clinician to gather any relevant information to help build a better clinical picture. Knowing recent test results enables a wholes system approach when planning next steps with patients.”
What Unity means for you and your patients
NHS trusts that have implemented an electronic patient record consistently highlight the ‘freeing up of time to care’ as one of the most important and positive outcomes of implementation.
Unity will also support the delivery of our strategic plans including the safety and quality plans. It will support early detection of patients who might be suffering from sepsis in real time. Unity provides standardised evidence-based diagnostic and treatment orders designed to guide clinicians through timely treatment processes.
Unity is coming – ensure you are prepared
The introduction of Unity will impact significantly on the way we work.
This means that some of your current systems will be replaced by Unity e.g. eBMS, Patient First, iCM, VitalPac, CDA (archived).
To ensure we are ready, a full dress rehearsal of Unity will take place during the week commencing Monday 11 February. The dress rehearsal is a complete run through of all activities that will take place when we go live with Unity. It is used to identify issues and drive out risk and ensure we’re ready for go-live.
Colleagues across all professional disciplines have been identified to take part in this rehearsal. For those participating in the rehearsal please be responsive to requests from the Unity team.
The success of Unity depends on all users being trained. Training dates are available on Connect, please ensure you book on as soon as possible – everyone has to be trained by Thursday 31 January.
Emergency theatre first floor at Sandwell moved to third floor until 9pm
Due to unforeseen circumstances and with immediate effect the Emergency theatre on first floor theatres (Th1) at Sandwell Hospital is being moved to third floor theatre (Th6) at Sandwell.
The theatre is expected to return to first floor theatres by 9pm.
Emergency theatre colleeagues can be contacted on Bleeps 6215/6362 or directly in theatre 6 on ext 3568.
Are you thinking about retiring?
This seminar guides you through the financial complexities of retirement in a clear and jargon free presentation. Whether you are planning to retire in the not too distant future or thinking about the best financial options for retirement at a later date this seminar covers: state pensions, NHS pensions, saving and investing, taxation, credit history, mortgage/remortgages, wills and inheritance tax, and how to get the best advice. This seminar is available for all colleagues and there will be opportunity for questions and answers after the seminar.
Date: Wednesday, 3 April 2019
Venue: Hayward Lecture Theatre, City Hospital
Time: 9.00-1.00pm
A representative from the National Health Service Retirement Fellowship will also be giving a short presentation after the seminar. This will be followed by a short talk from the volunteers service.
For bookings please contact Jatinder Sekhon on ext. 3306 opt. 4.
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