Monthly archives: December 2018
Over 150 colleagues get set for the full dress rehearsal of Unity
Twenty-six clinical areas are set to take part in the full dress rehearsal of Unity scheduled to take place from Monday 11 February 2019.
Full 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 before the go-live of the new electronic patient record.
For the selected operational teams and 154 clinical colleagues, it’s an opportunity to verify that Unity works in a business as usual context.
The dress rehearsal is made up of two stages that are performed in a single window covering a three week period: (1) Technical activities and (2) Operational activities & simulated go-live. This is then followed by time to resolve the issues before moving to an agreed launch date.
The sequence of the three weeks is as follows:
- Week 1– Technical work to ensure that the IT systems integrate, downstream system testing and simulating technical go-live.
- Week 2 – Starting Monday 11 February clinical teams will carry out operational work to use the system in a live setting. In practice this means a small number of users dual keying between current systems and Unity. (Normal work continues as usual on current systems, with activity then being replicated on Unity)
- Week 3 – Focused work on areas of concern and issue resolution, and the reports team completing analysis and rework.
The full dress rehearsal will involve colleagues across many professions including health care assistants, ward clerks, nurses, doctors, porters, pharmacists and healthcare scientists. All coming together over a period of five days to test Unity and ensure it is fit for purpose.
During the dress rehearsal support will be provided by 15 staff (including executives) from Cerner, the company that has developed Unity. Our senior leaders will also be on hand along with the informatics team and 61 colleagues from the Unity project team.
There is much for all of us to do within a very short time and everyone is urged to play their part.
The Unity project team has already been in contact with the teams selected to be part of the dress rehearsal regarding details of the resources required.
For everyone else please ensure you are up to date with the Unity end user training. If you have attended training, keep your knowledge fresh by using the Unity Play System. If you haven’t had training, then please speak to your line manager about booking on as soon as possible. Further information about training is available on Connect https://connect2.swbh.nhs.uk/trustindigital/unity/unity-training/unity-end-user-training/
For further information email swbh@trustindigital.nhs.net
Heartbeat: New face mask testing keeping colleagues safe from infection
Do you know when, where and how to wear your respiratory protective equipment? Do you know if you are wearing a mask that fits you correctly?
A new high tech system called Portacount has been introduced to check and test the fit of face masks at our Trust.
Heartbeat caught up with Infection Prevention and Control Nurse Advisor, Kasmiro Aheer who has been leading the work to find out more.
“Clinical colleagues generally wear masks when deemed necessary, for example if there is suspected or confirmed multi-drug resistant tuberculosis or other high-risk infections transmitted via the respiratory route. These masks protect our colleagues from infection and they are a critical piece of equipment which need to be safe, effective and reliable. We can’t simply expect colleagues to pick up a face mask from stores and for it to be a universal fit for all.
“Face masks only work well when there is a firm and tight fitting seal between the wearer’s face and the mask. Our fit testing helps us identify and rectify any issues with face masks so that when the time comes to use one, the wearer can feel safe that the face mask will do its job properly.”
If you are yet to be fit tested for a face mask or it has been quite some time since you last were, you can get in touch with the infection control team to book in testing or find out who your local fit tester is, simply call ext. 5900.
Cancer services Christmas sale – 12 December
Our cancer services are hosting a Christmas sale in the main reception at Sandwell Hospital on Wednesday 12 December, 9am-2pm to raise funds for Your Trust Charity.
They will be selling:
- Homemade preserves
- Jams
- Soaps
- Christmas t-shirts
- Christmas jumpers
- Christmas bow ties
- Christmas hats
- And much more
There will also be a limited number of cakes available.
For more information please contact jennifer.donovan@nhs.net.
Heartbeat: Midland Met buzzing with Balfour Beatty on site
After months of quiet and cranes standing still, the Midland Met site has had a new lease of life this month with the arrival of Balfour Beatty as the new interim contractor.
Balfour Beatty were awarded the £10m early works contract following a robust procurement process following the collapse of Carillion.
Charged with the task of preparing the Midland Met site for winter and the restart of the main work, 50 new staff have arrived on site this month eager to get the job done.
Balfour Beatty will take on the challenge of erecting the winter garden structure as one of their first task, alongside weatherproofing and installation of heating and ventilation.
Commenting on the arrival of the new contractors, Chief Executive, Toby Lewis said: “We are delighted to enter this partnership with Balfour Beatty to take the important next steps in completing Midland Met. It has been sad to see the building standing paused for the last nine months, and so it is great news that work will shortly restart.
“We are grateful for the considerable support that we have had locally and nationally to move forward. We are investing in our existing buildings for the interim period but there is no doubt that a new single acute and emergency hospital in Smethwick is what the local NHS needs to provide the very best care. It also releases money to invest in primary care and mental health services. This news brings that transformation closer.”
Balfour Beatty’s early works contract is due to run until spring 2019 following which we hope to appoint a main contractor to complete the build.
Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 7 December
Of course December is a month of celebration. Over coming days we have festival lunches in our restaurants and moments of reflection in our chapels, so look out for those in the communications bulletin, or on myConnect. Nearly 2,000 colleagues now use this free app to get information about our organisation and our community. It’s easy to join them, simply search for SWBH myConnect on the Apple App Store or on the Google Play Store.
Yesterday, our Chairman Richard Samuda hosted his annual party, in the viewing room overlooking Midland Met. If you drive past the site over coming days you will see the illuminations that Balfour Beatty have installed, as they work through the holidays to put up the steel and glassworks for the Winter Garden. Although the design is final, and we all hope the opening date is too, there remains a chance to influence the building in small but important ways – what physical fitness equipment could we install to support wellbeing, what locker arrangements might be put in to make working in the hospital easier. We will not have smoking shelters, because we go smoke free on 5 July 2019, but how can we best support people switching over to vaping as part of giving up for good? Do pitch to me or to Jayne Dunn or to Alan Kenny your thoughts and hopes. We have waited long enough, the facility needs to be the best of our Trust.
In Heartbeat you will find lots of details about our amazing 2018 QIHD competition. We crowned the winners yesterday, with 13 entries shortlisted from 65 brilliant submissions. They are all back on Connect, and in our Education Centre at Sandwell, and in January the posters go on tour across our sites. By then the QIHD dates for 2019/20 will have been released, and that is a good excuse to really think about how you use your QIHD time, how you gain your accreditation, and what your 2019 entry in next year’s welearn poster contest will be. The top prize of £5,000 was awarded to the Think Drink poster from our anaesthetic and theatre teams. My congratulations to the team for not only putting in place a simple yet vital solution, but also for listening so clearly to their patients’ voice, and for producing an engaging and evidenced poster entry. The standard has been set. Let’s all resolve in the New Year to best that bar.
Tying together the best of our best and the Midland Met, was the latest update to our Board from the R&D community, led by Professor Karim Raza. In five years’ service in that role, Karim has helped to transform the place of research in our organisation. The award given to us earlier this year by the West Midlands Clinical Research Network, is testimony to that success. Early in 2019 we open our clinical research facility near outpatients at Sandwell. This is a moment to consider how best we develop research ideas and spread the research reach in our Trust into new specialties and teams. But the main conclusion of the Board’s review was that this is also the moment to come together with primary care partners and make sure that access to trial medicine and translational research is a shared project from general practice into our work, and vice versa. I know that we will look to invest in ideas in that domain in the next two years as we build towards Midland Met. The main entrance to the new hospital is entirely devoted to research and learning, with a huge gallery space allocated to display and celebrate the knowledge and innovation inside this organisation. welearn is not a one off contest, it is a cultural intention to improve quality in our midst. Kam Dhami will bring the executive’s proposals for the 2019 welearn programme to the Board in February to chart the next steps in that journey.
The other focus of the Board this month was on Imaging. The team have worked hard to clear a backlog of results to report, just as specialty leads are working to clear a backlog of results to be acknowledged. When we go live with Unity results acknowledgement should become simpler, but the need to do so in real time will become mandatory, for obvious safety reasons. We agreed to invest over £1m in the future of radiology services here. I met the CCG governing body on Wednesday and it was clear there, as at CLE, that clinicians need certainty about the time from test to report. We can save fruitless visits to GP surgeries and we can improve our bed flow too if we can get this right, whilst at the same time looking at new technologies like AI to mitigate the national shortage of radiologists and the training lag for reporting radiographers. From April we will work with at least one major strategic partner to give us capacity to report CT and MRI in house and to rely more on a partner for plain film reporting. Just as we have focused on sustainable pathology services by founding the Black Country Pathology service, we want in 2019 to create region-leading imaging capabilities and capacity in our system. With rising expectations around cancer diagnosis, we need to act now to be ready for 2020, not just for lung cancer services but more widely.
I hope you share the excitement of the senior leadership about the future opportunities we have, and about the talent in our midst.
The printer team are out and about fixing printers where you work, so do report issues and difficulties to the help desk. Today is the 13th day without a major IT outage, but I know we have more to do to make sure we have banished the IT problems we have had since 2016 over the year ahead. We need optimism and realism in equal measure! As you aware we are looking to go-live with Unity next year, I attach an announcement regarding the full dress rehearsal of Unity which will take place on 11 February 2019.
Attached are this week’s IT statistics: IT Performance Stats 7 December 2018
Over 150 colleagues get set for the full dress rehearsal of Unity
welearn – Announcing the winners of the annual QIHD poster competition
After almost 500 staff votes and the sharp eyes of a judging panel, this week we saw the finalists of our first welearn poster competition come together for the grand awards Ceremony.
From an astonishing 65 posters submitted to the competition from across the Trust, 13 shortlisted finalists had an opportunity to showcase their posters, good practice, quality initiatives, innovation, research and partnership work that has resulted in an improvement for patients, relatives and colleagues.
Winner: £5000 Prize:
- Think Drink Improving pre-operative patient experience
Runners up:
- Pets are Woof-ing in Stroke
- Improving perioperative outcomes for patients undergoing elective lower gastrointestinal surgery
- A Child Friendly Phlebotomy Service
Announcing the finalists and winners, Kam Dhami, Director of Governance said, ”I’m delighted to say that we had an amazing turn out for our very first welearn poster competition with everyone thoroughly embracing the idea of sharing good practice and innovation.
Congratuations goes 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 our Trust.
Enjoy viewing the posters and finding out about the great quality improvement initiatives taking place across the Trust, and encourage your colleagues to do so too.
Following this year’s success will run the Poster competition again so starting thinking about your entries for 2019.”
As well as the prizes for the QIHD poster competition, we are also pleased to announce Stephanie Craig as the randomly selected winner of the £25 of shopping vouchers for voting in the competition.
Moscow State Circus show ‘Miracles’ – discounted tickets
The organisers of Moscow State Circus show ‘Miracles’ have kindly offered Trust employees discounted tickets for the show at NEC Birmingham between 20 December-5 January.
To save 50 per cent use promo code MOSCOWCORPOFFER* – to book click here.
Note: Tickets will be allocated on arrival. Please ensure you bring your confirmation email to the box office on the day.
For more information please contact amir.ali1@nhs.net.
Unity digital champions update briefings in December – secure your place now!
Are you a Unity digital champion? A series of briefing sessions are being held this month to update you on plans for;
- Training
- Engagement events
- Key milestones
- FDR
- Plans for cutover and go-live
It is really important that you attend if at all possible. The sessions are only 90 minutes to minimise the impact on your working day.
Booking for the events is very simple via Eventbrite. Select the session you prefer to attend by opening the booking sheet below:
For more information please contact emma.flowers2@nhs.net.
Cake sale to improve patient experience in stroke rehabilitation – 7 December
Our therapy team will be hosting a cake sale on the 4th floor link (near Newton 4) at Sandwell Hospital from 11am-2pm on Friday 7 December to help raise funds for Your Trust Charity. The money raised will be specifically used to enhance patient experience while having stroke rehabilitation.
For more information please contact janet.beardsmore@nhs.net.
SWBH Benefits Roadshow – 14 December
SWBH benefits will be hosting a roadshow at our Sandwell site which will showcase all the latest offerings of staff benefits currently available at the Trust.
- Friday 14 December, 11am-2pm – main entrance, Sandwell Hospital
For more information please contact amir.ali1@nhs.net.
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