Monthly archives: March 2019

Message for all blood glucose meter users – please use FreeStyle Precision Pro device

The FreeStyle Precision Pro is the only glucose monitoring device to be used throughout the Trust.

Any clinical areas still using the FreeStyle Optium H device should be aware the glucose strips are now discontinued.

Please return all FreeStyle Optinum H devices to point of care testing.

For more information please call ext.5352 or see FreeStyle Precision Pro sheet.

Organisational readiness for Unity continues following FDR

Having completed a full dress rehearsal, the programme are now working through and resolving any issues raised by colleagues. Our lessons learned have been captured and are being reviewed as work continues towards the launch of Unity.

The groups and their related implementation teams are now in full swing with operational readiness reporting back on a weekly basis through the business change work streams. If you or your team will like to discuss your areas’ state of readiness, please do not hesitate to contact the Unity programme team at swbh.trustindigital@nhs.net

Some highlights of what has been achieved so far include:

Training – we are now just over 92 per cent compliant for end user training. Thank you to all colleagues for making this happen. If you are one of the 272 people still to be trained please contact the training team  swbh.informaticsbookings@nhs.net

724 – the 724 computers will be part of our business continuity processes when Unity is launched. We have tested them in eight locations and they are working well.

Thinking of becoming digital champion? – We need more of you to volunteer for this important role. If you are interested please speak to you line manager and contact the project team at swbh.trustindigital@nhs.net

Hellomyname is Seth and I’m the Unity Project Manager

#Unityiscoming

Heartbeat: Nurse tells of moment she realised she was treating a superstar

Accident and emergency Sister, Stacey McCormick has revealed the moment she realised she was treating superstar musician Mike Skinner City Hospital.

The nurse had been working a busy Friday night shift, checking the X-ray of a patient who had come in with a dislocated shoulder. But it was only when she looked at his name and ushered him into a treatment room, that she clicked it was the Brummie rapper, who had been performing at a gig that night at the O2 Academy. He had been crowd surfing when he suffered the injury.

“I asked him are you the Mike Skinner,” she recalled. “He answered yes. I was a bit shocked to see him there – it’s not every day that you treat a famous musician. He was very down-to-earth and waited with the other patients in the seating area.

“When it was his turn he came along quietly, and that’s when I realised it was him. We gave him gas and air while my colleague Dr Sam Bourke popped his shoulder back into place. Throughout his time in our care he was really grateful and thought the service was amazing. He didn’t receive any extra special treatment though – and certainly didn’t expect it.

“He was with his management team who filmed his experience. After he was treated, he invited both myself and Dr Bourke to his gig on Saturday night, but we couldn’t go along because we were both working, which is a shame.”

Later that night the singer posted a video to his Instagram account in which he thanked the staff at the hospital. Skinner was also filmed telling the camera: “I could cry, I could literally cry.”

He later went on: “Thank you so much to everyone at Birmingham City Hospital for putting my arm back in.”

Product update – fixation pants (netty knickers)

There has been an update from NHS supply chain regarding product improvement and changes to the basic fixation pants.

The changes to this product range are to improve the elastication of the basic fixation pants range and to align the waist band colouring to the recognised colour coding in the marketplace:

• The medium size is changing from green to blue
• The large size is changing from white to brown
• The x large size is changing from blue to green

The strength of the weave in the fabric has also been increased to provide improved securing of the pants; this enables the pants to provide better support to pads in use, whilst maintaining patient comfort.

This improvement is applied to all sizes of fixation pants without legs.

Materials will be circulated to all areas outlining these changes.

If you would like more information, please call ext. 4938. For clinical support with the product email janicenelson@nhs.net

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 15 March

This week saw more great news in our recruitment efforts. Our ground-breaking Health Overseas Professionals (HOP) project working with refugee and migrant clinicians was nominated for a national award. At the same time, we attended the RCNi jobs fair in Birmingham and made 47 conditional job offers, to go alongside the 174 conditional job offers made on our Australian nursing recruitment tour. We believe we have recruited a team of new ear, nose and throat specialists to join us in the spring, and more ophthalmologists too, with next week seeing interviews in emergency medicine and radiology.

From April, the Trust’s Board begins monitoring all teams against our maximum 2 per cent vacancy target, as we look to make 2019 the year in which we end any sense that we are either deliberately or passively accepting absences from our funded safe staffing levels.  Of course, it is easy to state the aim, to be fully staffed, and hard to do, but we have a good case to make for why working in our organisation is a great mission to join and a supportive, enabling, educational employment opportunity. That is precisely the conversation with school nurses, who join us soon, and the GP partnerships that we take on in the weeks ahead. But, and maybe here’s my key point, we cannot approach that aim that the Board has set without addressing retention in some areas of the Trust.  That means a focus on PDRs as a development conversation about both meeting someone’s wants in this job and matching their ambitions for their career beyond that job. By now your PDR should be booked for April, May or June. We have agreed to grow our training budget by 40 per cent:  So get your plans together.

I wrote last week about progress at Midland Met. The cranes are gradually coming down to be replaced by the fabulous Winter Garden. I am hopeful that by this summer we will know not only who will finish the job but have a final contract in place to continue the work that Balfour Beatty have been undertaking. Yet, in a perhaps less high profile way, we continue to invest big sums in our existing estate. Some of that is the extra £15m we were granted to maintain the estate with the delay on the new hospital. But some of it is spending for the long term. So we have our new colposcopy unit at Sandwell, alongside the Trust’s main clinical research facility. By the summer we will have our fracture clinic moved into the BTC, and progress work to relocate oral surgery there too. And we are completing the work to locate corporate functions on our Sandwell site with the move of the governance and risk teams from the DGM building at City into the current Elizabeth suite. The final ‘configuration’ of Trust services and teams is taking shape and we will publish in April details of the countdown of moves to 2022. That will include of course the investment to refurbish our neonatal unit, and in all probability some changes too in paediatrics and respiratory medicine.  Now is very much the time for us to be migrating to the clinical models and the team relationships that we will have on a single acute site. When the CQC report from last year is published, it will be clear that, for all the progress we make, there remain issues with our emergency pathways for both adults and children. Yet we should be pleased to enter the 90s this week for sepsis screening, a transformation from the 20s of the last summer.

Today saw our latest QIHD. I hope you had a good one, and that your accreditation submission is in.  The shared learning topic was, of course, the countdown towards our smoke free sites. This week was National No Smoking Day and I notice that the government confirmed on that day funding for in-hospital quit support. That is yet another example of where we take a lead, others are following.  In the next ten days we launch our Period Poverty project, which from this summer will be NHS wide. Our push for vaping and for nicotine replacement as a pathway to better health and wealth by quitting is clearly one of the big projects of coming months. If you do smoke, please get ready for July 5 by thinking about how we can help you to stop smoking. Our sites are simply full of cameras, and we will be using those, retrospectively, and our enforcement wardens, live time, to ensure that visitors, patients and our colleagues are not smoking anywhere on our sites, indoors or outdoors, in cars or huddled outside the buildings in which we provide healthcare. Our midwives have led the way with their work to tackle smoking in pregnancy, and we want to take that spirit into our Trust-wide campaign to Make Every Contact Count.

The next big milestone in our improvement work is the new contract for imaging. I have written a few times about the changes that happen in April, and Heartbeat will tell you more later this month.  We will have a guaranteed 24 hour turnaround for inpatient modalities to get a report back, with obviously faster turnaround for urgent results. For all other referrals, from GPs or in outpatients, the maximum wait will be five days. This is a quiet revolution from where we are now, and will put absolutely at the forefront of service in the NHS in the West Midlands.  If we ally that change to the investments we started in 2016 through our managed equipment service with Siemens, we are determined to make sure that diagnostic quality is a hallmark of being treated here or working here.  Our IT team are working hard to make sure that PACs is reliable, and I know how determined our breast screening team is to drive up coverage in our population, and respond to surges in demand associated with public health campaigns around breast cancer. During May and June we will be starting a concerted campaign to make sure that reported results, be they in imaging or pathology, are formally acknowledged by requesting clinical teams, so that we are more certain than today that no abnormal conclusions are missed.  David Carruthers has written to individual clinicians about responsibilities and expectations in this area, and myself and others have spent time reviewing how this will be enabled by Unity when that goes live. We have worked hard this year to cut waits for diagnostic tests, the new contract means transformed reporting, and we want to ‘close the loop’ with results acknowledgement. That cycle is one that has the potential to drive better outcomes, and to make working in our Trust feel a little safer too. My thanks to Sarah Yusuf and her team in particular for the work being done to make that happen.

SWB Brexit Bulletin 15th March 2019

Attached are this week’s IT stats: IT Performance Stats 15 March 2019

#hellomynameisToby

SWB Brexit Bulletin – 15 March 2019

Welcome to the second Brexit bulletin for SWB colleagues to keep you up to date with the latest news and guidance about NHS national and local preparations.

As you know, there remains no arrangement or deal for leaving the EU and we continue to plan for no deal and transition scenarios.

This bulletin focuses on medicines and supplies.

Across the NHS a great deal of preparation has already been undertaken to ensure that any disruption caused as a result of there being no deal can be minimised.

Along with other NHS organisations, we have robust emergency and business continuity plans in place.  We are following advice from government and are able to reassure patients that medicines and equipment will continue to be available and any disruption will be minimal.

Supply of medicines, vaccines, medical devices and clinical consumables

Around three-quarters of the medicines and over half the devices and one-use medical products (such as syringes) that the NHS uses, come into the UK via the EU.

The government has been working closely with pharmaceutical companies, suppliers, and the NHS to make sure patients continue to receive the medication they need if the UK leaves the EU without a deal. Centralised stock is being held by the NHS Supply Chain and action has been taken to ensure the preparedness of over 1300 NHS suppliers, alongside work to prioritise products entering the UK.

We have reviewed our supplier list and compared this to the list provided nationally. We have sought reassurance on the small number of suppliers who have not been engaged nationally. All of these supplies are able to be procured through alternative suppliers and therefore there is minimal risk of any disruption.

The government has analysed the supply chain, made plans to reduce the risk of disruption, and given instructions to pharmaceutical companies/suppliers to ensure that they have adequate stocks to cope with any potential delays at the border. This includes stockpiling a minimum of six weeks additional supply of medicines coming from, or via, the European Union or EEA, over and above business as usual operational buffer stocks. Companies also need to put in place plans to air freight products that have short shelf lives and cannot be stockpiled.

For medical devices, stock holding at a national level has been increased and contingency plans developed with suppliers with, where necessary, an increase in the production and supply of products.

The government has also agreed that medicines and medical products will be prioritised to try to ensure that the flow of all these products will continue unimpeded after 29 March 2019.

We have reviewed our own medicines suppliers and are confident that robust arrangements are in place. We have also looked at alternative medicines should any become hard to get hold of.

NHS organisations have always had to deal with occasional temporary shortages of specific medicines and, as is the case now, our clinicians will discuss with patients and service users the best course of action and, if necessary, prescribe the best available alternative to someone’s usual medication.

We are required not to stockpile any medicines or supplies locally as doing so is likely to create shortages rather than avoid them.

If you have any concerns about medicines or supplies please contact:

Dinah McLannahan, Acting Director of Finance or Pun Sharma, Chief Pharmacist

Black Country Pathology Service

Our Black Country Pathology Service have completed a review of all pathology services operating out of the four Trusts to assess the risks of a no deal Brexit. This has raised no major concerns with adequate plans in place from the majority of suppliers. Our shared service provides us with greater resilience.

For pathology queries related to Brexit please contact Graham Danks, Operations Manager on graham.danks@nhs.net

For other Brexit-related queries please email Toby Lewis, Chief Executive, on tobylewis@nhs.net who is our Senior Responsible Officer for Brexit.

A message from West Midlands Police following the New Zealand terror attack

West Midlands Police have issued the following statement:

Assistant Chief Constable Matt Ward said: “We are shocked by the tragic news of the New Zealand terror attack and our sympathies are with those affected at this time.

“We appreciate that our local communities may have concerns however I would like to reassure you that there is no increased threat to the people of the West Midlands.

“If any families are directly affected by the attack, West Midlands Police is ready to support in any way we can.

“Officers will be engaging with key religious buildings today to reassure local people. We will continue to work closely together and unite against those who seek, through violence and extremism, to intimidate or cause fear.

“For us the focus now is the protection of those we serve in the West Midlands. As we are all very aware we face a sustained and determined threat to our security.

“As always we ask our communities to be vigilant and report any suspicious activity to the Anti-Terror Hotline on 0800 789 321, in an emergency dial 999.”

Marshall Street surgery closure: 31 March

As you may be aware NHS Sandwell and West Birmingham CCG commission (buys) local healthcare services on behalf of the local population, and one of services they are responsible for is Marshall Street Surgery, Smethwick.

Following consultation with local stakeholders, patients and carers, the CCG have decided to disperse the practice list.

Marshall Street Surgery will now close on 31 March. The CCG are working with patients and carers to support them to choose and register with another practice. This includes information on nearby practices, what to consider when choosing one and details on the registration process.

If you have any concerns or questions please contact  SWBCCG.engagement@nhs.net.

Automatic re-enrolment into the pension schemes: 1 April

Every three years employees who opt out of the NHS pension scheme and the alternative pension scheme, NEST by law are assessed on eligibility and re-enrolled back into the pension schemes.

1 April is our date to enrol eligible employees back into the pension schemes. These employees may receive letters from the pensions department informing them of the enrolment date and instructions on what to do if they wish to opt out.

If you do not wish to be enrolled then an opt out form will be required signed and dated between 1-30 April. Any forms received before 1 April will not be accepted.

If you wish to opt out, visit https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/ and access the NHS Pensions page.

For more information, please call ext. 6655, option 3.

Heartbeat: Clinical training transformed through simulation

Our medical student undergraduate simulation programme provides high quality training according to colleagues in pharmacy.

The programme, which runs regularly throughout the academic year is said to be better than the OSPEs [Objective Structured Pharmacist Examination] that students had to take previously.

Heartbeat caught up with Amardeep Singh, Lead Pharmacist for HIV/ GUM, to find out more about these collaborate workshops. He said: “From the perspective of the pharmacy training programme, the inter-professional scenarios provide better quality training. They are more cost-effective and less labour intensive than OSPEs – only one pre-registration tutor is needed to supervise and assist each time and the scenarios are easier to write.

“From the perspective of pre-registration trainees from last year, they provided a good insight into the roles and problem solving approach of doctors and helped the trainees better understand how they can provide collaborative support to improve patient care.”

“In addition to this, we believe that this is an excellent example of collaboration to deliver innovative and cost effect training on site.”

Inter-professional simulation workshops aim to increase the awareness of different healthcare professionals, their roles and ways of working, and give students an opportunity to reflect how they can work within a multidisciplinary team to improve patient outcomes. This is done within the framework of a programme of simulations that are provided for fifth year medical students by the clinical teaching fellows.

The main simulation programme is for final year medical students and is run by the clinical teaching fellows. The simulation scenarios are then adjusted to allow pre-registration pharmacists to participate. The simulations for pharmacists were developed by Amardeep and his colleague Alkash Hilal, Deputy Group Pharmacist for surgical services.

The training was first piloted in 2018 with very positive feedback from nursing and medical students and pre-registration pharmacists. There will be two more inter-professional simulation workshops in April at both our Sandwell and City sites. Further work is also taking place with the nursing education team with a view to develop multidisciplinary simulation scenarios with nursing students in the future.