Monthly archives: May 2019

Heartbeat: Virtual David Attenborough helping patients conquer old fears

How would you like to fly like a bird? Visit outer space? Dive under water and swim with the fish in exotic places? Thanks to virtual reality (VR) technology patients are now being given the opportunity to do just that – and are reaping the benefits.

As part of the work being done at Rowley Regis Hospital’s Heart of Sandwell Day Hospice, the team have acquired two standalone Oculus Go headsets for its patients to help them ‘leave’ the confines of the hospice to travel to places they hold dear in their memories. The headset can also be used for relaxation sessions, utilising both VR programs and 360-degree video experiences to help manage any anxiety or sleep problems they had been having and helping them achieve many of their day hospice goals.

It has also helped conquer some very long standing fears, as one visitor to the hospice revealed.

“It’s wonderful,” explains patient Daphne Barnes. “I’ve always been terrified of water from when I was about five or six years old, but when I was using the VR I had no fear. Even though it seemed to cover me, I could still get my head above the water. I could see the fish swimming in the water around me, I could see the coral and I could see the islands and the sky. It was so lovely – I just can’t find the words to describe it.”

Daphne’s experience came after trying VR experience ‘David Attenborough’s Great Barrier Reef Dive’, which sees the 92 year old broadcaster examine life found in the natural wonder off the coast of Queensland, Australia. Other experiences on the hospice headsets at this time include encounters with dinosaurs, trips down nature trails and visits to far flung locations around the world.

Claire Roach, an Occupational Therapist working at the hospice says: “We’ve decided to use virtual reality to help our patients with advanced care planning and also to improve their quality of life and general wellbeing. We’re looking at issues such as managing anxiety and helping them achieve long held goals – say, if they wanted to go to a specific country or experience something they would otherwise be unable to. With VR that closed door is opened for them again.”

With this recent new generation of immersive technology being powered by the HTC, Sony, Google and Facebook owned Oculus, which donated the first of the hospice’s headsets, using VR as a treatment has become an idea health authorities and MedTech firms around the world are continuing to investigate. Everything from education and training for practitioners, to pain management and helping deal with psychological disorders for patients is being looked into.

Claire thinks that as the technology continues to develop, further investment in VR by the Trust could be a possibility; especially considering what it can do even now.

“Areas such as pain management, or using it to help relax patients who are distressed, helping treat phobias and trauma, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I see the future of VR in healthcare as something that is very important and I think there’s scope for a lot of development there,” added Claire.

For now it is something the members of the hospice can enjoy and talk about, encouraging staff and visitors to give the new technology a try. Daphne says her experience means she’s got something more she can discuss with her grandson who uses VR to play video games. However, as keen as she is to take in more trips beyond the hospice walls, it’s what it has done for her outside of entertainment that she is most in awe of.

Unity 28-Day Challenge – Day 22, Medicines Monday

It was great to see so many of you submit your team selfies at the end of last week. Here are a selection of those we received.

For today’s challenge, practise recording, checking and prescribing medicines on the Play System. If you need help to do this please consult the quick reference guides on Connect. If you get stuck then call the 28-Day Challenge helpline on ext. 2670 and a trainer will be able to support you.

NHS Career Day – Find the talent of the future

The Medical Education team are hosting their annual NHS Careers Day on Friday 5 July this year and they are calling on your help to find the talent of the future.

The event is aimed at year 10 – 13 students from the locality who are interested in a career within the NHS and the education team are looking for colleagues from a range of roles and disciplines within the Trust to come along, present and share their wisdom.

If you are struggling to recruit in your department or you are simply looking to share your experience get in touch with Christine Edmunds, Undergraduate Coordinator on christine.edmunds1@nhs.net or ext. 3963 to book your presentation slot.

Date: Friday 5 July
Time: 9.30 to 15.30
Venue: Education Centre Sandwell

Colleagues who volunteer their time would  be expected to present a 20min talk about their job and the qualifications needed that are needed to follow that career path. This would be followed by a short question and answer session followed by a workshop in the afternoon.

Seven weeks to go smokefree

With only seven weeks to go before our Trust goes smokefree on 5 July, we’ve asked colleagues, visitors and patients about why it matters.

Here is what respiratory consultant Dr Ziaudeen Ansari  said:

“It is very frustrating to see patients in our respiratory clinics who present with COPD and lung cancer due to smoking, as they have already damaged their lungs due to smoking, without realising the consequences of their behaviour. However stopping smoking even after diagnosis will help their breathing, so I would urge anyone who smokes to stop in order to improve their lung health.”

More Unity end-user training dates available

If you haven’t attended a Unity training session before then there are new dates available that you can book on to via Connect.

There are a wide range of role-specific sessions available over the coming weeks, as well as information on which course to attend and how to book a place.

If you can’t find a date for the course that you need, or would like more information, please contact swbh.informaticsbookings@nhs.net.

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 17 May

Congratulations to Fran Silcocks and Janice Nelson, both of whom have won national awards in the last forty eight hours.  Fran scooped yet another sustainability award for the Trust, focused on transport, even before we try and move our vehicles to an electric setting, as well as being noted as highly commended in the staff engagement category.  Janice used to work in our Improvement Team and is now driving clinical procurement as part of the Black Country Procurement service that we co-own – her award was for best NHS procurement champion.  It is, of course, now award season, and there is time to get your nominees in for our Star Awards!

International nurses’ day marked a fantastic chance to celebrate, listen to and think about the future of nursing in our Trust.  It is encouraging that we are leading the way with our accelerator programme to help develop nurses more quickly into senior clinical expert roles, whether that is at band 6, or in critical care, or, in due course in infection control or other specialist areas.  I want to reiterate our commitment to extend the accelerator concept to bands 2 and 3, so that from October we will create one pay scale in our Trust where those who have the extended skills to work at a band 3 level will be able to do so.  This is part of a vision owned by the whole Board to support individuals moving from HCA roles into senior nurse roles, whilst expanding HCA numbers in our Trust to recognise the huge caring contribution made by our colleagues.  Despite the quadrupling of training spend, I know that some people are still excluded from career development, or have a sense that promotion follows a ‘face fits’ model.  I will continue to work with Chris Rickards, and other staff voices, until we have addressed decisively that perception, by making it not simply straightforward to take forward your career but rewarding too.  And yes, next year we will have a corporate celebration for our theatre practitioners on national ODP day!

I hope you share my pride at the work done here over the last three years or more to improve end of life care in our community.  Our services are rated as Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission, and even more importantly by our patients.  The Day Hospice at Rowley Regis goes from strength to strength.  So these last few days marked national Dying Matters Awareness Week, and we had exhibitions and other events going on.  The next step is to integrate our work with that of primary care colleagues, making sure that choices made outside our walls come with our patients, and those decided here travel onward too.  Over 80% of our patients die now in a place that they have chosen, and we want to work to improve that further.  Recognising the wishes and feelings of the patients we look after, and helping families to address these choices with compassion and decency.  The events this week underscore that this is something that is everyone’s work across our organisation.

Ramadhan continues, and I again want to thank those observing their fast and devotions, whilst working here and caring for our patients.  Richard Samuda’s Iftar took place on Wednesday at City, and was a wonderful opportunity for families, staff, and patients to come together and share fellowship and some fantastic food too.  Our Muslim Liaison Group has truly helped to influence how the Trust works and is led, and has also I know given a voice and a place to many who felt ignored.

On Wednesday next (22^nd) we have both our Women in Leadership event, led by deputy medical director Sarb Clare, and the celebration day for our new Clinical Research Facility, working Trustwide but based at Sandwell in outpatients – overseen by Kath Gill, our research director.  It is possible to be involved in both!  Over half of our executive happen to be women, and the Board as a whole is committed to ensuring that no-one is excluded from senior roles.  It is simply true that a gender pay gap remains and we are working through what we need to do to better address that over the next three years.  The actions we have taken to change the ethnic diversity of our senior leadership roles above band 8 have shown change can happen.  But seniority in our Trust should not only or solely mean leadership or management positions.  That is why research excellence and expertise is highly prized here, and I think having won awards for our research improvements since 2014, the new facility gives us the chance to take the next step.  Commercial trials will sit now more clearly alongside NIHR trials in our emphasis, and that should allow specialties like paediatrics, radiology, therapies and others to play a bigger role alongside some of our traditional leading lights like ophthalmology and rheumatology.

I have sought to avoid recent messages being dominated by Brexit, our IT, or even Midland Met.  Each march on.  There is more to do on the new hospital, and we are working hard to finalise commercial terms with Balfour Beatty.  The case goes back to our Trust’s Board in a fortnight en route to HM Treasury this summer.  We remain on track to have the hospital open before the Commonwealth Games:  A worthwhile race.  Meanwhile competition is hotting up in our 28-day challenge.  You can get onto the play domain, there are prizes sitting behind the scratch card days (even Thoughtful Thursday…..and definitely Singing Sunday), and we will soon be asking everyone to confirm their competency against the 11 key standards agreed by our clinical informatics leaders.  So please do not be a bystander in this important set of summer changes.  Unity is almost with us at long last, after multiple deadline extensions, and it will certainly be hard work but worth it.

Attached are this week’s IT stats: IT Performance Stats 17 May 2019

#hellomynameisToby

Success at NHS Sustainability Awards

We have achieved great success at last night’s NHS Sustainability Awards where the Trust won the Transport Award. We were also highly commended in staff engagement award.

Congratulations to Fran Silcocks and all involved in sustainability across the organisation.

Star Awards 2019: Non-Clinical Team of the Year

Do you know a non-clinical team that has provided consistently excellent performance whilst meeting financial and operational targets?

Nominate them as the Non-Clinical Team of the Year at this year’s upcoming Star Awards!

Ways to nominate:

• You can complete a paper nomination form which you can download by clicking here
• You can send in a video nomination for free to swbh.comms@nhs.net via www.wetransfer.com Choose go to free. When doing the recording remember to state clearly who you are and the name of the person/team you are nominating.
• You can complete the online form by clicking here.

Be sure to check out this video featuring last year’s winners medical records.

If you have any questions regarding the Star Awards, please contact the communications team on 0121 507 5303 or email swbh.comms@nhs.net.

For more information, please visit our dedicated Star Awards page on Connect.

Tissue viability training

A variety of tissue viability training is available for acute and community based clinical colleagues in clinical skills 1 in the Sandwell Education Centre on the following dates:

• 21 May – wound care management day
• 4 June – complex wound care day

For more information or to book on any training please call the tissue viability team on 0121 507 3278 or email tissueviability2@nhs.net.

Mytime Active assessment days at Sandwell

Mytime Active will be hosting assessment days and weigh in sessions in the Jayne Wright Therapy Room, Trinity House, Sandwell Hospital between 12pm-2pm to offer weight loss support for colleagues and patients (via a referral pathway) on the following dates:

• 22 May
• 5 June
• 19 June

For bookings please contact Jatinder Sekhon or Emma Williams on ext. 3306 option 4.

For more information please contact Jackie Wilson on 0121 366 0966 or email Jackie.Wilson@mytimeactive.co.uk.