Monthly archives: May 2019

Iftar at City: 15 May

The Trust Chairman, Richard Samuda and the BME network invite you to join in the celebrations for the annual Trust Iftar.

Managers are encouraged to allow team members to rotate and come along to celebrate the welcoming of Ramadan at Arches café at City Hospital on 15 May from 8.30pm-9.30pm with the fasting being broken at 8.45pm. There will be a wide range of food and drink available and also the opportunity to ask questions and gain support for the coming weeks of Ramadan. There is no need to book so please just come along and feel free to invite a colleague.

For more information please get in touch with the Muslim Chaplain on ext. 4055\5015 or contact the BME Staff Network on swbh.bme@nhs.net

Back service road closure at City: 16 May

Estates are closing the back service road at City on Thursday 16 May between 6am-9am. This is to allow standby generators to be delivered and installed to support D16.

Between the above times all traffic should leave the City site via the Western Rd or BTC exit routes.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Unity 28-Day Challenge – Day 16, Tremendous Tuesday

Who are your local digital champions? Does everyone in your area know? Find out something you don’t know about them and maybe put up a picture of them in your Unity Corner.

There are now more than 900 digital champions across the Trust, who will support their colleagues to use Unity when it goes live. For more information about digital champions, please visit Connect or email swbh.unity-champions@nhs.net.

Star Awards 2019 – Clinical Team of the Year (children)

Do you know a team that has provided consistent, high quality care for children whilst meeting financial and operational targets, a team that has demonstrated best practice or has driven forward improvements in patient care or has pulled together through particularly difficult circumstances? This could include teams who care for children across our Trust settings and services, not just our specialist paediatric teams.

Nominate them as the Clinical Team of the Year (children) 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 the infant feeding team.

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.

Heartbeat: Unique refugee project vying for top gong

An innovative project to attract medically qualified refugees back into healthcare roles has been shortlisted for a prestigious award.

The Health Overseas Professionals (HOP) programme is run by the Learning Works. It provides training in the English language for refugees to find a way to resume their medical careers, whilst putting much needed resource back into the local NHS.

Now the Learning Works team has been shortlisted for the Mills & Reeve most effective use of diversity gong in the Healthcare People Management Association (HPMA) Excellence Awards.

Raffaela Goodby, Director of People and Organisation Development, said: “We are really pleased to be shortlisted for such a prestigious award.

“The programme follows the successes of the USE-IT! project, which is a similar skills matching programme in Sandwell and West Birmingham which was piloted at our Trust. It enables refugees looking to return to work within the healthcare field to do so with the right support.

“Since introducing USE-IT! and the HOP programme, we have successfully matched more than 200 people into healthcare roles across the area. Examples include GPs, nurses, pharmacists and even highly trained medical and surgical consultants.”

The winner will be announced at a ceremony in Manchester on 6 June.

Congratulations Michelle King – travel survey

Michelle King, stroke audit officer was randomly selected as the winner of the £100 high street vouchers for completing the staff travel survey earlier this year.

We run the staff travel survey annually so that we can support colleagues, particularly in travelling to/from work by more sustainable and active modes.

If you have any queries regarding this or any other questions about sustainable travel, please contact francesca.silcocks@nhs.net.

Drug safety notice – Midazolam injection shortage

There is currently a manufacturer’s delay with midazolam 5mg in 5ml injection, with further supplies expected by the end of May.

Please see Midazolam information sheet for further details.

Note: Ward colleagues should to be aware of the change in strength of the current supply of midazolam and be vigilant with the use of high strength midazolam.

For more information please contact the pharmacy department on ext. 5259.

Unity Favourite Fairs come to an end – thanks for attending

It’s been a busy two weeks for Unity with Favourite Fairs going on across the Trust as preparations continue for the introduction of our new electronic patient record system.

Thank you to everyone who attended a Favourite Fair and was supported to set up their favourites, which will make Unity much quicker and easier to use once it goes live. There was plenty of good feedback about how useful the experience was and the help available.

In total, 23 Favourite Fairs were held across the three main Trust sites, along with seven smaller sessions at various hubs. There were evening and Saturday sessions to cater for all colleagues and we saw 970 in total over the two weeks.

The Unity team will be assessing how the Favourite Fairs went, and deciding on next steps over the coming days as we look to get everyone ready for go-live. Please keep an eye out for more information on Connect and in the communications bulletin.

Dying matters week: helpful conversations – 14 May

SWB library and knowledge services in partnership with chaplains team at SWBH and Sandwell Council libraries are holding a helpful conversations drop-in event with members of public around death and coping with bereavement at the Oldbury Library on Tuesday 14 May.

The library services will be promoting reliable health information resources available to members of public so that they research on their current health conditions.

For more information please call 0121 569 4955.

Update on car parking developments – Sandwell

Following the brief on car parking on 15 April regarding the temporary changes to car park arrangements, work has been on going to develop alternatives to offset the loss of parking capacity while the development of the new health centre and multi storey car parks (MSCP) are built at Sandwell and City.

The health centre development at Sandwell is due to start in summer, which means the new arrangements for Sandwell will need to be in place from Monday 1 July, not 3 June as previously notified.

Firstly thank you to all of the volunteers who have agreed to transfer to New Square, this has been extremely helpful and much appreciated. Applications are still being accepted from Sandwell based colleagues, there is a form below this comms brief. Please complete and return to diane.alford@nhs.net as soon as possible.

There are a number of points for clarification, please see below.

• Work is underway to create the additional 80 spaces on the Sandwell site.
• The relocation for colleagues who have volunteered to transfer to New Square will start on Monday 1 July. Details to follow.
• Colleagues based in Trinity House and Elizabeth Suite will be receiving letters within the next two weeks outlining their transfer to New Square which will also commence from Monday 1 July. However there will be an appeal process based on mobility and exceptional circumstances.
• Colleagues who live within one mile radius, and are based at, Sandwell Hospital should have received letters informing them that their access to park at Sandwell Hospital during the day will be restricted from 3 June. The restrictions will now apply from Monday 1 July. The one mile radius restriction will also apply to City Hospital – further details will follow.
• We have invested in a car sharing app-based management system and will be introducing a car sharing permit. A detailed comms brief will follow for car sharing applications when the scheme is launched.
• A ‘Pay As You Park’ scheme will be introduced which will allow colleagues to park at any site for a daily fee. The scheme will go live on 1 July. Details to follow.
• The current occasional user car park permit will be closed to any new applicants or top ups to current permits from Friday 28 June Existing credits will be honoured until 31 December.
• Standard discounted public travel passes (5 per cent discount) for colleagues are currently available.
• An additional public travel pass scheme is being launched for colleagues who hand back their parking permit where the discount will be 50 per cent for the first year. You will not be allowed to park on any Trust site or New Square if you take up this option. Details to follow.

Further developments and updates on the various car parking schemes will be published on a regular basis.

SWBH New Square – Permit Application Form

Car parking FAQs