Monthly archives: September 2019
Orthopaedic fracture clinic moved to first floor BTC
The orthopaedic fracture clinic at City Hospital has moved to the first floor of Birmingham Treatment Centre with immediate effect. For more information please contact ext. 5390.
World patient safety day: 17 September
As you may be aware, Tuesday 17 September is world patient safety day. The day aims to raise awareness of patient safety and urge people to show their commitment to making healthcare safer. This would include speaking up about anything you believe could cause potential or real harm to our patients.
There are a range of ways to speak up if you have a concern about safety at work which includes completing a Speak Up Day promise by following the link. https://connect2.swbh.nhs.uk/communications/speak-up-day/
Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 13 September
Yesterday I was able to confirm that we have met the conditions that we set to Go Live with Unity from Saturday 21 September. There is plenty of work to do before we do, and you undoubtedly can play a part by your actions in reducing the risks from the cut-over. We have a fortnight, no more, to implement the changes to our IT systems, and to then be working at the pace and with the precision that we are now. Implementing Unity, first and foremost, means we have the tools to provide safer care through electronic prescribing, and more efficient clinical administration through reducing duplication and better recorded clinical records. Whilst many colleagues have focused on the go-live date, I would ask you to focus too on 7 October. That is the Monday when we need to ‘return to a (new) normal’. With your training, your colleagues as digital champions, and super users, and with our temporary floor walkers there too to help, we have a few days and nights to start working with the new system and making it work to improve care. Every department has a go-live guide where you work (contact Lydia Jones if yours has gone walkabout). Tap & Go is ready for you to log into – meaning when we go live it will take seconds to get you into Unity.
Before, during, and after Unity go-live, life goes on. On Wednesday I issued a call for votes for our Star Awards, even as we took part in Speak Up Day. Please do register your vote. https://connect2.swbh.nhs.uk/communications/star-awards/star-awards-voting/
At the same time we met with teams across haematology, gastroenterology and respiratory medicine to talk through November’s ward reconfiguration. That is part of the long march to Midland Met – and our promise to make sure that you know now the route to jobs and roles in the new hospital. The reconfiguration is about making sure we have the beds to manage winter this year and getting us ready for the return of oncology services in 2020 on the Sandwell site.
Speak Up Day was, as ever, an energising experience. We wanted to continue to promote our Managers’ Code of Conduct. This is about good practice, about poor behaviours, and about how we tackle offence and misconception in the moment. A big, and let’s face it stressful change, like Unity go-live is a perfect chance to practice just those habits. The go-live decision indicates that our readiness preparations have passed muster. But with such a complex change it is bound to be the case that things go awry. As we all tire and in the midst of that complexity, we need to encourage, problem solve and help each other to get the best from the system, and from the support around us. This is not an “IT project”. Unity is a change in how we practice care. Its success will depend on how we adapt our working to the system our clinical leaders chose in 2017, and have tweaked since.
In early October we get started again with our Flu Vaccination Campaign. The Board is jabbed early, on 3 October. I know that the vast majority of colleagues appreciate the necessity for vaccination and the merit of getting jabbed early in the cycle. I would encourage team leaders to think now about the campaign, so that we weave it into our working lives in early October even as we manage the changes that Unity will bring. The Trust usually is the best in the Midlands at flu vaccination, and we want to keep that primacy and hegemony in the interests of public health and staff wellbeing.
On Tuesday we welcomed the Chief Executive of Public Health England to the Trust. Duncan Selbie came to listen to nurses, security staff, doctors and trade union leaders about our smokefree Campaign. The focus on vaping, the work we have done to promote cessation classes and the simple honesty of our ‘red line’ message has been so far effective in creating a safer, cleaner environment across our sites. I know many other NHS Trusts are looking at our model. Meanwhile we need to keep up our work, and make sure there is no complacency. In the last fortnight regrettably our first fines have been issued to some colleagues who have smoked on site. That is an early warning that we need to reiterate our common values and be clear that it is unacceptable to smoke anywhere on Trust property, and we want to help everyone tempted to smoke to find a better workplace alternative.
We also presented to PHE the work being done across the Trust to tackle alcohol misuse. Our Friends and Family group is helping to manage addiction and we now have AA groups on our sites too. We will be making investments to develop our alcohol team into a 7 day basis and to support off site detox facilities. Whilst smoking is still the commonest cause of avoidable death in our communities, alcohol remains the commonest underlying cause of admission to hospital. We are working with partners to introduce some of the toughest licensing laws anywhere in England to try and tackle to cumulative harm of cheap booze and multiple outlets. The Trust will be formally responding to the Sandwell Council Licensing Policy consultation which closes on 18 October, and if you wish to add your voice to that response, click through the link www.sandwell.gov.uk/licensing_consultation. We make a difference through the care we offer, but we can be part of the change before anyone needs our care.
We cannot always succeed, and last weekend our cricket team was vanquished by local GPs. In truth we took a beating. Maybe it is time to look forward to the rugby world cup in Japan, and we will make arrangements to get games screened each morning where we can. Look out for our strategy on obesity in late October as we work to create exercise and wellbeing opportunities across the Trust – complete with free gyms at City as well as Sandwell!
Attached are this week’s IT stats: IT Performance Stats 13 September
#hellomynameisToby
Results acknowledge will be crucial in Unity
It is important that all colleagues are familiar with new responsibilities for acknowledging results, both for laboratory and imaging reports.
On Board and ward rounds, and in each clinic, Medical Director, David Carruthers has issued clear standards for clinicians to make sure that we do not recreate the backlog of unacknowledged results we have had for many years. We will be a safer Trust if we can stay on top of these reports, which in Unity takes seconds.
NHS Staff Friends and Family Test – feedback on our service
The NHS Staff Friends and Family Test is a simple feedback tool which allows colleagues the opportunity to feedback on our services. It complements the annual NHS Staff Survey and our weConnect survey programme to give a regular, up-to-date picture of colleague experience.
If you are part of a small random sample of colleagues selected to give your feedback please take the time to give your views.
Note: The survey only has four questions and it should take you less than a minute to give your feedback.
Heartbeat: Don’t take the pee! For older patients, urine dips are not the key!
Urinary tract infection (UTI) is a common diagnosis in community and inpatient settings in our Trust. The infection is caused by bacteria in the urine, and is treated with short courses of antibiotics. However evidence is now showing that clinicians should show caution when reaching for the dip sticks when diagnosing UTIs in older patients.
The presence of bacteria in urine causing infection can be suggested by the symptoms that the patient has – for example pain, frequency and strong smell when passing urine, and is often confirmed by the use of a urine dip stick test which can test for blood and bacteria.
However one fact that is often overlooked is that it is possible for patients to have bacteria in their urine, but not have an underlying infection. This occurs in up to 50 per cent of patients over the age of 65 years, and up to 100 per cent of patients who have a urinary catheter in situ.
It is for this very reason that we advise that urine dip sticks should not be used to diagnose UTI in patients over 65 years old, or any patient with a catheter.
We all know that with antibiotic resistance on the rise, few new antibiotics coming to the market and we have to use the ones we have more carefully now.
Antibiotics are not harmless medicines in themselves – they can have a whole host of side effects, they can interact with a patient’s existing medicines and they can cause upset stomachs, diarrhoea and worst of all, Clostridium difficile infection.
For elderly patients with bacteria in their urine but no infection, it only takes three patients to be treated with antibiotics for one patient to be caused harm. Because so many elderly patients have asymptomatic bacteriuria, a misdiagnosis due to dip stick tests is likely to lead to the inevitable prescription for antibiotics, potential harm to the patient, driving the development of antibiotic resistance, and wasting money on unnecessary treatment.
If you think an elderly patient (over 65 years of age) has a urinary tract infection, the decision to give them antibiotics should be based on the symptoms they have, or the results of a urine culture. Don’t dip their urine to check for infection.
It is okay to dip an elderly patient’s urine to test for other things, such as protein, blood and so on, which are helpful to make other diagnoses. It’s just not helpful for working out if they have a UTI.
Speak Up Day
Yesterday was Speak Up Day with the theme around the recently launched Manager’s Code of Conduct.
On the day we also hosted our very own live radio debate in the Sandwell Hospital radio studio around the topic of speaking up.. Guests on station included Toby Lewis, Chief Executive, Donna Mighty, Chair of the BME staff network, Chris Rickards, Trust Convenor, Harpal Tiwana, Speak Up guardian and Kam Dhami, Director of Governance.
In addition to this, senior leaders from across the organisation held a variety of drop in sessions across our hospital sites giving colleagues the opportunity to speak up confidentially without any repercussions.
Be sure to check out this clip featuring Marie Perry, non executive director talking about her role as a the non executive director for Speak Up Day and the importance of Speak Up Day.
Heather Bennett to retire after 37 illustrious years
Heather Bennett, head of service for acute and community paediatrics will be retiring after 37 successful years.
Heather started her state registered nurse training in September 1982 which was only 5 days before her 18th Birthday. She qualified in January 1985 and started her career as a nurse on Lyndon 4. 9 months later, Heather had the opportunity to work on the paediatric ward situated in the old Hallam building, later moving to Priory Ground.
After a brief stint away from the Trust, she returned in a senior role on Lyndon Ground. Heather would then move to Lyndon 1 in 1991 where she remained for 11 years. Following this, Heather would take up a role as an acting post of head of service for paediatrics and gynaecology before becoming head of service for acute and community paediatrics which is her current role.
“I’m proud to have been a nurse for the NHS my entire career,” Heather said. “I have enjoyed every job and have worked with some brilliant people.”
Heather has a host of plans for her retirement including going on plenty of holidays with her husband as well as making more time to see her friends and family. She is also planning on moving closer to her family who live near to Ross on Wye.
Congratulations on your retirement Heather – good luck in the future!
It’s Speak Up Day today: Marie Perry
Today is our second Speak Up Day of the year and the theme is the newly launched Manager’s Code of Conduct. How much do you know about the new code? Who do you think is a good example and lives by our values?
Be sure to check out this clip featuring Marie Perry, non executive director talking about her role as a the non executive director for Speak Up Day and the importance of Speak Up Day.
It’s Speak Up Day today
Today is our second Speak Up Day of the year and the theme is the newly launched Manager’s Code of Conduct. How much do you know about the new code? Who do you think is a good example and lives by our values?
We want to hear your stories – so give your colleagues a shout out now https://connect2.swbh.nhs.uk/communications/shout-out/
Manager drop in sessions
Managers across our sites are being encouraged to set aside some time to make themselves available for anyone in their team to come and talk to them if they have a concern. Speak to your manager to find out more about your local arrangements.
Our senior managers will also be holding drop in sessions; do drop by and Speak Up.
Sandwell
- Amanda Geary, Group Director of Operations – Women’s & Child Health: 8am – 9am, W&CH offices, Ground floor, Trinity House
- Sandra Kennelly and Rosie Auld, Freedom to Speak Up Guardians: 8.30am, Education Centre
- Freedom to Speak Up Guardians Drop-in Session, 9.30am – 11.30am, Room 10, Education Centre
- Dinah McLannahan, Acting Director of Finance – 9am-10am, 11am-11.30am, 12.30pm-1pm, Room 9, Trinity House
- Ruth Wilkin, Director of Communications – 2pm – 3pm, 1st Floor Trust Headquarters
- Marie Perry, Non-Executive Speak Up Lead, 11am – 12noon, Director of Communications Office, 1st floor, Trust HQ
Rowley
- Nicky Taylor, Group Director of Nursing – Primary Care, Community & Therapies – 2pm – 3.30pm, Seminar Room
City
- Alan Kenny, Director of Estates, Old Management Block 11am-12noon and 1pm – 2pm
Join our radio debate between 12noon and 12.45pm
Today we are hosting a live radio debate in the Sandwell Hospital radio studios, with Toby Lewis Chief Executive, Donna Mighty Chair of the BME staff network, Chris Rickards Trust Convenor, Kam Dhami, Director of Governance and Speak Up Guardians, Harpal Tiwana and Sandra Kennelly.
This is your chance to talk about the recently launched Managers’ Code of Conduct or indeed any other subject.
The debate will be live streamed through Connect and Trust YouTube channel https://youtu.be/MYHkzMc8OqE
Our inpatients will be able to listen in from their bedsides.
You can take part by:
- Posting your question via email to swbh.comms@nhs.net with the subject ‘Speak Up Day’
- Ring the hospital radio directly on 3244
- Take part in our polls through Slido https://app.sli.do/event/lel5djnn – you even pose your questions here too!
Speaking up is not just for today
Our Trust has a strong track record in encouraging people to speak up and there are a range of ways that you can do this including talking to your manager, contacting a Trade Union rep, raising an incident, writing to our Heartbeat letters page, talking to a Trust specialist such as Counter-Fraud, ringing Safecall (our confidential whistleblowing line), or getting help from a Freedom to Speak up Guardian.
All of our Speak up Guardians have received specialised training and are well placed to listen to issues and guide concerned colleagues on the best way to resolve those problems. This gives colleagues the avenue to be able to turn to Guardians if they want to talk about any issues they feel need addressing.
Find out how you can Speak up and who our Freedom to Speak up Guardians are in the attached poster http://myconnect.swbh.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Speak-up-guardians.pdf?x47139
← Older items Newer items →