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Monthly archives: December 2019

iCares charity Christmas raffle

 

iCares will be hosting a Christmas raffle to help raise funds for Your Trust Charity.

Prizes include:

  • Luxury food hamper
  • Drinks hamper
  • Sweets hamper
  • 3 month leisure pass
  • Beauty hamper
  • Beauty gift voucher
  • Bottle of whisky
  • Bottle of champagne
  • Bottle of Baileys
  • Safari park tickets
  • Food steamer

Tickets are priced at just 50p each and are available from the Matrons Office, 2nd Floor, The Lyng, district nurse team leaders, iCares leadership team.

Note: For colleagues based at Sandwell, tickets are available from tina.barnett@nhs.net and for colleagues at City, tickets are available from sarah.gammidgejefferson@nhs.net.

The draw is scheduled to take place on Thursday 19 December.

For more information please contact denise.owen@nhs.net.

Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story discounted tickets

 

The organisers for the Buddy Holly Story are offering NHS colleagues discounts tickets for the show which is playing at Birmingham’s The Alexandra between 3 – 7 March.

The code “BUDDY10” will give a £10 discount per pair of tickets off the top price seats.The code can be used either by booking through the theatre’s website https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/buddy/the-alexandra-theatre-birmingham/, by calling the box office on 0844 871 7615 or by going to the theatre in person.

Note: The discount code can be used until 13 December and is valid for any of the Tuesday-Thursday shows.

For more details regarding staff benefits across the Trust, please contact amir.ali1@nhs.net.

Newton 5 Christmas raffle

 

Our Newton 5 ward are hosting a Christmas raffle to help raise funds towards their patients so they can have some festive treats over the Christmas period with tickets costing just £1.

Prizes include:

  • Portable DVD player
  • Microwave
  • Gift set
  • Plus much more

Note: The draw will take place on Monday 23 December.

For tickets and information, please call ext. 3314 or sandra.reid6@nhs.net.

Roadway to side elevation of Pathology to close

 

From 6am on Tuesday 10 December, the roadway to the side elevation of pathology at City Hospital will be closed until further notice to allow for essential roofing works to carried.

Note: This will also mean the nearby bicycle store will be closed too.

For more information please contact rachaelgallagher@nhs.net.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Heartbeat: Board members hear from patient’s son about compassionate end of life care

 

The Trust Board met at the Midland Metropolitan Hospital site on 3 October and heard from Mr Philip Reeve whose mother, Doris Reeve, sadly passed away on 25 May 2019 following a cardiac arrest.

Mr Reeve explained about the support he and his family received from the caring teams at City Hospital following Mrs Reeve’s transfer by ambulance and during her last days of life.

Mrs Reeve, aged 87, had suffered a heart attack in the centre of Birmingham where she was meeting friends. The ambulance service was called and paramedics administered CPR before travelling via ambulance to hospital where CPR continued. Mrs Reeve’s son Philip was travelling back from Italy and staff managed to get hold of Mrs Reeve’s daughter to explain the situation. Philip went straight from the airport to City Hospital and Mrs Reeve was transferred to the critical care unit.

The critical care team looked after Mrs Reeve and, sadly, had to tell her family that, although her heart had restarted, the prognosis was poor and she was unlikely to recover. Philip and his family understood that Mrs Reeve was in her final stage of life. Despite the shock and grief, they were grateful that they all had time to visit her, say goodbye and prepare for her passing away.

When talking to the Board members about his experience, Philip said: “The care for our family was very, very good. They really helped us to come to terms with it… it was an enormous relief that my mom could have a dignified exit.

“At one point we were concerned as the critical care unit was relocated during the time my mom was there but it all went very smoothly.

“What made a difference was being allowed to stay with mom in her last hours. There was no pressure to go. We had good continuity of care from a small team of nurses. The whole experience was handled very sympathetically.”

welearn – Announcing the winners of the annual QIHD Poster Competition

 

Last week we saw the finalists of our annual welearn poster competition come together for the grand awards ceremony at Sandwell Education Centre. Following weeks of scrutiny under the keen eye of our judging panel and almost 500 votes from colleagues, we are now able to announce the winners.

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This year we had an astonishing 70 posters submitted to the competition from across the Trust from which 13 shortlisted finalists had an opportunity to showcase their hard work.

Winner: £5000 Prize:

People’s Vote winner:

Runners up:

The posters will remain on display in the Education Centre at Sandwell as well as on the digital kiosks around the 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.

Welearn Poster Gallery

Work experience – ambition programme

 

We are in the process of introducing a new work experience programme.

We plan to advertise and offer placements within various teams and departments with a view to having an 8 week window of opportunity (June and July) each year. We would receive applications in the New Year, allocate thereafter, and confirm with student and departments well ahead of the placement commencing so that everyone involved is fully aware of the process and expectations.

If your department would be willing to offer work experience placements during June and July 2020, please contact Nicola.smith16@nhs.net.

20 per cent discount at Jimmy Spices for NHS colleagues

 

We’re now offering all colleagues 20 per cent discount at Jimmy Spices.

Simply visit www.jimmyspices.co.uk/offers/nhs-staff-20-discount/ and fill in your details.

For more information regarding staff benefits on offer please contact amir.ali1@nhs.net.

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 6 December

 

4,065 colleagues know that flu can kill. It’s not a common cold. They also know that the vaccine is not live, and so has not made you ill. That it contains no porcine products. And that it is suitable for almost anyone subject to clinical review. One of our colleagues, Roger Hackley, has made a short film to explain why the vaccine matters. If you have chance please take a moment to listen to it. If you have already had your flu vaccine, please do talk about that choice with your colleagues. Our safety depends on one another.

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Yesterday the Trust’s Board heard from Nicola Tomkins and Terri Franklin. They presented our community midwives’ vision for their future working arrangements. Changes they will put into place in 2020. The aim is to help retain and recruit to our teams. But the even bigger aim to help improve outcomes from maternity care locally. We already have a track record of improvement.  Our PreCePT work is preventing cerebral palsy in our unit. We have cut still birth numbers. The biggest challenge we now face, or rather still face, is to make sure that excluded and potentially vulnerable families engage with our service earlier in pregnancy. That is what the improvements are all about – delivering our Trust 2020 Quality Plan, and for that matter the long term plan of the wider STP.

Next Tuesday, we have the latest Pioneer event, which you may remember is part of our weconnect employee engagement programme. There are some fantastic examples of changes in working practices, team communication and value setting among the teams taking part. There are also some extraordinary engagement “scores” where action has tackled low morale or poor involvement.  Remember as a Trust we are trying to achieve a rating of 4/5 for engagement. If we did that we would be in the best 15 Trusts for participation anywhere in the NHS; we’d be properly, and in your view, a great place to work. One of our pioneer teams has just posted a staff rated engagement score of 4.39/5.

Our QI Poster Contest Awards took place yesterday too. 13 finalists from over 70 entries; imaginative projects, real outcomes, new skills learnt and talents displayed in how the posters were constructed. All of those remain on display across our organisation, and either on the electronic carousels or on the walls of the Education Centre you can see the depth and breadth of ability and commitment @SWBHnhs. Many of these posters will go on to be published or win awards elsewhere, or, like our trainee doctor led, sleep and wellbeing programme, have real impact across our Trust in 2020. You voted for a prize to go to our cancer and emergency care teams for their new referral pathway project and poster.

The judging panel picked out three other winners: Frailty at the Front Door, from our silver accredited QIHD Rapid Response Team; children’s nasal phototherapy, which is attracting NIHR interest; and our overall £5,000 winner: The PDSA programme around sepsis and sepsis screening that has involved so many staff in 2019, led by Martin Chadderton and the improvement team. We are back in the 90s for screening (having recovered after Unity) and the drive to get treatment to the right patients inside an hour remains in the year ahead, when sepsis will still be our number 1 Quality Priority.

I know that, by now, a lot of individuals and teams will have been involved in our weAssure quality improvement work. A part of that process is to help us to get ready to see the Care Quality Commission again in 2020 and push ourselves towards that Good rating. To have a honest incident reporting culture and a thriving improvement culture are central to that effort, so the QIHD accreditation, the QI poster contest, and the wider welearn and Learning From Excellence work that we do and are doing more of, are absolutely mission critical to our future as a local health system. I notice that work has a new addition to the Trust twitter family via @SWBQuality.

Another sure-fire component of matching the CQC’s standards is ensuring that we hear our patients’ voices and act on their feedback. More than a quarter of maternity clients now fill out Friends and Family data, and the Trust has over 20 ways in which we routinely do hear from patients. Next year’s Patient Voice scorecard will help us to bring together that feedback into one place and ensure we do not have blindspots in the Trust where no activity is taking place. As part of getting ready for our 2019-20 annual report we are building our top 100 list of things we have changed based on patients’ feedback. I know of loads, but you will know of more, so do get in touch with me, or Ruth Wilkin if you have changes made in your team or service because of what you have heard.

The Trust does work hard to try and thank people their service, especially when that is provided over many years. Dr Chand’s exceptional commitment to radiology was celebrated today, pictured above, and there are many others who leave the Trust with our thanks after dedicated commitment to our patients and to colleagues. The Board has asked that we look again at how best we support anyone considering retirement to make sure that we have a clear menu of options for individuals to consider, whether that is continuing in current or other employment with us, or a structured move into volunteering. That will come back through the Clinical Leadership Executive in the New Year, as we refine the work we are doing to improve staff retention.

Our Christmas decorating contest is now just a fortnight away! To enter please email Katherine.bayley@nhs.net, and if you still have not claimed your department’s £50 that can be done via the finance office at Sandwell. It is beginning to feel like a month of celebration, so do get involved if you can. Thank you as ever for all your hard work.

#hellomynameisToby

Workplace stress management

 

Workplace stress management is a three hour session which will give people a self-management toolbox of skills to enable individuals to reduce their stress levels in the work place, and building resilience within this. The sessions include looking at what stress actually is and identifying your own triggers for stress. It also looks at the self help people can do for themselves to reduce their stress levels, whilst building on their resilience. This includes practical examples of self-help such as relaxation and breathing techniques. Once participants have established self-help for stress, it would be then turned to how we can manage in the workplace.

Date: Tuesday 17 December
Venue: The Berridge room, courtyard gardens, Sandwell Hospital
Time: 10am – 1pm

To book onto any of the workshops please contact Jatinder Sekhon or Emma Williams on 0121 507 3306 option 4. Other dates, sessions and venues are available.

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