Monthly archives: January 2020

Heartbeat: Compassionate nurses receive commendation from national charity

Maya Angelou famously once said ‘Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.’ At a difficult time for Karon and her family, Corrine and Fran became their rainbows by providing unwavering support to create precious memories that will last a lifetime.

In September 2018, Karon gave birth to her daughter, Katie-Ann. Sadly she was diagnosed with Edwards’ syndrome, Dandy-Walker syndrome and three holes in her heart. At just over 10 weeks old, Katie-Ann gained her baby wings leaving an irreplaceable void in her family’s lives.

It was during Karon’s time at City Hospital that she met Neonatal Sister, Corrine Dacosta and Advanced Neonatal Nurse, Fran Wooton. Karon recalls how both Corrine and Fran ‘went above and beyond the call of duty’ to give her family special moments that they will cherish forever. She said: “Corrine and Fran supported us so much through the three weeks my daughter was on the unit. These two ladies were an absolute pleasure to come across in our lives.”

Karon described how Corrine always asked to have Katie-Ann as her patient when she was on duty. She did everything she could to keep Katie-Ann happy and at ease. Providing continuity in care gave comfort to Karon and her family when they needed it the most.

Fran arranged for Katie-Ann, Karon and her family to enjoy a picnic outside of the hospital grounds. Coming in on her day off especially Fran accompanied them and arranged balloons, banners, food and gifts.

Karon commented: “It’s a memory I will never forget. She tried to make as if we were having a family hour to ourselves, it was amazing.”

Both Corrine and Fran received an award from Soft UK, a charity that supports families affected by Edwards’ syndrome and related disorders. Paula Gardner, Chief Nurse said: “The kindness and care shown by Corrine and Fran is something that defines our organisation. They both showed great compassion and we’re lucky to have such empathetic, kind-hearted colleagues in our workplace.”

Extended opening hours at BTC Costa from January 11

From Saturday 11 January the Costa Coffee outlet in BTC will be open every Saturday from 9am – 2pm. The BTC outlet will also extending its weekday opening hours to 7.30am – 5.30pm.

Note: Though this is a trial period, should it prove successful, it will be implemented permanently later in the year.

Backing up your phones: Samsung Galaxy

As a Trust we are currently working to deploy a mobile management system to protect our mobile phones and tablets in case they are lost or stolen. This system is soon to be deployed to our Samsung Galaxy phones and colleagues will be required to back their devices up before hand to avoid risking losing any data or contact information.

If you have a Samsung Galaxy mobile phone issued to you through the Trust Telecoms team, follow the attached step by step guide to backing up your phone.

Backing up your Samsung Galaxy Phone

Text Messages Back Up Guide (Samsung Galaxy Edition)

Have you thought about giving blood?

We are supporting the NHS New Year appeal for more men to start donating blood in Sandwell and West Birmingham.

Over the last 12 months, 1,699 people started donating blood in Sandwell and 7,416 in Birmingham – their donations will save and improve lives. However there is a national shortage of new male donors. Only 43 per cent of England’s blood donors are now male. It’s vital more men start giving blood to get the balance right.

Men are particularly important donors for two reasons. Men can donate more often because they have higher iron levels. Men’s blood can be used in more ways – some of them are extraordinary. For example, only men’s blood is used for complete blood transfusions in newborn babies.

Giving blood saves lives. The blood you give is a lifeline in an emergency and for people who need long-term treatments. Many people would not be alive today if donors had not generously given their blood.

Please see below to find out where your nearest blood donation site is relative to our hospitals:

• Sandwell Hospital – Nearest location West Bromwich Town Hall, High Street, West Bromwich, B70 8DT
• Rowley Regis Hospital – Nearest location Black Heath Coronation Social Club, George Avenue, Rowley Regis, B65 9BD
• City Hospital – Nearest location Birmingham Donor Centre, 65 New Street Birmingham B2 4DU

To find your nearest donation site and for more information visit https://www.blood.co.uk/

District Nursing referral form is now online

The District Nursing team have gone digital and now moved their referral form online. Colleagues who need to refer a patient to district nursing will need to complete the online form from today Monday 6 January to ensure their patients are seen.

The new district nursing referral form can be found on connect on the following link https://connect2.swbh.nhs.uk/dnrf/ or by using the ‘Connect Referrals’ link on the front page of Connect.

Please note, this referral form is only for Sandwell patients to be seen by the district nursing team. 

If you have any queries about the new referral process, contact Andy Churm, Practice Educator – Digital Lead Nurse on email, andrew.churm@nhs.net or call 07813 565764.

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 3 January

Another decade over and a new year begun!  On Wednesday I launched a short film which tries to describe how the Trust goes forward in the next twelve months and also how that work fits into the longer term strategy of the organisation and the wider NHS.  Our emphasis on fighting poverty and developing wealth, learning and enterprise will only grow in the months ahead.  Midland Met represents a wonderful flagship idea for that mission but the work we start soon on exercise, diet and mental wellbeing is equally central to our Public Health priorities.

On Saturday January 18^th we have our latest nursing and midwifery recruitment event.  It was clear at yesterday’s Trust Board meeting at Rowley Regis that we still can end the 2019-2020 year in March having halved our vacancies in the last year.  35 nursing associates join us very soon (with over 100 more coming) and I wrote last week about the changes we have made to HCA pay and conditions to try and ensure that there is a clear escalator from joining us at band 2 to the top of the registered pay scale.  Next week we recruit, indeed, to our deputy chief nurse role to support the outstanding group of directors of nursing and midwifery we have in our clinical groups:  Thank you Helen, Julie, Cheryl, Diane and Nicky.

Education and learning remain at the very heart of what we do.  That is why we have trebled our training budget in the last five years and are investing in the current postgraduate centre at City to bring it closer to the standard of the Education Centre for the Trust that is based at Sandwell.  Simulation – as a route to insight and learning – remains really important and more investment is planned there too.  We have not yet set budgets for next year but are exploring how we make sure that more of our funded time to learn is devoted to communication and human factors training.  That is because when we look at successes and at error we find that these issues are the root and common thread.  The QIHD schedule for 2020-2021 is imminent and I would encourage gold, silver (and all other) teams to think through whether some of your time in those sessions would benefit from a structured training programme of this type.

Of course 2020 sees our first clinical placements from Aston Medical School.  Those students will join our Birmingham cadre as we hope to teach the doctors of the future and to retain more of those people in our system in the long term.  By deliberately recruiting medical students from less traditional or privileged backgrounds we explicitly address the vision and mission of the organisation to support our local communities, both with understanding and insight.  Thank you in advance to everyone involved in the considerable preparatory work required to be ready for our first intake.  It’s a huge moment for healthcare in the West Midlands and something that we should be very proud of.

The Queen’s latest honours saw an MBE awarded to our own Professor Liz Hughes.  For many years Liz has been at the forefront of medical education at the Trust, the region, and nationally with Health Education England.  This is terrific recognition for service and success.  I know that Liz is passionate about new models of working and new roles and so will support the work being done now by our Human Resource Business Partners to shape such change plans for our 200 or so Hard-to -Fill job roles across the organisation.  Whether it is Doctors’ Associates, Assistant Practitioner roles, or the use of technology including AI, we know we need to do more as a Trust to attract and retain colleagues into less traditional disciplines.

Perhaps especially in the depths of winter or the optimistic euphoria of starting a year there is a risk that the balance swings too much either way between challenges and positivity.  We need to juggle both realistically.  It was helpful to understand from the Board the work being done to address the three Never Events that we experienced earlier in 2019.  The detailed audit work we will do in February will tell us our site marking, swab counting and equipment checking is up to scratch.

Similarly we have a focus on medication errors and risks in the months ahead, with Electronic Prescribing creating both opportunities and risks.  We are making progress with endorsing results, the backlog of which over many years was an area of under-acknowledged risk, and likewise we are investing to address waiting lists and administrative issues in BMEC which could create errors and harm.  Reminding ourselves that most of the Trust is rated as Good by the CQC does not mean that everything is easy or rosy and I know how much work goes into maintaining those standards, and to helping our three Requires Improvement services (medical wards, paediatrics and ED) to match or exceed the work done elsewhere in our organisation.

This message does not repeat what I said in our 2020 film. Do take a look when you get chance. Sometimes changes that happen here are a surprise to colleagues, when they have long been considered. And of course knowing what is coming gives you a chance to shape and improve it. Around 700,000 people locally rely on us and on primary care colleagues to run the best NHS that the West Midlands has to offer.  As we consider what our plans are for 2025 – or even 2030 – that is very much the sort of ambition that we share and that I hope makes working here a privilege.

Employee Smoking Cessation Programme

Colleagues wanting to kick the habit can access free stop smoking services during working hours. This has been agreed to allow colleagues to get support to quit smoking, to improve their health.

Our Trust supports colleagues to access a 12-week smoking cessation programme.

Clinics can be booked via a telephone appointment booking system and appointments during working hours must be agreed by line managers. The initial booking session takes 45 minutes, thereafter appointments take 20-30 minutes.

Clinics are held at:

Sandwell and City Hospital occupational health department (by appointment only) call 0121 507 3306.

• Sandwell clinic Monday: 9am – 1pm
• City clinic Tuesday: 9.30am – 1.30pm

Colleagues must contact occupational health for a voucher in order to register for the service. You will be provided with an appointment card, with a signature, to evidence the appointment time and date.

To register call ext. 3306 or email jatinder.sekhon@nhs.net.

Heartbeat: Research leads to changes in treatment plans for patients nationwide

NHS watchdog NICE has approved a change in the amount of medication given to heart disease patients thanks to a study our researchers have been leading on.

The COMPASS trial found that a normal dose of aspirin along with a baby dose of anticoagulant (medicines that help to prevent blood clots) gave the same benefits as a higher dosage but with minimal risks.

Lead Research Nurse, Ashley Turner said: “This approval from NICE shows that our research is leading the way. It’s positive news that the drug regime for cardiovascular patients has now changed as a result of the work being done at our organisation.”

He added: “We found that patients received the same benefits around prevention of future strokes and attacks. There was also a reduced risk of bleeds on the baby dose.”

“NICE has now approved the reduction in dosage, showing that COMPASS has changed the medication drug regime for people at risk of stroke or heart attacks.

As a result, there is a new follow up study which we’re leading. This will observe patients who are on this new regime so their progress can be monitored.

The cardiovascular team are also leading the way when it comes to recruiting patients into studies – by using the clinic rooms within the new Clinical Research Facility at Sandwell Hospital.

Dr Derek Connolly holds his cardiology clinics every Monday. This means that if patients consent to taking part in a study, they can be seen by one of the research nurses on the day.

Ashley added: “By doing this, it cuts down the amount of time the patient waits between being identified as a candidate to being enrolled in the study.

“Since Dr Connolly started this process we’ve recruited many more patients. We would urge clinicians from other areas to take advantage of this facility so that they too can recruit efficiently into any studies that the Trust is taking part in.”

Toby’s Friday Message

Each Friday, Chief Executive, Toby Lewis writes a message to all colleagues, which is published on the front page of Connect. He discusses important topics or events that have occurred during the week.

On Friday Toby talked about our first Star of the Week winner or this year; Caroline Ndachangedzwa, Staff Nurse on Eliza Tinsley ward. He also encouraged both clinical and non-clinical colleagues to get voting for Star of the Week candidates for the rest of January. If you want to vote for one of your fellow colleagues, please visit https://connect2.swbh.nhs.uk/communications/star-of-the-week/.

He also covered:

• Healthwatch report in to how complaints are handled in the NHS – https://www.healthwatch.co.uk/report/2020-01-15/shifting-mindset-closer-look-complaints
• SWB rated at in the top 15 per cent in the country for the transparency with which we manage and report on complaints
• The “four hour” standard about potential changes to national NHS constitution standards
• Over the last few years we have reduced high levels of unplanned readmissions into our hospital
• Our quality plan aims to reduce by a further 1,000 the number of people each year who are readmitted unexpectedly into our care.
• The National Audit Office publishing their latest enquiry into the collapse of Carillion in 2018.
• Before Easter we will have Virtual Reality ‘headsets’ which will allow you to walk around Midland Met under your own direction and get a sense of the scale of the new hospital

You can read the full message by clicking here.

You can read previous messages by clicking here.

Heartbeat: New learning for HCAs on mental health and impact of alcohol

Knowledge and skills development was the outcome of a recent special training day for healthcare assistants (HCA) within medicine and emergency care.

Organised by Fiona Boddy, Practice Development Nurse, it incorporated medicine with caring for those with mental health problems and alcohol-related issues.

Sessions were held by the link nurse for diabetes and the alcohol team, delivering insight into how sufferers may react to certain treatment.

Fiona said: “We wanted the study day to work as a refresher for some more experienced colleagues and to provide knowledge and guidance for newer staff. It was also to give all those who attended an insight into self-development available at the Trust. This includes things such as the nursing associate programme and the care certificate.

“Whilst there have been study days arranged for our HCAs in the past, this is the first time I had done something like this in my role.” She added: “We had some lovely feedback from both sessions. I know our staff enjoyed Victoria Adcock’s session on diabetes. Others connected and engaged with the talks run by liaison psychiatry and the alcohol team. Colleagues said they enjoyed learning something new from these sessions.

“Those who are more experienced said they felt some of the medical talks were a good refresher and would be a great introduction for new HCAs. They are hoping for something more advanced to be covered during the next study days. This includes incorporating some more hands-on teaching (simulation etc.) which is great feedback. It shows us where we need to go with our training for some colleagues and what information they’d like to know about.

“I’m hoping that the feedback from these two primary sessions will help us develop the day to something more advanced. We’d like colleagues to truly benefit from this and feel it’s relevant to their roles.”