Monthly archives: January 2020
Enjoy 2 for 1 tickets to the REP: Asking For It
The Birmingham REP are kindly offering Trust employees 2 for 1 tickets for Asking For It – the adaptation of Louise O’Neill’s devastating novel about sexual consent which is running between 29 January – 15 February.
To book the tickets please visit please click here.
Note: 2 for 1 tickets are limited and may only be available on certain days. You may be asked to provide proof of Trust employment such as an NHS ID badge.
For more information regarding staff benefits, please contact amir.ali1@nhs.net.
Notifying colleagues of major incidents through Trust mobiles
We recently carried out a test SMS to all registered mobiles for our major incident notification. Unfortunately, less than 10 per cent of registered devices responded.
If we are involved in the response to a major incident we need to notify our colleagues, in particularly our clinical colleagues. The Manchester and London attacks were successfully managed, in part, because they were able to mobilise large numbers of consultants and we must ensure we can do the same.
Your clinical group may have a WhatsApp group or similar system that allows you to contact all colleagues rapidly. If you don’t have one please consider creating one, particularly if you are likely to be in a speciality involved in the response: ED, any surgical speciality, obstetrics, paediatrics, anaesthesia, haematology, medicine and radiology.
We also have the ability to send SMS messages to mobile phones. In the event of a major incident SMS messages will be sent to all Trust mobiles and individuals who have registered their phone for the service.
What you need to do to get SMS messages:
- Create a contact in your address book for the following number: 07860017535. Name it as “SWB MI”, or something similar, so you immediately know the message is important and not spam or phishing
- If you have a Trust mobile, next time you receive a test message from this number please follow the instructions and reply so we can ensure messages are reaching you
- If you receive a real major incident alert respond to the SMS and then follow the information in your speciality action card in the major incident (MI) plan. The action cards are currently being updated.
When you receive a test text message:
- Follow the instructions on the text message
- Respond to the number with the details asked of you, this allows us to monitor the inbox and staffing levels.
There are four types of messages you will receive:
- Major incident standby: This is when an incident is emerging and we may need to stand the hospital up to react to a Major Incident. This will usually be a fact finding message to see how long it would take you to attend either City Hospital or Sandwell Hospital.
- Major incident declared: This is when a major incident has been declared and we are calling for staff to return to active duty. The message will ask you to confirm your name, job role, what site you will be attending and how long it will take you to arrive. This information is vital as there may be road closures and if we have a list of staff names who are making their way to either hospital we can allocate staffing appropriately.
- Major incident stood down: This is when a Major Incident Response is no longer required and we will inform our staff that the Major Incident has been stood down, and normal working patterns will resume.
- Major incident test: This is a test message to ensure that you are receiving them, please respond with what has been asked in the message. This should occur twice a year.
Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 17 January
For a while now, we have wanted to up the ante in publicly celebrating individuals as well as teams who go the extra mile. Shout Outs have been a big success in Heartbeat and on Connect. Star of the Week is another part of that intention. Ruth Wilkin, our director of communications, was at Rowley Regis to present the first Star of the Week Award of 2020 to Caroline Ndachangedzwa, Staff Nurse on Eliza Tinsley ward. If you want to nominate someone as a Star of the Week employee, fill out that form on Connect https://connect2.swbh.nhs.uk/communications/star-of-the-week/. It takes moments.
Caroline had no idea she had been nominated and told us that she was over the moon. She was nominated by a colleague, Healthcare Assistant, Neil Smallman, who had seen the compassionate way she looked after a patient who was at end of life and their family when the patient died at Leasowes. Caroline was doing a bank shift at the time and explained how she stayed with the daughter to allow her to grieve with her father and make sure she was in a fit state to drive home. She also asked the daughter to contact her so she was sure she had returned safely. Caroline was amazed to be nominated and was quick to praise her ward leaders who she said were first class role models and supported her every step of the way.
This week Healthwatch published an important, and fairly critical, national report into how complaints are handled in the NHS and used to improve standards of care. Sir Robert Francis, who you will remember led the Mid-Staffs enquiry, chairs the national Healthwatch body https://www.healthwatch.co.uk/report/2020-01-15/shifting-mindset-closer-look-complaints
Our Trust was rated in the top 15% in the country for the transparency with which we manage and report on complaints. And commended for the information in our annual report and board papers on how complaints drive learning. For our next public annual report in June we will, as I have mentioned here before, be highlighting 100 changes made in our organisation in the last 18 months as a direct result of patient feedback. Look out for details of that in next week’s TeamTalk briefing, and there is still time for you to submit your examples! Congratulations to the team centrally involved in our complaint handling, but also to the very many local leaders who investigate, draft responses to, and act on, the complaints that we get. Every single one, through Purple Point, written complaints, or one to one comment, is a chance to see our work through someone else’s eyes, think about the impact of what we do, and consider how we adjust and shape our care to their needs.
You may have seen publicity recently about potential changes to national NHS constitution standards, including the headline “four hour” standard. The arrangements for tracking these things nationally are a matter for others, but I thought it important to be very explicit that as a Trust we will continue to collect data on and manage against the current standard, alongside any new ones introduced. Many of us worked in the service in the 1990s and before, and none of us wish to return to a model where it is possible for very long waits in emergency settings to go ‘below the radar’. The wait time of people queuing for admission is a clinical safety standard and we know that the outcome for patients who wait some time can be worse. I want to thank everyone who works hard, each night and through the day, to balance the risk of delay with the challenges of safe discharge. Over the last few years we have reduced high levels of unplanned readmissions into our Trust, such that we are broadly in line with published norms. Our quality plan has an ambition to reduce by a further 1,000 the number of people each year who are readmitted unexpectedly into our care. That is because our quality plans are ambitious about delivering standards better than the norm, typically reaching the best 25% in the NHS. You know this is all about Good and Outstanding care.
The National Audit Office published this week their latest enquiry into the collapse of Carillion in 2018. A number of media outlets carried the report, which looks at the Royal Liverpool Hospital, our own Midland Met, and the national and local response to the crisis. It must be right that we explore why this collapse happened, how we have all responded, and what we should do differently. I am pleased that the report makes no new recommendations for local action, and emphasises the diligence and determination with which our teams have worked to secure Balfour Beatty and Engie to deliver our acute centre in 2022. More and more colleagues in the Trust are visiting the site, especially the community room which overlooks the building. We want to give everyone chance to do that if we can. Before Easter we will also have available on each of our sites Virtual Reality ‘headsets’ which allow you to walk around Midland Met under your own direction and get a sense of the scale, colour and lay out of the building many people across our local system will be working in. More details to follow on that, but worth really emphasising the excitement and opportunity that the new build creates.
Last week I announced the plans from April to merge our Trust with the work of the primary care Your Health Partnership group within Sandwell. This and other changes will see around one in ten local people registered for general practice with this Trust: A big change for us from five years ago. This week we continued to work through the Integrated Care Partnership arrangements that we have in place in both Sandwell and in Ladywood/Perry Barr with formal governance arrangements being signed off. In 2020-2021 it will be increasingly important to us to work collaboratively in each “place” to try and deliver the best outcomes that we can. Initially our focus is on the impact of obesity on children and adults, on school readiness, and on end of life care.
These machinations can seem distant or irrelevant to the work many people in the Trust do. But I would hope over time, as we get practical and make real improvements, it will be easier to relate your work to that of colleagues in primary care, in social care or in the voluntary sector. Our partnering skills have brought us collaborations with Aston University, IBM Watson, Agewell, Urban Health, Kissing It Better, Walsall Manor, radiologists in Australia and the Netherlands, private companies and community gardening groups – to name just a selection. I can only see opportunity for us in the common purpose we share in each locality and I know that your ideas will be important in that.
In 2018 we used TeamTalk to ask people across the organisation what you felt was most important about joint work with GPs. Medication reviews came back at the number one answer from many of you. I am delighted that medication reviews are indeed one of the priorities for both partnerships as we look to ensure that every one has the right medication, but only the necessary medication across boundaries of care and between clinicians. Your views and voice are driving those priorities.
#hellomynameisToby
Infection control portacount training available in January
Infection control portacount training (known to many as face mask fit tester training) will be available on the below date:
- 29 January, 9.30am – 1pm – tutorial room 5, Post Graduate Centre, City Hospital
For more information and to book a date for your tester to attend, please call ext. 5900.
Star of the week – Caroline Ndachangedzwa, Staff Nurse
Congratulations go to a staff nurse this week who not only embodied our nine care promises when caring for an end of life patient but also took the time to comfort and support a bereaved family.
Over the Christmas period when many of us were at home spending time with our families, Staff Nurse, Caroline Ndachangedzwa was hard at work filling in a bank shift at Leasowes Intermediate Care Centre in addition to her usual shift at Rowley Regis Hospital. Realising that an end of life patient was deteriorating quickly, Caroline sprung in to action to ensure the patient’s family were able to spend their final moments together.
Nominating Caroline for Star of the Week, HCA Neil Smallman wrote, “I was working a shift with Caroline at Leasowes. We were upstairs working together where two palliative care patients have rooms, she identified that there was a decline in one of the patient’s health so rang the daughter, unfortunately the patient passed away but the the daughter was able to come in and spend time with them in the early hours of the morning. Caroline took the daughter into the relatives room and chatted to her for a good hour, about her parents and what they did and how they met so as Caroline put it would be ok for the lady to drive home safely. It is up there with the best bit of nursing I have witnessed in 25 years of caring.”
Accepting her award and beaming with pride, Caroline said, “It’s just part of the job, I’d do it for any one of my patients, but I want to say thank you to my colleagues, they’re amazing role models who have supported me every step of the way.”
If you have a colleague who you feel has gone above and beyond the call of duty and deserves recognition and has demonstrated our nine care promises, nominate them for the Star of the Week.
[su_box title="Star of the Week Nomination Form" box_color="#25b393"][gravityform id="92" title="false" description="true" ajax="true"][/su_box]New Year, New You: Major nursing recruitment event tomorrow at the BTC
We are holding a major recruitment event for nurses, nursing associates at band 5 and above. Student nurses are also invited to learn more about how the Trust can help with their future plans.
Taking place at the Birmingham Treatment Centre on Saturday 18 January, 10am – 4pm departments from across our organisation will be on hand to discuss what they do and how they can help new colleagues achieve their career goals and make a difference. Vacancies within medicine and emergency care, surgical services, primary care, community and therapies, and women’s and child health are all available with interviews taking place on the day for those who wish to apply. Those candidates who are successful will be given an on-the-spot job offer.
Interested parties can find out more on the NHS Jobs website at tiny.cc/nurses0120.
Job of the week: Band 8a general surgery matron secondment at Sandwell
An exciting 10 month internal secondment opportunity has arisen for an acting band 8a general surgical matron based on the Sandwell site. This role covers SAU,SEAU, Lyndon 2 and Priory 2 as well as supporting the colorectal and general Surgery CNS teams.
The successful applicant will be supported to develop and enhance their leadership skills and experience, provide a structured and bespoke programme that will expose them to a wide range of development opportunities.
The successful applicant must have a minimum of 5 years Post Registration experience, at least 12 months experience as a Ward Sister/ Charge Nurse band 7 and recent experience of working in a surgical service.
If you feel you have the appropriate skills and are interested in this post, please send a covering letter and CV to diane.eltringham@nhs.net by Monday 27 January, 4pm.
Note: Please ensure your CV includes a brief overview of qualifications and experience and a summary of what skills and knowledge you would bring to the role.
Sandwell cake sale: 20 January
If you’re a budding baker and want to join in with raising money for a good cause, or simply someone whose looking for a tasty treat, join Rowena Tayao, emergency nurse practitioner and her team for their bake sale on Monday 20 January from 9.30am – 12pm at Sandwell Hospital main reception.
All money raised will go towards Philippines volcanic eruption victims and Your Trust Charity.
For more information, contact rowena.tayao@nhs.net.
Flu Point of Care Tests now taking place in our Trust
We have now launched Flu Point of Care Tests (POCT) for acute admissions at City and Sandwell ED and Sandwell ITU.
When the decision has been made to admit any patient presenting to the emergency department with a respiratory illness and/or history of a fever and flu like symptoms, they must now be tested for flu by POCT test before transferring them to AMU or to any other wards.
Quick reminder: It takes a nurse/HCA 30 seconds to carry out the test but the analyser takes 20 mins to give the result and the test is available 24/7. The POCT analysers are linked to Unity and the result will appear in the patient record.
Flu POCT will have a positive impact on effective bed management and patient flow, effective use of isolation facilities, targeted antiviral treatment, antimicrobial stewardship and will ultimately help to prevent the spread of flu within the organisation and prevent an avoidable outbreak
The microbiology department will continue to accept samples received for flu testing from inpatient wards without any requirement for additional discussion to take place.
Colleagues should also take the opportunity to identify patients who have not previously been vaccinated by their GP this flu season, and offer them a vaccination during their inpatient stay. Please see the below process for guidance on how to administer the flu vaccine.
Lyndon 4 ward closed due to Norovirus
Due to confirmed cases of Norovirus on Lyndon 4, the ward remains closed to new admissions.
To minimise the spread of the virus, all colleagues are reminded of the importance of our infection control procedures, with a particular focus on hand washing.
Colleague restrictions are in place and only essential health care staff should visit wards during periods of increased incidence/outbreaks.
Student nurses should remain on the affected wards and not leave them to attend teaching sessions elsewhere. No medical students are allowed on affected areas. Each team/specialist/discipline should devise a plan to allow safe working whilst wards or bays are closed to reduce the risk of transmission.
Colleagues are advised to:
- Wash their hands thoroughly using soap and water and drying them after using the toilet, before preparing food and eating.
- Don’t rely on alcohol gels as these do not kill the virus.
- Colleagues should not return to work until 48 hours after their last symptom.
Managers are advised to:
- Report multiple cases of vomiting and/or diarrhoea in their team to infection control.
For more information please contact ext. 5900 or email swb-tr.SWBH-Team-InfectionControl@nhs.net or refer to guidance on Connect.
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