Skip to content Skip to main menu Skip to utility menu

Monthly archives: January 2020

Cancer services seeking nail varnish donations

 

Do you have any usable nail varnish going spare? Our cancer services are currently seeking donations to support their annual cancer wellbeing fair activities. Any colour is welcome but please ensure they are in usable condition.

Donations can be dropped off at cancer services, Hallam building, Sandwell Hospital.

Please bag and clearly mark ‘nail varnish for cancer services.’ If you wish to donate any varnish, please do so by Wednesday 20 May.

For more information please contact Jenny Donovan on ext. 2776.

Heartbeat: Going behind the lens with Mr Manish Pandit

 

By day, Manish Pandit is a Consultant in Nuclear Medicine. He’s also an honorary senior clinical lecturer at the University of Birmingham and a senior academy tutor with City Hospital. When he isn’t working in the department, he can be found wielding a camera, following his other passion, film producing.

Manish uses his film making skills to provide information about Trust activities and to promote public health. He said: “The work I do about our Trust resonates with my thinking about humanity, it has to be served. This is my way of doing my bit and I’d like to do much more.”

When asked how he finds time to fit this all in alongside his day job he said: “I record videos for free in my own time at weekends. If it’s something I can film at one of our sites I’ll try and do some filming on my lunch breaks.”

Manish’s work includes filming, editing and uploading seven Grand Rounds at Sandwell Hospital. He also directed, filmed and edited the iconic NHS 70 film that celebrated the 70th anniversary of the NHS. As well as this he’s recorded the annual meeting of the British Nuclear Medical Society and, produced a well-received film about lung cancer. This film was shown by the Sandwell and West Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group at meetings across the UK.

When discussing the lung cancer film, in particular, Manish said: “I have the equipment and motivation to make these films. If one person is saved by watching this film then I’ve done my job. The message has to get out there. I will continue to use what I’ve learnt for the betterment of people.” He went on to say, “Film making is all about teamwork. I have been lucky to work with the wonderful people on the cancer services team and I hope to do more work with them in the future.” Manish began film making 12 years ago. Outside of work the films and documentaries he makes have quite the cult following. Focusing on his interests – astronomy and religion, some of his films have accumulated over 1.1 million views on YouTube alone. They have been shown as far away as Brazil and at film festivals in Germany and the United States. He commented that “it has been a steep learning curve to make movies that people will like.”

Earlier this year Manish walked away with the coveted Star Award for Volunteer of the Year. He said that he “wasn’t expecting to get the award” and that it’s made him feel “recharged and invigorated to do more.”

He’s currently working on some nuclear medicine films for posterity and would like to do more filming with other teams around our workplace.

Body tone classes at City with Clive: 14 January

 

No booking required just turn up – free to all colleagues. Every Tuesday commencing Tuesday 14 January, 5pm – 6pm, Ellis House, City Hospital gym.

The class offers effective and fun exercises that will keep you fit and your motivation high. The exercises aim to give your body an all over workout and welcome all levels of fitness. They’re a combination of cardio resistance and core exercises.

Note: Colleagues do not need an induction to attend the free class or membership of the gym as this class is separate. Access will be by supervised by Clive, the Instructor.

Please contact clive.mellis1@nhs.net for more information.

Samsung mobile phone drop in sessions

 

Do you have a Samsung smartphone that is starting to show it’s age? Slow to load your email or not quite working the way you expect it to?

The telecoms team will be running drop in sessions across the Trust throughout most of January where you can pop along to and get them to fix any issues with your Trust mobile phone.

The team will be at D29, City Hospital this week on the following dates and times:

  • 15 January – 8am – 4:30pm
  • 16 January – 12:30pm – 4:30pm
  • 17 January – 8am – 4:30pm

If you have any questions about the drop in sessions, contact the team on 0121 507 5134.

If you’re unable to attend any above of the sessions and would need to back up important information on your Samusng device, please see guides below:

 

International year of the nurse and the midwife: Rose Butler

 

Today marks the start of International Year of the Nurse and Midwife, a campaign by the World Health Organisation in honour of the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale.

Nurses and midwives play a vital role in providing health services in our workplace. They devote their lives to caring for mothers and children; giving lifesaving immunisations and health advice; looking after older people and generally meeting everyday essential health needs. They are often the first and only point of care in their communities. Throughout the year we will be highlighting some of our nurses, HCAs and midwives who are making a difference to our patients.

Today we are featuring Rose Butler, staff nurse who has worked at the Trust for over 55 years.

When Rose was told there was a man waiting to see her outside the ward at Sandwell Hospital she was left intrigued.

As she stepped into the corridor, his face seemed familiar and it dawned on her he was the son of a patient she had nursed a few months earlier.

Cradling a baby in his arms, he showed her the little girl and told her: “Hi I’m Terry, and this is your namesake. I brought her all the way from Newcastle so you could meet her.”

Rose remembers the moment fondly. “I was so overwhelmed and honoured that Terry had named his baby after me, because of the care I had given his father when he was being treated on Lyndon 5.”

Do you now a nurse, HCA or midwife who is gong above and beyond to deliver quality care? Contact the communications team swb-tr.SWBH-GM-Staff-Communications@nhs.net

Blood collection training

 

There will a blood collection training session in the pathology department at Sandwell Hospital between 9am – 4pm on the below dates:

  • Monday 20 January
  • Thursday 13 February
  • Tuesday 25 February

Note: Training sessions will take 10 minutes. This training is mandatory for ward based HCAs who have not attended training since March.

To book your training and for more information, please email Michelle.Reeves1@nhs.net or Jayne.Evans1@nhs.net.

Extended opening hours at BTC Costa

 

The Costa Coffee outlet in BTC will be trialling extended hours opening every Saturday from 9am – 2pm  as well as extending its weekday opening hours to 7.30am – 5.30pm.

The outlet offer a range hot breakfast items, hot and cold beverages, hot and cold sandwiches
as well as jacket potatoes.

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 10 January

 

The start of any new year will always come with a mix of new and same old, same old.

Across our children’s wards, emergency departments, district nursing teams, therapy teams and our adult wards we have had to work incredibly hard to safely discharge people and to admit folk arriving. At times, as neighbouring Trusts have struggled, it can feel as if we are ‘bailing out’ partners, although in truth this must always be about quality of care for an individual patient. Thank you for your hard work and for your judgement in trying to find a balance between the safety of the patient we know and the needs of the patient not yet assessed. We will continue to work through how we can maximise the incredible home and community service teams that we employ and maybe begin to alter mind-sets a little about who can best be cared for with support outside our hospital. That includes in February a changed expectation corporately about how rapidly people at the end of their life on a Supported Care Pathway move from acute beds, if that is their wish. Fast track must mean that. Consultant physicians made a powerful case last Friday that this an area where we have to do better if we are to live up to our vision of integrated care and we will act on that in the weeks ahead. Get in touch with Mel Roberts if you want to know more.

Heartbeat: Patients breathing easy after relocation of respiratory hub

 

Our respiratory service was recently transformed with the development of a respiratory inpatient hub which moved all inpatient respiratory care under one roof at City Hospital on wards D15 and D17.

The development of the respiratory hub at City Hospital has now meant that patients who have a respiratory condition that is expected to result in an inpatient stay longer than two days will stay within the newly formed respiratory hub.

Outpatient clinic appointments remain running at both Sandwell and City Hospitals with specialist consultants and the respiratory team continuing to see patients who are admitted through to the assessment units or wards at Sandwell Hospital.

Sharing his thoughts on the development of the new hub, Respiratory Consultant Dr Arvind Rajasekaran said: “The development of the new respiratory hub at City means that our respiratory beds are now together on one site so for patients who need to stay in hospital, they will be able to be seen more quickly and by the most appropriate clinician. Reducing delays in treatment and having specialists on hand will inevitably improve patient outcomes and also reduce length of stay.”

“Reconfiguration of services of such a scale required careful planning and over the past several months we engaged and worked with several teams both within and outside of our organisation.

This is a time to reflect on this hard work and acknowledge the impact of all of the colleagues who have made this possible.

I would like the specifically thank the patient forums for their suggestions and my clinical colleagues who have changed their working patterns to make this a reality.

Special thanks are also due to the Emergency Department team, Estates, West Midlands Ambulance Service, IT and the Respiratory Hub project team.”

Heartbeat: Ward competition highlights importance of medicines safety

 

During the end of 2019, we celebrated International Medicines Safety Week across the organisation.

International Medicines Safety Week focuses on safe use of medicines and reporting of adverse drug reactions, particularly in patients on multiple medicines. The awareness week is recognised across the globe every year and is usually celebrated during the last week of November.

To help increase awareness of the safety week, our pharmacy department hosted a drop in session across Sandwell and City Hospitals around the topic of medicine in general. They also addressed medicine safety concerns of both colleagues and patients.

“The events were a great tool for our team to inform our staff, patients and visitors of the importance of medicines and the yellow card reporting scheme” said Suki Tagger, Lead Pharmacy Technician.

“Both our Sandwell and City events played host to a medicine safety quiz which gave anybody in attendance the opportunity to be in with the chance win a prize. The quiz was made up of pharmacy and medicine related questions which all aimed to increase knowledge around medicine and what we do whilst keeping everything fun. Also, congratulations to Dean Lavender who won first prize in the individual quiz.”

Wards that were unable to attend any of the events were encouraged to participate in the ‘survival of the safest ward challenge,’ a medicine and pharmacy focused competition targeted at clinical wards and departments. The completion was designed to bring colleagues together, all in massive effort to get everyone involved across the Trust.

Christopher Anton, Administrative Coordinator in pharmacy believes the week was vital as it reminded people about implications of drugs. He said: “Clinicians should always be alert to the possibility of an adverse drug reaction in their patients and Medicines Safety Week is great at drawing attention to this, the existence of the regional yellow card centre in the Trust and the work of pharmacy in promoting medicines safety in general.”

← Older items Newer items →