Monthly archives: February 2020
Dementia training for HCAs and students
We offering dementia, delirium, distress basic awareness training for HCAs and clinical based students on Tuesday 17 March in the Postgraduate Centre dining room at City Hospital.
For booking and information please contact Tracy Mansell on 07971753091.
Safari park discounted tickets
West Midlands Safari & Leisure Park have kindly offered Trust employees discounted ticket prices on admissions and rides.
To book tickets please visit www.wmsp.co.uk/corporate and enter the authorisation key “82e31b7c19fe98b5486e96f06f066d49” when prompted
Note: Tickets expire on 6 November and all tickets must be booked at least 24 hours before your planned visit.
For full details including terms and conditions, please see corporate partner scheme.
If you require any further information regarding staff benefits please contact amir.ali1@nhs.net.
Support Your Trust Charity and critical care
The critical care team will be completing a 10k muddy obstacle course know as the Wolf Run on Sunday 5 April to help raise funds for Your Trust Charity but more specifically, the critical care trust fund. The trust fund helps developing and train colleagues to provide patients with equipment and resources outside the realms of the NHS budget constraints. The team have a big focus on patient rehabilitation and are working with supportive services to provide the best care to our long term patients in their recovery from critical care and beyond.
If you wish to support the team, you can visit their fundraising page by clicking the link below:
Join our health and wellbeing calendar
All colleagues can now view the latest health and wellbeing events information by accessing the health and wellbeing calendar.
You can do this by following the instructions below:
If you are using Outlook:
- Go into Calendar
- Home Toolbar
- Click open calendar
- Under name type “swbh.healthandwellbeing”
- Click OK to open calendar
If you are using NHS Mail:
- Click calendar on the blue top bar
- Right click “My Calendars” and click open calendar
- Type in “swbh.healthandwellbeing”
- Click open to view calendar
If you have any enquiries please do not hesitate to contact Jatinder Sekhon/Emma Williams on 0121 507 3306, option 4.
Eat Well and Costa Coffee loyalty cards – get yours today
Eat Well loyalty card:
Our catering department have introduced a new loyalty card for Trust colleagues. Simply spend over £4.20 to get a stamp. Once you collect 9 stamps, you will get £2.50 off your 10th purchase.
Note: This particular promotion is not valid on Costa products. Only one completed card to be redeemed on your 10th purchase. This voucher has no monetary value and cannot be exchanged for cash.
Costa Coffee loyalty card:
From 2 March we will be stamping our Costa Coffee loyalty cards with an Eat Well stamp. After 5 April, we will only accept completed loyalty cards with the Eat Well stamp rather than the Costa Coffee stamp.
For more information please contact michael.best@nhs.net.
Heartbeat: Acute paediatric physiotherapy team embrace the advantages of Unity
Ahead of the introduction of Unity, most teams understandably had a few concerns about the way their established practices and routines would change. The acute paediatric physiotherapy team were no different but soon got on board and discovered some major benefits.
“We’ve found Unity helpful. We’re a team that has both inpatients and outpatients, so there’s been a lot to overcome with using it in the two services. Inpatient-wise, we’ve found viewing and progressing the patient easier in terms of being able to access their records remotely rather than having to physically go to the ward and check their notes. That’s been quicker, which has benefitted us,” says Sophie Baggott, the clinical lead for acute paediatric physiotherapy.
“A large proportion of our service is outpatient-based so we’ve used Unity more in that capacity. We’ve been able to develop the auto-text function quite quickly. Whereas we used to have a paper assessment form, with everything written down in boxes, we’ve been able to create auto-text so we can populate the form quickly.
“We’ve been able to make it bespoke. We would have had a whole assessment form before but now we can just use the relevant parts so it’s more concise. It’s tailored to the patient, which is better, and with the auto-text, you can just do it in a couple of clicks. You’re not typing everything out each time.”
As well as helping to save time and speed things up, Unity has improved communication between clinical and administrative colleagues, as Paediatric Physiotherapist, Lucy Styles explains.
“We’ve found the scheduling page useful. If one of the patients rings our admin staff to say they’re running 10 minutes late, the notes section is really helpful. That’s been helpful to pass messages between us and admin.”
Lucy and the rest of the team have even found that Unity allows them to plan ahead. The better prepared they are, the smoother their working day runs.
“In the morning it’s quite nice to come in and see who’s in the clinic. You can put all the auto-text in and put what they’re coming to see you for. Then, when you’re seeing the patient all the information is already there and you’ve just got to type what the patient tells you and what you find. You can prepare for your whole day in advance, which is good.”
Long term, as more information is entered into Unity, other benefits will become apparent. “As time goes on it will be a lot easier to look at past appointments, whereas before on CDA you’d have to click on one scanned image and then scroll down and find your next one. You’d end up with multiple tabs open whereas once Unity’s more populated it will be easy to just click and see everything right there. You can then have your notes next to it at the same time.”
Do you have an idea for a digital ambition?
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Cold Weather Alert
There is a cold weather alert currently in place affecting the region which could increase the health risks to vulnerable patients and disrupt the delivery of services. Colleagues should refer to the Severe Weather Plan for appropriate preventive action.
For individuals the cold weather plan recommends:
- Dress warmly with layers; take warm food/drinks regularly; keep active
- If you have to go out, take appropriate precautions
- Check on those you know are at risk
Please consider this in your work and as individuals. Looking after vulnerable people in the community prevents additional hospital admissions.
As individuals, please consider making sure you follow the guidance and that you promote good care for friends and family during this time.
Heartbeat: Benefits grow with growers market growth
The benefits available to members of our organisation continue to increase as does the focus on healthy living with the forthcoming addition of a new fruit and veg stall for colleagues to acquire fresh produce.
Colleagues based at the Rowley Regis and City hospitals are likely aware that there is already a stand that allows staff to get their ‘five a day’ run by an external company at these sites, but not at Sandwell General Hospital. This will soon be changing after a partner for the Sandwell area was found to run the service.
“We’re pleased to announce that soon colleagues at Sandwell will be able to get their daily healthy food fix courtesy of a fruit and veg stand which will be open from Monday to Friday 8am until 4pm. This joins the stands already available at Rowley Regis and City Hospital,” explained Head of Engagement and Retention, Amir Ali.
“When it comes to benefits at our organisation we try to keep things as balanced as possible with services and schemes available at all our major sites. This is especially true of our healthy living benefits, with the City gym site getting an overhaul at the end of last year and now Sandwell joining its fellow hospitals with a healthy eating partner.”
Please keep an eye on the daily internal bulletin for details of when the scheme goes live.
World Book Week book sale: 4 March
To celebrate World Book Week, Your Trust Charity will be hosting a book sale on Wednesday 4 March at Sandwell Hospital main reception, 10am – 12pm to help raise vital funds for Paediatrics Trust Fund.
Note: There will also be a raffle during week with a variety of book hampers to win. If you wish to enter, please call Joanne Maher on ext. 3684.
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