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Monthly archives: April 2020

Stress Relief -10 Tips to Help You De-stress During COVID-19

 

The current outbreak of the Covid 19 Virus is recognised as a major stress factor, ‘it is ok not to be ok’. You are not alone, speak To colleagues and …

Free bus and tram travel for NHS colleagues

 

West Midlands Network and Transport for West Midlands are kindly offering NHS colleagues free travel on the majority of local buses as well as the tram.

Please see Public transport sheet for details.

Note: NHS colleagues are expected to show their NHS ID when travelling in order to be granted free travel. 

Your bus pass:

Any colleague who has paid for with an existing bus pass purchased via any other channel can click here and fill in the refund form. Colleagues who pays via a salary deduction scheme does not need to do anything. National Express Bus is working with the Trust payroll to cancel bus travel deductions from your pay and National Express Bus will also refund any money owed directly to your payroll administrator to credit back to you.

 

Free AA breakdown cover for colleagues

 

AA are providing free breakdown service to and from work during the Coronavirus crisis, whether you’re an AA member or not.

If you break down travelling between home and work, call us 24/7 on your dedicated NHS number 0800 072 5064. AA will send out a patrol to try and fix your vehicle on the spot. If they can’t, they will take you to where you need to be.

For details please click here.

Note: You don’t need AA membership and you won’t be charged for calling the AA out to help. Just give us a call and show your NHS ID to the patrol when they arrive.

Food available employees on site: 7pm-7am

 

Between 7pm-7am each night chilled/frozen ready meals will be available at the following points for colleagues working long shifts with no access to catering outlets or time to buy food from a shop.

  • Sandwell Hospital: Main reception, Lyndon 5, Pharmacy link
  • City Hospital: City A&E x-ray area and near the prayer rooms, first floor near AMU2
  • Rowley Regis: First floor landing opposite McCarthy ward

Note: Supply is limited to one meal per person per visit.

These meals have been donated from companies in our community – Prestige Suite, HSK – Guru Nanak Nishkam Jatha, Jewels Conference Centre and Sabir Spice Time. All of our options apply equally to all staff including ward service officers, ward clerks, doctors in training, HCAs, nurses, pharmacists etc.

Resilience Coaching – confidential 1-1 support

 

At present many of us may be experiencing high levels of stress at work. Normally when we leave work we can go about our daily lives, unwind and relax. However, with social isolation measures currently in place this is not viable for many of us.

Resilience Coaching is a 1-1 confidential conversation and delivered using technology to make it as easy as possible for colleagues to access. For further details please click here.

If you would like to have an initial conversation to see if this might help, please email richard.burnell@nhs.net.

Heartbeat: Tea party unites patients, visitors and colleagues on D47

 

Back in late February an innovative idea by a Matron keen to bring together her wards had her patients, colleagues and visitors smiling from ear to ear as they spent quality time with each other at the first ward tea party.

D47 is one of our rehabilitation wards based within the Sheldon Block at City Hospital. Patients are admitted on to the ward as they go through rehabilitation, recovery and readiness to return home and although the ward is a happy place with patients leaving positive feedback, it has for a long time suffered in one aspect, that being isolation.

To find out more about the tea party and the thinking behind the project, Heartbeat caught up with Matron, Natalie Whitton to find out more. She said,”D47 is a single occupancy side room ward where patients have their own private space rather than the traditional nightingale bays that are commonly seen at our Trust. The downside of this is that patients have a tendency to keep themselves to themselves in their room and unfortunately isolate themselves from each other.

“We saw this issue and we were keen to do something positive, instead of pushing patients to come out to the communal areas, we thought about what we could do to get them to jump out of their own beds and want to be there and that’s where the idea of a tea party came from. It’s the carrot and stick approach, just in this case it was carrot cake.

“To bring it to fruition, we got all of the staff on the ward involved, invited carers and families in and encouraged patients to join us, before we knew it, we were down to standing room only with every seat in the communal area taken and patients from D47 and D43 keen to join in. It’s been really well received and colleagues have had an opportunity to speak to patients and their families in a more relaxed way. Not just talking about their healthcare but breaking down barriers using slices of cake and cups of tea.”

Patient Elizabeth Habberley was one of the first to take her place at the party, after having spent two weeks on the ward she was keen to meet the people around her, she said, “This is wonderful, its such a lovely idea and it’s great to be able to meet people. I have ulcerated legs so I’m not as mobile as I could be so it’s lonely being in a side room on your own all the time.”

Fingers crossed, this won’t be the only tea party on D47 as plans are already in place to make this a regular event.

Tips for anxiety

 

The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak may cause you to feel anxious, stressed, worried, sad, helpless, overwhelmed, confused or angry. It’s important to remember it is OK to feel this way and …

COVID-19 Bulletin: Monday 6 April

 

This is our once a day bulletin. This will take all national and professional guidance and information and tell you which changes we are implementing when and how. Please use this bulletin and daily cascade arrangements within clinical groups to guide local action. Remember KINDNESS is our watchword in implementing our plans.

This weekend we adapted our PPE guidance to widen the number of staff who might use visors/eye wear alongside a fluid resistant surgical face mask in red areas of the Trust.  Further specialty specific guidance will follow on Wednesday.

1. Reasonable management instruction?

The Trust is currently engaged in an immense mobilisation of everyone’s effort to deliver the best care that we can under the circumstances to the patients we serve.  In that context, individuals are being asked to work in new roles, new patterns of work, new locations, and under different circumstances with altered staffing ratios and other changes in standard practice.  We recognise how disconcerting and challenging this is.

We have in place a series of measures designed to ensure that employees are protected from inadvertent harm through unintended coercion in this process.  In basic terms there are things that is reasonable for us to ask of individuals and things that it is not reasonable for us to require someone to do.  We have a single stage appeal process for any temporary deployment arrangements.  The guidance for this is attached.  It applies to all professions.  Ordinarily leaders and managers will be asking individuals to adapt.  On rare occasions this will be an insistence covered under the contractual obligation to follow a reasonable management instruction.  It is very much to be hoped that collective flexibility will assist us all.

2. Thank you to our Nightingale volunteers

On Sunday morning we issued a short-notice call for initial volunteers to work as HCAs and nurses in the NEC Nightingale unit in Birmingham.  This is the back-up plan to our own Surge Plan.  The Nightingale must be ready when we run out of beds as the surge continues.  On that basis it is really important for the whole West Midlands.  Thank you to all who have come forward.  The initial ‘call’ is now closed.

We are assessing what is needed for the field hospital and who can be spared from our work.  That may mean that some volunteers are not released, some are, and others are delayed until later in April.  We will get everyone who came forward a reply in principle in the next 36 hours.  Training for the NEC takes place imminently.

If you have queries about the Nightingale please contact tobylewis@nhs.net

3. This week is “the start of the surge”

180 colleagues are being moved to support the opening of both D16 and Newton 1 as critical care facilities this week.  Two-thirds are now fully trained and the rest will be trained in the next 48 hours.  Thank you all.  This is a daunting and important step to keep patients safe.

Almost 200 other colleagues are being contacted to move their role into one of our community or hospital wards.  This phase of our plan is behind schedule and will need to happen at pace in the next 3 days.  We have opened almost 150 beds since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and need to work to make sure we have rosters that work in the coming fortnight.  That will require some real flexibility and adaptation.  Thank you all for working with us to make our plan work.  The scale of changes @SWBHnhs is actually bigger than the initial opening plan for the Nightingale.

If you have queries about the Surge Plan please contact Liam.Kennedy@nhs.net

4. Have you found your place yet in our plan?

50 people have responded to our volunteerbrigade.swbh@nhs.net request, and another 40 have responded to the Nightingale posting above.  Almost 400 are moving between wards.  Getting on for 10% of our workforce are changing role temporarily.

You may well be playing a key part in our fightback against COVID-19 doing that new role or doing your current job.  If you are unsure whether your current job has a place in the next 3 months of work at the Trust, do think about talking to your line manager and seeking clarity.  This includes a “final call” to discuss any underlying health issues with your line manager or HR via ext. 3116.  Later tomorrow Working From Home Guidance will be issued which will revise our arrangements as we look to move staff whose role is paused by events into new remits as part of our Brigades.  In basic terms everyone at the Trust will either be (A) shielding/isolating/unwell; (B) in their current role; (C) redeployed as above; or (D) part of a brigade.  Corporate roles that are (B) will go through a central scrutiny process over the next 10 days.

All of our arrangements will revert back at the end of the pandemic.

5. Exclusivity of service guidance

On Friday we issued brief guidance reminding colleagues that all professions the Trust is rescinding temporarily our contractual permissions to have a second or third employer, including an agency.  The guidance issued is re-attached below together with details of how to pursue individual concerns about circumstance, which will be considered over the course of this week.  The changes apply from Monday April 14th.

Exclusivity of service guidance

Star of the Week – Frieza Mahmood, Deputy Director of People and Organisation Development

 

Star of the Week goes to Frieza Mahmood, Deputy Director of People and Organisation Development.

Frieza working along her HR colleagues has been at the heart of organising our support for colleagues working from  home as wekk as colleauges who are re-deploying to support of COVID response.

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Drug Shortage Notice: Sodium Bicarbonate Polyfusor

 

Sodium bicarbonate 1.26%, 1.40%, 2.74% and 8.4% Polyfusors are due to be out of stock between early April and late October 2020.

The 4.2% Polyfusor is currently available but quantities in the supply chain are not sufficient to bridge this gap.

  • Sodium bicarbonate for intravenous infusion is licensed for the treatment of metabolic acidosis and rapid urine alkalinisation.
  • The volume, strength and rate of infusion will depend upon the requirements of individual patients. In less urgent forms of metabolic acidosis, an average dose for adults and older children is 2-5 mmol of bicarbonate per kg bodyweight, given over 4-8 hours. Subsequent doses should be adjusted to the individual patients’ requirements.2
  • Sodium bicarbonate 1.26% and 1.4% are suitable for peripheral administration. In non-emergencies, concentrations over 1.4% should be given via a central venous access device but in emergencies, higher concentrations (4.2% and 8.4%) may be given peripherally.

Please read the attached guidance for further information: Sodium Bicarbonate Polyfusor Shortage


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