Monthly archives: April 2020

Stress relief – 10 tips to help you de-stress during COVID-19

The current outbreak of the COVID-19 is recognised as a major stress factor. ‘It is okay not to be okay’. You are not alone – speak to colleagues and friends, most people are feeling some degree of stress at this time.

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

If you want to talk to someone about the way you are feeling, if anxious or feeling stressed, please ring occupational health on 0121 507 3306 and we can arrange for an accredited counsellor to call you. The service is free, and confidential.

Jawad Khan appointed Director of Medical Education

Message from David Carruthers, Medical Director:

“I am delighted to announce that Professor Jawad Khan has recently been appointed to the position of Director of Medical Education in the Trust. Jawad replaces Dr Chilvers who left earlier in the year.

“As many of you will know, Jawad is a consultant cardiologist, having been at SWB for 10 years and has a wealth of experience in education, particularly simulation training. Jawad has taken a lead in delivery of interdisciplinary simulation training programmes and more recently has been our lead for development of the undergraduate medical programme with Aston Medical School. His broad educational background and drive to develop medical education as we prepare to move to the recently renamed Midland Metropolitan University Hospital makes Jawad the ideal appointment for this post.

“I am sure you will support him in building on the strong educational reputation of the Trust as we go through the challenges of the next few months. Working with our existing and new partners while preparing for the University Hospital make this a highly exciting time for the whole medical education team.”

Heartbeat: Stroke of good fortune at recruiting event

Valentine’s Day was a busy one for everyone at our organisation – but not all the action took place at the site of the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital.

At the same time as our relaunch event at Midland Met, back over at Sandwell Hospital, members of our existing nursing team were welcoming people who may one day be a part of the team that works at our ‘super-hospital.’

Members of the stroke services team were on hand to speak to prospective candidates as part of the Trust’s latest recruitment day. The event aimed to fill a number of roles across a team which has an expansive development plan for 2020; as it reorganises and further develops the services it offers. One such project is the new SWAT team – thankfully not an armed response unit, but rather the newly formed stroke wellbeing activity team operating out of Sandwell. Over the course of the day, a number of the team spoke to nurses, students and HCAs that were interested in either applying for roles, or finding out more about the service. They also provided lots of information about flexible working practices, what the team does and its plans for the future.

“I’m delighted to say we made a number of offers over the course of the day and are adding four band 5, nurses, to our amazing stroke services team”, Lead Stroke and Neurology Matron, Jo Thomas told Heartbeat. “Going forward we know there’s a lot of work to do. We have several projects that we look forward to working on over the year. It’s our goal to make the service and its staff the very best – this is just the first step towards achieving that.”

Star of the Week – Ru Hazarika, Service Planning and Delivery Manager

This week’s Star of the Week goes to Leanne Ru Hazarika, Service Planning and Delivery Manager of the improvement team.

Ru has played an instrumental role in setting up the Sandwell PPE Hub, has volunteered for daily PPE distributions to wards, has been a cleaner for two days and has volunteered for portering and is getting trained to do fit testing. She has been a real example to the rest of the team and to other members of the Trust about how much you can support the COVID-19 work in a non-clinical role.

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Tusker virtual roadshow: 29 April

With the Tusker car benefit scheme you have access to a huge range of brand new cars that come complete with motor insurance, servicing, road tax, maintenance, replacement tyres and RAC breakdown cover, for a fixed monthly amount.

Tusker are often asked about how the scheme works, particularly around tax and NI deductions as well as about 0 per cent BiK on Electric Vehicles. With this in mind Tusker have put together a short, free webinar so you can find out how you can benefit from incredible discounts and enjoy easy motoring.

There are two sessions running on Wednesday 29 April at 11am and 8pm.

Register for the free webinar by visiting the link and you will be sent all the details for the webinar https://thing.tuskermarvel.com/info/sign-up-for-our-emails.

For more information around staff benefits at the Trust, please contact amir.ali1@nhs.net.

COVID-19 Bulletin: Sunday 26 April

This is our every single day bulletin. Please use this bulletin and cascade arrangements within care and corporate groups to guide your actions. Remember KINDNESS is our watchword in implementing our plans. In the rest of April and throughout May we are determined to reduce avoidable harm and death in the people we are taking care of.

The Sunday Times ran a story about NHS organisations avoiding letting pregnant employees work at home. Although we are were not named in that story there may be confusion about our policy: We have implemented the RCOG guidance which would support pregnant colleagues working from home (and being paid). If you are finding that impossible to agree locally, dial 3116 and ask for help. The guidance did change nationally. We implemented that some time ago.

Numbers not statistics: Today’s totals (Yesterday’s totals)

Number of our patients confirmed with COVID-19 during the Pandemic	Number of positive COVID-19 positive patients who have been discharged during the Pandemic	Number of patients who have died in our hospitals who tested positive for COVID-19 during the Pandemic	Number of patients entered by the Trust into a COVID-19 research trial to date	Number of COVID-19 positive patients who are inpatients with us today	Number of our staff absent due to ill-health or isolation today
923 (916)	518 (510)	276 (275)	73 (73)	129 (131)	645 (657)

1.Going live tomorrow: Recording proning on Unity

We are working every day to save lives. One of the recommended ways that we can make a difference to outcomes is to ensure that we consider proning in our acute medicine and general ward environments, as well as in Intensive Care. We issued guidance on this a fortnight ago. Now we are tracking live how we are getting on.

The Quick Reference Guide (QRG) has now been developed to enable the recording of the Awake Prone Position (APP) in Unity. The QRG describes the steps you need to take using the APP PowerPlan. Please make sure you read this guide so that you can record when patients are receiving this intervention. If you have any questions about our Proning Policy please contact Chief Nurse, Paula Gardner.

2. Mental health support: 250 volunteers!

Thank you to everyone who has stepped forward to offer to support your colleagues not just during COVID-19, but in the long term. This is, as we know, a marathon not a sprint!

What happens next? (nominations have closed…)

All accredited managers in the Trust will be undertaking virtual training in the next 6 weeks in supporting mental wellbeing conversations. Our senior People and OD team are all being trained in the next fortnight to be the trainers for that work.
60 volunteers are being selected to be our first wave Mental Health First Aiders. Based with 30 departments these teams will provide support, in work time, to colleagues. Their training will take place in the first fortnight of May. You will hear if you have been selected over the next three working days.
Our TRiM team (giving up six days a year) will be trained in late May, and you will hear if you have been selected for that before the end of April – as we need to confirm time release with your line manager.

3. Lilac is – still – coming….

On Friday we advertised the idea that, with empty beds, and volumes of care reducing, plus much faster test turnaround, we would be changing our bed pathways in both hospital and community beds. And we will be doing. On Saturday NHS England published advice requiring Trusts to start testing asymptomatic patients on admission and all inpatients on discharge. We plan to do this from Tuesday April 27^th.

Extensive discussions have taken place this weekend to finalise our model and we expect to announce that in the COVID bulletin tomorrow. We need to consider:

Which patients go into a lilac ward on each site?
What are the PPE and other staff safety considerations in that ward or bay?
When we re-test patients who have tested negative for COVID-19?
What happens to patients in the blue stream who develop symptoms?

We will let you know more tomorrow. But the point for today is maybe this:

Whether you are red, blue or lilac, the focus on hand hygiene and social distancing is the same…..

4. Sign up to plasma donations: Science wins…

As part of the national research effort against coronavirus, the NHS Blood and Transplant Service are leading a programme to collect plasma donations from people who have recovered from COVID-19. Donations of plasma will be used as part of a treatment trial to establish whether COVID-19 convalescent plasma, that contains antibodies against the virus, benefits patients and at what point in their illness they should be treated.

We are contacting our many COVID-19 positive safely discharged patients. But we have many staff who have also tested positive, recovered and returned to work. We need your help!

If you have had a positive test for COVID-19 or have had symptoms you can help by registering to donate plasma at the Birmingham centre. Read more about the trial and how to donate here.

5. Red brigades – the teams….

Over 75 staff are part of our red brigades. If we are honest there is not a uniform for this one. No yellow vest, just pride and hard work.

On Tuesday all our volunteers and those whose roles have moved them into this brigade will get a note confirming which team you are part of. Here’s the teams:

Working in your clinical group to support contacting waiting list patients to help them
Working with primary care to contact shielding patients to plan their forward care and behaviour as the country moves on from total lockdown
Joining a specialist central team like infection control or our mortality review team to make sure our Covid-19 care is outstanding
Providing ward associated support to ensure that we are contacting families and loved ones to keep them updated on our patients care, and we are doing the right data collection at ward level on key issues like the Safety Plan

Mel Roberts is working with our clinical groups to marshal these plans. We will be in touch over the next couple of days.

You will be aware of publicity associated with local community concerns over the care of members of the Black and Minority Ethnic community. Our Deputy Medical Director, Sarb Clare, has been discussing these concerns and her reflections are in this short film.

https://youtu.be/_gNprqm1-TE

Star of the Week – Ribena Akhter, Paediatric Consultant

This week’s Star of the Week goes to Ribena Akhter, Paediatric Consultant.

Ribena is known for always going above and beyond and more importantly supporting her colleagues. This was evident when Ribena was one of the recent on call consultants when the Trust had to create new donning and doffing areas in our blue and red COVID-19 areas and played a pivotal role ensuring many of our wards could adapt to these changes out of hours.

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COVID-19 Bulletin: Saturday 25 April

This is our once a night bulletin. Please use this bulletin and daily cascade arrangements within care and corporate groups to guide local action. Remember KINDNESS is our watchword in implementing our plans. It is also our way of keeping in touch with shielders, home workers, part-timers and volunteers. You are on the team. Thank you!

Testing key workers and their household members if they have symptoms remains a vital part of managing the Pandemic. Appointment slots at the regional test centres (including the facility at Midland Met) are being booked up rapidly but more slots are opening up daily. Remember that our own testing continues at Sandwell, City and in the community for you and family members so call 0121 507 2664 option 5 to book.

1. Looking after your health and wellbeing

We have regularly shared the range of health and wellbeing support that is available to you that has been extended to help us all deal with the impact of the Pandemic on our mental wellbeing. You can see all of the help and advice here – some is specific to our Trust and other support listed is for all NHS workers. To pick out a few that might help:

Meet up with someone for a virtual coffee. Email letsgettalking.nhs.net
Are you feeling stressed? Look at these top 10 stress-relief tips.
Do you need to talk to someone? Book a free confidential appointment with an accredited counsellor by calling 3306.
Individual resilience coaching can help. Email burnell@nhs.net to see if this is for you
Review the suite of wellbeing films and podcasts in our dedicated online library

One size does not fit all so speak up if there is something you need that is not currently available. You can email lawrencekelly@nhs.net – we want to hear from you.

2. Doing extra shifts: Our bank rate promise

Thank you to everyone who is doing additional shifts, over and above your normal hours supporting departments where staff are absent due to ill-health or self-isolation. We have increased some of our bank rates including the payment for nurse roles where five or more bank shifts are booked as follows:

An increase of £4.50 per hour for all band 5 and band 6 nurses who book 5 shifts between 1^st April 2020 and 31^st May 2020
An increase of £2 per hour for HCA’s who book 5 shifts between 1^st April 2020 and 31^st May 2020
£2 per hour for all AHP shifts, until 31^st May, regardless of how many booked

These enhancements are allocated via the Bank Team. To book a shift contact the Trust Bank on 0121 507 3600.

3. Ramadan Mubarak: Trust guidance

Additional prayer facilities are available across the Trust in order to maintain social distancing and support colleagues who need to remain on their wards. The list of all facilities is here. Please use the tissue rolls on prayer mats and dispose of them after use. For help and advice contact the Muslim Liaison Group on swbh.mlg@nhs.net or the Trust’s Muslim Pastoral contact Kamruzzaman on 07956683674 / akm.kamruzzaman@nhs.net.

4. Proning patients: Recording on Unity coming soon

Proning patients with COVID-19 may reduce the need for a critical care admission. Our guidance on awake proning is here that covers length of time, positioning and the importance of consent. Next week we will be making a change to Unity so that proning can be recorded by using the Awake Prone Position (APP) PowerPlan. Once tested and implemented we will share the Quick Reference Guide (QRG).

Numbers not statistics: Today’s totals (Yesterday’s totals)

Number of our patients confirmed with COVID-19 during the Pandemic	Number of positive COVID-19 positive patients who have been discharged during the Pandemic	Number of patients who have died in our hospitals who tested positive for COVID-19 during the Pandemic	Number of patients entered by the Trust into a COVID-19 research trial to date	Number of COVID-19 positive patients who are inpatients with us today	Number of our staff absent due to ill-health or isolation today
916 (902)	510 (501)	275 (268)	73 (72)	131 (133)	657 (653)

COVID-19 Bulletin: Friday 24 April

It is really important right now that we try and develop confidence in the local community that the NHS will cope when they ask for our care. And really important too that we commit ourselves to science in recruiting to research trials to find the best treatments. For the avoidance of doubt, nonsense about 5G spread or disinfectant injections are exactly the kind of gobbledegook we should be very public about rejecting. If people will believe in anything, they believe in nothing: We need them to believe in us. Let’s trust in the work we are doing.1. The magnificent 7: SWB survivor stories

You know that the Trust is not spinning. There is feel good and feel awful in the COVID-19 situation. The human beings who have lost their lives are recorded below and each is an individual tragedy. Toby’s Friday message today wrote about one such death.
But it is also important we honour those whose lives have been saved by your care and skill, and by their own resilience. We have been publicising some survivors from all our local communities, including some staff from the Trust. It is important we recognise these good outcomes, and maybe for loved ones at home and for family it will help us to manage the fear they have each time we come to work.

2. Talking openly about deaths among BME staff

More than 4 in 10 of our colleagues come from Black or Minority Ethnic communities. The Trust strives to be as wonderfully diverse as the populations that we serve. Yesterday we we explained the work we have done on data from the Trust, from across the city, and national data on deaths with COVID-19. That shows a clear link to age and gender, and a close association to hypertension and (less so) to diabetes. Chizo Agwu, our deputy medical director, has been leading work to analyse and make sense of our local data. Her film is here.

What is clearly true is that NHS wide the majority of care workers whose deaths have been reported have come from BME communities. The Trust is working with professional associations to make sure that we implement their recommendations and suggestions, alongside the work we have done from the start of the Pandemic. We know that BME colleagues have accessed tests in good numbers, proportionate to, and in fact above, the overall demography of our workforce. We believe our PPE is available to all. As ever get in touch if you have concerns. We want to work to resolve them by making changes.

3. Here’s another PPE reminder

The guidance has not changed. The PPE is stocked and ready for you. What matters now is using it when it is needed in our marathon. And using it right.
Dr Mark Anderson, GIM consultant, and Deputy Medical Director, has a short update he wants you to listen to!

4. Lilac is coming…

Over recent week we have worked to make sure that we all clearly understand the meaning of our Blue and our Red areas. Over the next few days, we will be introducing a small number of Lilac areas. These will provide a place for people with low likelihood of COVID-19 but some remaining professional suspicion. It is important that our infection control practices remain consistent in all our areas and that we remain vigilant to the reality that all of us may spread this virus, even if we are asymptomatic. Look out for the guidance and timetables over the weekend.

5. Red and blue – ensure you use the correct lifts to transfer +COVID patients

Our lifts have been clearly marked as either “red” for +COVID or ?COVID patients, or “blue” for those patients who do not have COVID-19 symptoms. Please make sure that you use the correct lifts yourself when moving around our hospital sites and particularly when transferring patients who are moving between “red” areas. These patients should only be using the dedicated red lifts.

Numbers not statistics: Today’s totals (Yesterday’s totals)

Number of our patients confirmed with COVID-19 during the Pandemic	Number of positive COVID-19 positive patients who have been discharged during the Pandemic	Number of patients who have died in our hospitals who tested positive for COVID-19 during the Pandemic	Number of patients entered by the Trust into a COVID-19 research trial to date	Number of COVID-19 positive patients who are inpatients with us today	Number of our staff absent due to ill-health or isolation today
902 (885)	501 (489)	268 (262)	72 (69)	133 (134)	653 (650)

The Connect Coronavirus page is continually being updated with the latest news and guidance regarding the virus, please take the time to read and familiarise yourself with the available guidance.

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 24 April

I am not a marathon runner (nor a sprinter since you ask). In fact endurance sport is not my thing, except occasional scratchy slow cricket innings. But I reckon this is the stage of the marathon where there is less attention paid. The crowd drifts away. There must be something else to focus on. The runner can only hear themselves. The whole thing is repetitious. Samey. The PPE guidance has not changed for a whole week! Handwashing is still the key point in Mark Anderson’s videos. Social distancing is still the paean; in parks, buses, canteens and staff rooms. And that’s my point. The difference between the lives we could save and the modellers’ curve is measured most in our willingness now to have habits and stick to them until they rub and blister. Over and over again. Oxygen prescription. Making sure someone’s relative is able to talk on the phone. Proning by guidance. Rest for our patients, and some for you too. Communication loses its novelty. Samey. Certainly.

So yesterday Chizo Agwu, David Carruthers and I presented your care outcomes to the Birmingham Health and Wellbeing Board. Sometime this weekend we will enrol all our data in the NIHR trial looking to understand BAME outcomes with COVID-19. This morning we had the Board’s Quality and Safety Committee. This afternoon I represented the NHS on the Mayor’s West Midlands Regional Briefing. All of us in all those settings trying to find the right balance between reassurance and learning, between candour and calm. There has been a horrifying drop in people seeking healthcare (heart attacks, strokes, sickle cell pain management). Over 300 people last week would not let an ambulance take them to hospital in our region, when a skilled paramedic triaged them to come. It’s evident and obvious we need to make it clear that you can safely come. We can manage the COVID-19 infection control. We do have PPE. So even if concern before was understandable, we need now to change the narrative. We – you – have learnt over six weeks how to balance this. That’s why you are amazing.

On the other hand, how do we save lives? Ignore the lockdown ending talk. B&Q opening. Hairdressers, not yet. Forget us opening wards or shutting beds. Set aside the Nightingales for now. In June we will look back on late April and early May and consider three things uppermost, I believe.

First and foremost did we do everything we could humanly do to help our care homes, our prison, those in sheltered accommodations and refuges, sectioned patients, and those in vulnerable settings? I hope you share my pride at the incredible work our community teams, our PPE procurement team, and others are doing to cut through red tape and obfuscation and just get stuff where it needs to be. Giving not just kit but advice, not just expertise but compassion. This categorically is who this Trust are. It’s the pride that brings me to work.

Second, did we push testing, with tracing? The strategy is late. It’s ham-fisted in parts. Infuriatingly so. But evidently we need to build a community resilience that creates confidence on the system, confidence that we can manage the virus, a belief that scientific study, not societal stereotypes, will define who carries and spreads COVID-19. So we carry on with on-site testing, home testing, Midland Met testing, taxi servicing people to tests, providing whatever help we can to get people tested. If you know someone who might meet the key worker definition, point them this weekend towards the web-booking system the Government tried to launch today.

Thirdly and finally, and perhaps most significantly, did we do all we could to put the best treatments the way of every Sandwell and each City acute admission from day 0? Was our escalation outstanding? So thank you in advance to our AMU teams, to trainees, to nurses and GIM consultants, ITU and respiratory teams taking the calls. 268 people have died in our care with COVID-19. All-cause mortality is up. The next six weeks are about how many individuals we save, how many families we help to protect. I am not appealing for effort. Effort seeps out of all of you. I am asking for innovation and for precision now. Making sure consistency of care is our very best.

Our Brigades do bring effort. But it’s clear this week across yellow, green and blue, that they also bring insight. Opening eyes to what our porters do. Giving ancillary teams a sense of parts of the Trust they might not know too. There have been some wonderful messages, shout outs and thanks all week between those signing up and those helping their new apprentices. Our Star of the Week this week is Ru Hazarika. A member of our Improvement Team, she has been at the forefront of getting started within our Green Clean Squad. She has spoken about being welcomed, what the work entails, and the difference it can make. Like a number of other colleagues, I am sure the mixing of teams will make us a stronger, more empathetic organisation for the coming decade. Congratulations to Ru, who role modelling social distancing in the sunshine admirably too.

This week we have also turned our attention to the SWB survivor stories. Seven tales of people who have made it past COVID-19. Drawn from all backgrounds, communities and ages, staff and residents. I think I thought I was going to end this week’s message by telling their story. Because hope counts. But instead I want to echo the thanks of a family of one deceased patient, Amrik Singh, who died in City this week. A man who campaigned on racism all his life, and who raised thousands of pounds for charity, not least by running 26 marathons. His son told us that “recognition to the staff at City General Hospital in Birmingham who poured their hearts into helping him, we can never repay the kindness you showed and the support you offered when we were unable to visit him. Heroes.” I did not know this gentleman, and I do not include him here for his eminence, although quite clearly from his biography he lived a remarkable and impactful life. I wanted to add his story to many others to acknowledge the gratitude I hear from families for what you are doing, and to put one more human face to this Pandemic amid a welter of numbers and statistics.

Look out for Heartbeat next week. Packed with stuff you need to know. Stories of colleagues doing the right thing. Learning from excellence too. On Wednesday we will repeat our COVID-19 WebExs at midday and at 5pm. On Thursday at 8pm here’s another #clapforcarers. This time next week I will be writing about COVID-19. Samey too. We get up and do it again. And that’s the next few weeks. Resilient. Honest. Caring. Thank you for doing this. For finding a smile on your patient’s face and in your colleagues’ eyes. Local people trust you. And rightly so.

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Monthly archives: April 2020

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