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Monthly archives: April 2020

COVID-19 Bulletin: Saturday 18 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!

Yesterday we issued local amended PPE guidance that was specific to settings, to procedures, and to patients.  It drew a distinction between unstable and stable patient contact, as well as between red and blue risk interactions.  Copies of that guidance are now on the wall outside most clinical areas Trust-wide.

For the avoidance of any doubt, the Trust wants you to have the PPE you need, wants you to speak up if you are worried or missing something, and whilst we follow Public Health England guidance we will override and go beyond it if we believe local circumstances merit local solutions.
 1.     Time to focus now on your wellbeing

Please make sure you are taking time to consider how you are getting on.  The intensity of work is quite overwhelming.  Over 200 patients have died in our care.  Distance and PPE can blur the contact we associated with care.  Colleagues are ill or absent.  Everyone is worrying about someone.  We need you to be concerned about you too.

Our extensive SWB offer is summarised on Connect, and on My Connect there is a specific page devoted to wellbeing. Click here to find out more.

There is a well-regarded and useful NHS-wide resource, which can be accessed here.

This NHS wide offer includes a helpline number which includes signposting and support to lots of different pathways, including domestic abuse, mental health, coaching and bereavement support  and a 24/7 text number. The helpline number is 0300 1317000 or text frontline to 85258

2.   Social distancing matters very much

Two metres apart.  In lunch queues.  On garden benches.  In your office.  During handover.  On the bus.  It’s ok to challenge people standing too close to you.

You may work in an environment where you feel social distancing is almost impossible.  For example, the room where you do handover in critical care may be too small for the number of people now working there.  Speak up.  Ask you line manager what can be done, make your suggestions or get in touch with Rachel Barlow or Toby Lewis.  We want to find solutions where you work.

3.   Managing and mitigating risk – a Board priority

Our silver plan – to gear up for the surge – is now widely understood in the Trust.  The gold plan charts our work on Exit and then Recovery.  The timing of these is dependent on second and third surge, and decisions being considered in May nationally.

Part of our work to prepare for the longer term is to make sure that we have strong Risk Mitigation for the likelihood of downstream difficulties.  This might cover obvious things like Oxygen supply, really complex subjects like psychological wellbeing, plans for training of staff and students who have their careers and rotations changed, and how we re-start work like PDRs, or key services like day surgery.  The Trust’s Risk Management Committee is still meeting regularly, and there is an expectation that local teams will pay attention to risk registers and issues arising from incidents.  If you have concerns or ideas get in touch with Kam Dhami, our Director of Governance.

4.   If you are symptomatic or isolating off work you need to be swabbed…

Thank you to everyone who is back at work. We are down below 10% absence, which is an extraordinary effort. Thank you too to those shielding. Remember you must provide us with the documentary evidence to support your shielding decision. We want to support you.

Just over 80 colleagues are away from work with now and not yet swabbed.  Most are off work isolating for another household member.  We need to get you tested this weekend or Monday, so please respond to our contact.  The Trust is flush with testing and are working to make sure that key workers in our partner agencies get their tests done soon.

5.   We are still looking for 60 Mental Health First Aiders!

The Trust already has some mental health first aiders, as well as  wider psychological support offer in place associated with the Pandemic. As advertised yesterday we now want to scale up that support in each frontline department, and to provide key staff with specific TRiM training to tackle issues like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which are predicted to arise in coming weeks and months. A training package has been purchased and is now in place.  We are looking for volunteers to be considered for this role.  The advert can be accessed by clicking here.  Training will start in coming days, with more intensive training for the TRiM work taking place in May.

You will know who your local mental health first aider is – because soon their photographs will be on the wall where you work. It is ok to talk about mental wellbeing.

 
Numbers not statistics: An everyday feature of our bulletin (yesterday’s data..)
 

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
822 (801) 431 (419) 235(231) 50 (48) 156 (151) 671 (715)

 
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.

COVID-19 Bulletin: Friday 17 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!

On March 14th we revised our visitor guidance. This prevented all face to face visiting to our wards and departments, like A&E, other than in certain exceptional circumstances (end of life care, birth partners, and lack of capacity). We have issued specific End of Life Care guidance limiting access to two family members. This guidance remains the Trust’s policy. 

Each ward has specific technology in place to support video-enabled contact with relatives and we positively encourage that access to tackle isolation and anxiety.

Numbers not statistics: An everyday feature of our bulletin (yesterday’s data..)

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
801 (780) 419 (399) 231(224) 48 (43) 151 (157) 715 (744)
  1. Easy to read PPE guidance issued

Tomorrow the Trust will again see new posters plastered making sure we understand what PPE to wear, where and when. Importantly, staff on the same ward may be wearing different PPE and that is ok.

The guidance clarifies existing practice based on questions asked by staff over the last fortnight. Remember we can get you the PPE you need. Please speak up if you are missing out.

The guidance is listed below and applies now

2. Could you be a Mental Health First Aider?

The Trust already has some mental health first aiders, as well as  wider psychological support offer in place associated with the Pandemic. As advertised last week we now want to scale up that support in each frontline department, and to provide key staff with specific TRiM training to tackle issues like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which are predicted to arise in coming weeks and months. A training package has been purchased and is now in place.

We are looking for volunteers to be considered for this role.  The advert can be accessed by clicking here.  Training will start in coming days, with more intensive training for the TRiM work taking place in May.

You will know who your local mental health first aider is – because soon their photographs will be on the wall where you work. It is ok to talk about mental wellbeing.

3. Food is for everyone!!!

We are all touched by the generosity of local people, charities, trade unions, schools, and businesses offering donations of equipment, face and hand creams, and food as we work. You are kindly reminded that such donations are for everyone. Trust volunteers, ward service officers, ward clerks, therapists, doctors and nurses… nothing given to us is ever ‘just for..’.  Likewise our donations are being actively spread across our primary care, community location, hospital and other settings.

Meanwhile, consistent with our values and approach, we are working to ensure that where appropriate such donations reach communities-in-need locally.  If you need advice on how to support this work at a time of wage loss, spikes in universal credit, and unemployment, please contact the Trust comms or Your Trust Charity team.

4. Rainbow brigades go live in the sunshine

Lots of staff from across the Trust have now volunteered to take part in temporary redeployment into key support functions. Others’ roles mean that they have time to take up these opportunities too. Today our induction process started for two of the five teams:

YELLOW PPE WARDENS:  Key roles making sure not only that everyone has what they need, but uses it right. Thank you to everyone on the team. Your High Vis is coming….

GREEN CLEANING SQUADS: Supporting our amazing Ward Service Officers by providing additional touch-point cleaning time to ensure that door handles, communal areas, and others parts of all our sites are cleaner than ever.

More detail follows next week on red and purple teams, which will include colleagues shielding and working from home. Remember if you are either shielding or working from you must be registered on the Trust’s database. Failure to register by April 21st will be regarded as absence without leave unless you are formally isolating or otherwise off sick.

Click here for latest brigade guidance.

5.   Managing anxiety – everyone’s responsibility

From the start of the pandemic we have all emphasised to one another the need to manage our own, our patients’ and our families’ concerns. This last week has seen elevated national concern about the disproportionate number of BAME key workers who have died with Covid-19, and – as we discussed in QIHD yesterday – national and local data about critical care and hospital deaths which also showed some difference by age, gender, co-morbidity and ethnic background.  Within the local Black-British community in western Birmingham some specific concerns have been raised, linked in part to some accusations made on social media which are, quite simply, wrong. A formal statement responding to these falsehoods is on the Trust website. The Trust is working with individual families, local community leaders, universities and the local authority to ensure that we separate facts from myths and address concerns as they arise.

It is worth remembering that what we say as individuals can help or hinder understanding by a patient, family or wider community. In particular we need to remember how very many people have been discharged safe and well from our red-stream care, and the truth that blue-stream patients remain query Covid-19 patients – as all of us should behave as if we are spreaders of this virus.

Dr Sarb Clare, who leads our acute medical teams at City Hospital, has made a short film reminding all of us, and our loved ones’, of the process of Covid-19 assessment that we undertake.

 

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 17 April

 

I am going to start not obviously on COVID-19, but as I wrote last week everything sort of is – with worryingly low levels of presentation for other symptoms and conditions, and people waiting at home and asking for help late. Our Safety Plan is an important part of checking our quality of care once someone does come into an acute setting. I can see renewed improvement back to our August 2018 peak in compliance with our 24 hour assessment checks. Thank you to colleagues who have really focused on this in recent days, and I recognise that with new wards and new teams, it will take a few days next week to get our habits clear. At a time when COVID-19 could distract from other concerns, it is even more important that we get this right.

Safety Plan LT As at 12th April 2020

Earlier today I met our outpatient respiratory physiology expert team, or rather some of them. They are now working on D15 and D17, our respiratory hub that you will remember we created late last year as part of the steps towards our new hospital. I was on the ward to present the whole team with the Star of the Week prize for this week. Amina Mohammed humbly accepted on behalf of her colleagues this well-deserved recognition – strongly supported by nursing and medical nominations.  This is a team who have turned upside down what they do every day to share their expertise with new colleagues in new settings. This week I emphasised in my update the need for us to focus on novel or new approaches to the care of COVID-19 patients, the better to perhaps tackle the mortality rate. Evidence evolves about the role of oxygen therapies and NIV, and the Trust is part of several such trials. Respiratory medicine, as you might expect, are central to our efforts to tackle avoidable harm.

Last Friday we code-named our work to tackle COVID-19 as Operation Mary Seacole. That reflected not just her qualities as a nursing role model, but our acknowledgement that much data was showing disproportionate incidence and harm in certain ethnic groups, as well as differences by gender and by age. In truth all of those things may be markers of underlying differences in health conditions associated with poverty and exclusion. This week, especially at City, we have been involved in some difficult discussions with individual families worried by national and local media narratives, by the real data as they read it, and by incendiary comment, some of it viral and untrue. At the same time, it is clear that deaths among staff from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds are elevated and a national enquiry has rightly been launched. I want to emphasise to you my confidence that our care is good and that in particular allegations of racism in how we choose patients for specific wards are false and indeed scurrilous. But I also believe that we need to face honestly, and based on the data, the real concern that we have, and that many in the community will share. To that end I am pleased that the local health and well-being board for Birmingham are bringing experts together next week to ensure that we share our data and our insights to date.

We went into Easter weekend opening beds and services. This week ends with a larger critical care unit and some general beds closing. It ends too with a Nightingale launched to the east and with a concerted effort nationally to support care homes. Locally that has been our focus from the start.  From the start we have offered PPE at discharge and worked with partners to make sure that discharge happens safely. Those efforts continue. We do not know where in the Surge cycle we now are. Our best guess is lower and slower, demanding the endurance I mentioned in my bulletin. With that in mind thank you to our clinical re-deployees, and to those who have now started in our Brigades. Blue porters yesterday, yellow PPE wardens, and our green clean team. That last one is the team I will be doing shifts in, and I want to express my gratitude to those doing the same. Next week we will get mobilised with our red and purple teams, which will include those working from home or shielding.

On Wednesday we organised our very own clap. Three dozen colleagues joined us outside the BTC to thank those businesses who have stood with us so far. I know from the messages I have seen since from firms how truly moved many were by your appreciation for what they are doing. I have mentioned poverty already in this message, and the financial impact of lockdown and of COVID-19 is emerging as we wait. To have strong relationships with local and regional businesses can only help our work on employment, good housing, and health. I ended today in discussions with local authorities, the combined authority, and others about regeneration at City Hospital after Midland Met opens, and in the canal corridor up to Rolfe Street. The Trust intends as you know to play a central role in bringing partners together to develop our area and to tackle exclusion. Wealth we see as intrinsic to good health. Strong communities in Winson Green and Smethwick are part of where we draw staff from, this and next generation, as well as those we serve.

Work does carry on at Midland Met: Equipping choices, design clarifications, some construction programmes. However, consistent with our absolute determination to push the scope and pace of testing, we have handed the car park site off Cranford Street over for a test centre. Right now that is run by the private sector, and we are working to see how a public/private partnership might enhance its agility and effectiveness. It is important that hot spots like the prison environment, and priority groups like local bus drivers, have ready access now to testing, as we move towards a potential tracing phase. Surge is followed by exit, and exit by recovery. That is why moving our cancer services and some maternity services off site has been a key step for us. Haematology has gone to Halesowen!

Let’s end with a hint of normality – car parking. A staple of my Friday messages. In April in your payslip you won’t be charged. But just as significantly this last week both councils, Birmingham and Sandwell gave planning consent for the new car parks we are building. Current estimate would see opening in 2021 as we strive to provide enough spaces for use, whilst encouraging alternative travel now and in the future. Electric vehicle points are at the heart of those changes, just as we plan for our fleet to go green this year. Well done to Jim and Chris for dragging this, thus far. I know that car parking and IT are always near the top of your list – we managed a whole QIHD on WebEx. Pinch yourself.

Shuttle bus service running this weekend: 18-19 April

 

There will be a shuttle bus service running Saturday 18 April and Sunday 19 April. Times as follows:

  • From City the shuttle will be running on the hour. The first bus leaves City at 7am and the last bus leaves City at 5pm.
  • From Sandwell the shuttle will be running on the half hour. The first bus leaves Sandwell at 7.30am and the last bus leaves Sandwell at 5.30pm.

Travel survey – are you currently using public transport?

 

We know that it is vital for our colleagues to be able to get to work. with this mind, to help West Midlands Network ensure sure appropriate transport services are available we would be grateful if you complete this short survey.

You can access the survey by clicking here.

Contacting independent domestic violence advisor

 

Due to COVID-19 victims of domestic abuse may struggle to get help/ answer or make phone call or leave the house to access services. That is why if they do attend ED/hospital then this maybe both theirs and ours only opportunity to access/offer support.

The ED independent domestic violence advisor service is still supporting victims that come through ED. They can be contacted on 07823336964 (Sandwell) and 07989843233 (City).

Alternatively, you can contact the safeguarding team on ext. 2844 Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm and a

Note: It may not be safe for the team to make contact with a victim once they have left ED or hospital. If this is the case and it is safe to do so could please give them any of the Black Country Women’s Aid contact details listed below:

  • Text/WhatsApp referral option: 07384466181 (messages checked Monday-Friday, 9am-9pm)
  • 24-hour helpline: 0121 552 6448
  • Email: idva@blackcountrywomensaid.co.uk (messages checked Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm)

Extended on site counselling service

 

Our occupational health service currently offers a free and confidential counselling service. The contact number is ext. 3306. You can ask for a counselling appointment and leave your phone number and a counsellor will be in touch.

Drop in appointments can be accessed via one of the Trust’s accredited counsellors.

A drop in, on site counselling service is available throughout the week and including weekends:

  • Linda – 07973664125

Available up until 12 midnight at weekends:

  • Tony –  07970225929

Clinical restorative supervision – a free support session for nurses and allied health professionals

 

  • A safe and confidential space to explore the impact of work pressures
  • An opportunity to discuss the challenges faced and new ways of working
  • Time out to reflect on your work/life balance
  • A chance to explore feelings, concerns or worries
  • Someone to challenge your ideas and ways of thinking to help improve outcomes
  • Way to help reduce stress levels
  • Opportunity to encourage and enhance good working relationships
  • Self- care and signposting to psychological support services within the Trust
  • Clearer way of thinking, improvements to your general wellbeing and the service you provide
  • Improving emotional well- being at work

For bookings or enquiries please email jenny.wright9@nhs.net or call 0121 507 3848.

Note: Sessions are available at the Sanctuary, the Learning Works, Unett Street, Smethwick, B66 3SY

Free lunches from Mecca Bingo and Grosvenor Casinos with Blue Light Card

 

Mecca Bingo and the Grosvenor Casinos have joined forces with Blue Light Card to offer a free lunch (worth up to £15) to Blue Light Card holders in a bid to say thank you for your hard work and dedication of colleagues at the Trust.

To qualify colleagues with Blue Light Card membership must log into their account to receive an Uber Eats offer code, and their meal will be delivered in participating areas between 11am – 3pm. Those who aren’t currently members can alternatively easily register by visiting www.bluelightcard.co.uk and then access the deal via the same process.

 

Communicate better and faster with WebEx

 

Do you need to communicate with colleagues in a secure way? If you are using some of the recently popular applications like zoom or Whatsapp you may not be aware that these are not secure, and therefore not suitable for use in a clinical setting.

This is why we have introduced Cisco WebEx Teams across the Trust (in preference to using Microsoft Teams). It provides secure instant messaging, allows sharing of information and files in secure team spaces, and secure video conferencing. It works on both your mobile and your computer.

We hope many of you have benefited from the introduction of virtual meetings during this challenging time via WebEx and will take the opportunity to use Cisco WebEx teams to support communication across your teams.

Please see the guides below for further information or contact the IT service desk on ext.4050 for an account.

 

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