Monthly archives: August 2020

Are you interested in a free e-bike loan for three months?

Take part in a study to monitor health and wellbeing improvements by commuting with an e-bike.

You will also be provided with a helmet and fitness wearable device to monitor journeys to and from work.

To register please email info@ebikebrum.com.

PPE Hubs at City and Sandwell are now closed

The PPE distribution hubs have been experiencing significantly reduced activity over recent weeks and the decision has now been taken to return to normal distribution led by the procurement team.

A continued daily delivery of PPE will continue for those areas already receiving such. Any new areas requiring a daily delivery can email the Procurement Team and this can be set up as required. Please email Lisa.Southall1@nhs.net.

An additional ‘adhoc’ delivery service will also be established with the procurement team.

For Sandwell please email swbh.ppe-bryanknight@nhs.net
For City please email swbh.ppe-d18@nhs.net

Star of the Week – Nicole Miles

Our Star of the Week this week goes to Nicole Miles, Charge Nurse.

Nicole Miles has been described as ‘a breath of fresh air on the neonatal unit’. During the COVID-19 restrictions Nicole introduced V-Create to the neonatal unit, enabling colleagues to take photos and videos of our youngest patients and send them to their parents when they are unable to come in. This aids close and loving relationships, reducing parents stress and anxiety during an already hard time for them.

Nicole is a great advocate of family integrated care, educating colleagues and patients on developmental care optimising the babies brain growth and development.

Do you know someone in your team that has gone above and beyond the call of duty? Why not put them forward for Star of the Week by clicking here.

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 14 August

I start this message with an urgent ask of all colleagues, and that is to adhere to the rules of wearing a face mask at all times whilst in clinical areas of our main hospital buildings. Where social distancing is not possible then this remains important during handovers, breaks and with ward based teaching. Hand hygiene is equally important. The reason for this is clear, we need to remain vigilant against the transmission of COVID-19 and do everything we can to keep our patients and colleagues safe from infection. Complacency is our enemy, so we must all work together to continue to fight the spread. I think we all recognise the burden of wearing PPE, including face masks, during the recent heat wave, and I would like to thank everyone who has continued to do so in order to prevent further spread. It is a kindness to endure a burden in order to protect others.

I have spoken about kindness in this message in the past, and I’d like to take the opportunity to share some feedback from one of our patients who recently experienced our emergency services. She said: “I was taken to A & E after falling on my face. During my time there which was over five hours the care I received was 100% by each member of staff, with kindness, respect and much more. Just appreciate that the NHS is there for me. Had a number of tests which reassured me after the fall. Thank you all the staff that treated me and other staff on A & E. for being there for everyone.” When we read messages like this, it demonstrates how important kindness is, that it defined this patient’s experience and inspired her to record it in writing.

Today saw the launch of ‘Why Weight?’ – the healthy weight element of our wellbeing strategy. Some of you may have joined in the Webex launch hosted by Head of Your Trust Charity, Johnny Shah. In it he talked about all the opportunities for colleagues to get involved and get fitter and healthier with the support of their colleagues and the Trust. Johnny advised how to access our new health and wellbeing calendar and how to dance with Dr Nick Makwana as he hosts weekly online dance classes every Friday for an hour from 1pm. If you missed today’s launch you can find how you can get involved and registering your interest on Connect.

We were delighted to hear on Thursday that we have now achieved financial close on our two multi-storey car park developments at City and Sandwell hospital. Thanks go to Jim Pollitt and Chris Archer for their work on securing this alongside our partners Q Park and Prime. The new car parks when built will provide safe and secure car parking for staff and visitors with increased electric vehicle charging points for colleagues and visitors. However in the short term we will experience disruption to car parking on the Sandwell and City sites during the construction phase. If you use our car parks please be patient while they are being built. The construction will start with small scale work on 1 September building up to full construction towards the end of September with the demolition of the SCaT building at City and the staff accommodation block at Sandwell.

Just another reminder that from tomorrow (Saturday 15 August) our car parking barriers will be back in use. Earlier this year we raised the barriers and suspended car parking charges for staff, patients and visitors in response to government guidance and risks associated with COVID-19. Unfortunately this has seen an increase in both inconsiderate parking and security incidents in our car parks. Parking remains free until further notice, however staff with valid parking permits must only park on designated bays on staff car parks. Staff who park at New Square are asked to resume doing so. Much like the one at City, a new afternoon car park for staff working late shifts opens at Sandwell tomorrow – the car park at the back of Trinity House. Parking is allowed between 11.30am and 8am (the next day) only. Vehicles must have left by 8am – vehicles parked outside of these hours may incur a £50 parking charge. With today’s Why Weight? launch, this may be a good time to consider alternatives to driving to work, such as using public transport, E-bikes, cycling to work, or car sharing if that is an option for you.

Next Friday (21 August) Sandwell Council launches its online Jobs and Skills event, showcasing the range of support available to find employment or enter training for our local communities. The event will include information of interest to residents of all ages and career stages. If you know of someone who might be interested in this please tell them to search the council’s website.

Finally, big congratulations to our Star of the Week – Nicole Miles – who has been described most eloquently as ‘a breath of fresh air on the neonatal unit’. During the Covid-19 restrictions Nicole introduced V-Create to the neonatal unit, enabling colleagues to take photos and videos of our youngest patients and send them to their parents when they are unable to come in. This aids close and loving relationships, reducing parents stress and anxiety during an already hard time for them. Nicole is a great advocate of family integrated care, educating staff and patients on developmental care optimising the babies brain growth and development. Well done Nicole.

David Carruthers, Acting Chief Executive

Visiting inpatients – current restrictions remain

We are taking a cautionary approach to ensure that we can continue to minimise the risk of transmission of COVID-19 so our current visiting restrictions remain in place.

As a reminder, visiting inpatients is only permitted for one person at a time for patients who are at end of life and those with limited mental capacity, one parent/guardian of a child and birthing partners in maternity, as well as other exceptional circumstances. Please make a reasonable local judgement regarding the time you allow for each visit.

Please continue to encourage the use of mobile devices/tablets for families to keep in touch with their loved ones.

We recognise the challenges that are faced by colleagues whilst implementing these restrictions and we want to thank everyone for their support in enforcing the current visiting arrangements. Over the next few weeks we will begin the process of looking at how we can safely ease visiting restrictions.

Go Paperless – A new digital drive to transform clinical documentation

This month we see the relaunch of the Unity Go Paper-less project which is focussed on moving the remaining clinical forms and records which are still recorded on paper in our hospitals and clinics over to a digital solution.

Colleagues are being encouraged to come forward and share their processes and forms with their group representatives with the aim of declaring any remaining paper clinical documents by  Friday 14 August.

To find out more about the Unity Go Paper-less project, contact Essie Li on email, Essie.li@nhs.net

Annual QI Poster Contest

Have you introduced any quality improvement initiative or process that has increased patient safety in your department or on the ward?

If your answer is yes, then why not submit a poster to #welearn QI Poster Competition and be in with a chance to win a share of £5,000 prize money!

The third annual weLearn Quality Improvement Poster Contest is now open. This is an opportunity for teams and individuals to have their quality improvement work and innovation celebrated and recognised, plus the chance to win a £5,000 prize awarded to the entry judged as the best by an esteemed panel. Prizes will also be available for ‘highly commended’ posters and the one that gets the popular staff vote. For more information see the annual weLearn Quality Improvement Poster Contest guidance on Connect.

Entries are encouraged and welcomed from everyone – those who work with patients or provide non-clinical support. Colleagues should not be put off if poster creation and design is not their thing because help is available –  the library services team can talk through ideas on content and medical illustration can provide support to design and produce the poster.

If you need help with your submission or designing your poster, you can contact the Library team and Medical Illustration team via swbh.welearnposters@nhs.net

More details are available on Connect: https://connect2.swbh.nhs.uk/governance/welearn/welearn-poster-competition/

The final closing date for poster submissions is 16 October. Posters will go on display in November before the winners are announced at an awards ceremony on 3 December in the Education Centre at Sandwell General Hospital.

Pulse Upgrade: Wednesday 19 August – 6am

Our remote access system will be being upgraded on Wednesday 19 August to ensure we are up to date with the latest software.  The work is scheduled to begin at 6am and should be completed by 8am.

Pulse will be fully available during the upgrade; however at next log in colleagues will be prompted to allow the installation on their machines.

This is an official pop-up and is safe to upgrade so please install the upgrade next time you see the prompt.  This will ensure that your service is up to date and we will be able to support you remotely.

Upgrading may require applications to be closed.

If you have any further queries then please contact the IT Service Desk on Ext 4050 or 0121 507 4050 for home workers.

Unity tip of the week

This week’s tip of the week comes from Caroline Burgin, Head of Complaints and focuses on how to correctly log patients’ belongings on Unity.

We are encouraging colleagues at all levels across the Trust to suggest any quick wins or top tips they have for using Unity in their ward, area or department.

All suggestions are welcome so please get in touch! The best suggestions will be featured in our Unity Tip of the Week every Wednesday on Connect.

If you have a tip of the week please send it to swbh.unitytips@nhs.net.

Heartbeat: New assessment to help reduce the impact of stress

Our workplace is launching a new way of completing stress risk assessments in addition to the retrospective assessments that happen when colleagues are feeling stressed and or have been off work with stress. This new assessment is able to be taken proactively at the same time of year each year to check the stress levels in departments and to drive interventions to reduce stress.

The new assessment tool is available as an e-form that can be found by looking for the green button on the right hand side on the Connect homepage. The form takes a few minutes to complete and is sent confidentially to the wellbeing hub. The wellbeing hub will not forward information to your manager without your consent.

The stress risk assessment is designed to identify employees who require additional support and to have supportive conversations through the wellbeing hub to decrease the impact of stress in those high risk areas.