Monthly archives: September 2020

Star Awards 2020: Clinical Team of the Year (Children) – vote now!

This years’ Star Awards will once again look to recognise those colleagues who go above and beyond the call of duty to help us provide great care and support to our patients.

Clinical Team of the Year (Children) is a team that has provided consistent, high quality care for children whilst meeting financial and operational targets, a team that has demonstrated best practice or has driven forward improvements in patient care or has pulled together through particularly difficult circumstances. This could include teams who care for children across our Trust settings and services, not just our specialist paediatric teams.

The nominees this year are:

• Looked After Children Team
• Neonatal Unit
• Paediatric Diabetic Team

Voting will stay open through to Friday 18 September. Please take the time to think about who has gone the extra mile and submit your votes.

Remember, you can only vote once for each category so make your vote count.

Click here to cast your vote now!

If you have any questions, please contact the communications team on 0121 507 5303 or email swbh.comms@nhs.net.

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Speak Up Day: Wednesday 9 September

As you may be aware, next Wednesday is Speak Up Day. Speak Up Day gives you the opportunity to find out about the different ways to speak up if you have a concern about safety at work. You can find out about our Freedom to Speak Up Guardians and you also have an opportunity to book a confidential conversation with one of our Trust leaders. Their availability will be published on Connect so that you can book an appointment. Our Trust has a strong track record in encouraging people to speak up and there are a range of ways that you can do this including talking to your manager, contacting a Trade Union rep, raising an incident, writing to our Heartbeat letters page, talking to a Trust specialist such as Counter-Fraud, ringing Safecall (our confidential whistleblowing line), or getting help from a Freedom to Speak Up Guardian.

Building up to Speak Up Day, each day we will be profiling one of the ways in which people can speak up. Today we are profiling the Freedom to Speak Up Guardians.

All of our Freedom to Speak up Guardians have received specialised training and are well placed to listen to issues and guide concerned colleagues on the best way to resolve those problems. This gives colleagues the avenue to be able to turn to Guardians if they want to talk about any issues they feel need addressing.

Who do I speak with to raise my concern?

We have a variety of Speak Up Guardians across the organisations – their details can be found below:

• Rosie Auld – Rosie is Head Orthoptist in Surgery though she works across all the Trusts’ sites. Email: rosieauld@nhs.net
• Ian Galligan – Ian is a Technical Supervisor in Medical Engineering. Email: galligan1@nhs.net
• Rachel Clarke – Rachel is Deputy Directorate General Manager for Primary Care, Community and Therapies. Email: clarke10@nhs.net
• Sandra Kennelly – Sandra works in the community as a Clinical Team Leader/ Occupational Therapist with Primary Care, Community and Therapies. Email: kennelly@nhs.net
• Harpal Tiwana – Harpal works in Medicine and Emergency Care as a Patient Administration Manager. Email: tiwana@nhs.net
• Sue Whalen – Sue is a Consultant in Sexual Health in the Primary Care. Community and Therapies Group. Email: whalen@nhs.net

Change to car parking at Sandwell and City

On the evening of Saturday 5 September 2020, there will be car park closures on both City and Sandwell sites to allow the construction of the new multi storey car parks to begin.

The closures are as follows

• City Hospital – The main staff car park will be reduced in size, all spaces to the right of the barriers (the area nearest the Birmingham & Midland Eye Centre) will be cordoned off. Plenty of additional parking is available at the rear of Summerfield House, around Brookfield House, at the rear of the old Laundry building and in the Sunken Gardens car park.
• Sandwell Hospital – The consultants car park will be closed completely and the outpatients car park will be partially closed. Additional guaranteed car parking spaces are available free of charge at New Square for Sandwell based staff. Please contact the Car Park Admin Office on ext. 6424 to apply for a New Square permit.

For more information on the parking provisions please contact Diane Alford, diane.alford@nhs.net

Unity Upgrade: Prescribing IV infusions issue resolved

The issue affecting the prescribing of IV infusions in Unity following the recent code upgrade has now been resolved.

Colleagues can now revert back to the business as usual process when prescribing IV infusions.

If you experience any further issues with Unity, please ensure you report these to the IT service desk on ext 4050. This service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Dr Nick’s first #Dance4Wellbeing

Get your dancing shoes on! Dr. Nick Makwana leads you through the first in a series of videos to help you get up and go. The first, for beginners, is set to Sister Sledge’s song ‘We Are Family’.

Join in with Nick on the last Friday of every month, get in the groove on your own or organise a socially distanced team event. We’d love to see pictures and videos as you try out your new moves!

For more information, contact Johnny Shah, Johnny.shah@nhs.net

Drug safety notice and supply issues

We are having a number of issues with the supply of a variety of drugs due to defects and shortages. Please see below information sheets regarding various drugs and instructions to follow due to supply issues.

• Slozem capsules information sheet
• Oxylan 40mg prolonged release tablets information sheet
• Lithium carbonate 200mg and 400mg information sheet

For more information please contact the pharmacy department (City ext. 5263, Sandwell ext. 3783).

12 months free Boundless for Trust colleagues

Boundless are offering Trust colleagues 12 months free membership worth up to £28.

Joining is quick and easy and straight away you’ll have access to:

• £220 worth of money-saving vouchers
• Exclusive deals and discounts
• Exclusive member events and activities
• Savings on stays at our collection of UK holiday properties
• Prizes and giveaways
• Inspiration for things to do with your free time
• Bi-monthly magazine packed with ideas, features and fun

Note: The free memberships are limited on a first come, first serve basis. 

Click here for details.

For further information please contact amir.ali1@nhs.net or call ext. 6148.

Latest edition of Heartbeat now online

Welcome to the latest edition of Heartbeat. Get ready to read all the latest news, updates from your area and lots of good news stories that are guaranteed to bring a smile to your face. Whether you’re on your break, taking five or putting your feet up after a long day at work, please enjoy.

This edition features Flu-per troopers stepping into action to protect against the flu, the Trust wellbeing programme and shortlisting for the Star Awards 2020.

Star Awards 2020: Clinical Team of the Year (Adults) – vote now!

This years’ Star Awards will once again look to recognise those colleagues who go above and beyond the call of duty to help us provide great care and support to our patients.

Clinical Team of the Year (Adults) is a team that has provided consistent, high quality care for adults whilst meeting financial and operational targets, a team that has demonstrated best practice or has driven forward improvements in patient care or has pulled together through particularly difficult circumstances.

The nominees this year are:

• ICU Therapy Team
• Palliative Care Team
• Respiratory Physiology Team

Voting will stay open through to Friday 18 September. Please take the time to think about who has gone the extra mile and submit your votes.

Remember, you can only vote once for each category so make your vote count.

Click here to cast your vote now!

If you have any questions, please contact the communications team on 0121 507 5303 or email swbh.comms@nhs.net.

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Single site weekend working pilot project in pharmacy continues this weekend

To improve patient safety and operational efficiency, pharmacy have introduced a pilot of a single site dispensary service, at the weekends based at City. The dispensary at City will process work for all of our sites and therefore Sandwell dispensary will not be manned at the weekends.

This will be a pilot project running until Sunday 19 September. Our weekday service will continue as normal during the pilot.

To help facilitate single site working and minimise the number of stock items ordered at a weekend, the ward based pharmacy team will be reviewing CD and stock medications on a Thursday and Friday and ordering in advance of the weekend.

AMU on both sites will be receiving a full clinical ward service to help ensure patient safety at the front door. The Sandwell AMU Pharmacy team will be based on AMU A at Sandwell from 11am – 4pm and will be contactable via bleep 5752 to ensure that any clinically urgent requests needed at Sandwell are processed in an appropriate time period. We will also have a clinical pharmacy team based on AMU at City from 10am – 3pm.

Stock can be ordered through the ad hoc stock order form located on the intranet home under connect referrals (under the COVID ward status). CD orders should be dropped off by 1.30pm in the CD book dropbox in the Sandwell pharmacy out of hours room. Urgent issues should be referred to the onsite clinical team on bleep 5752.

Note: Pharmacy at Sandwell will remain contactable on weekends via bleep 5752 as above.

For more information please contact emma.archer@nhs.net or simon.plant@nhs.net.