Monthly archives: November 2020

Unity tip of the week: Use Patient Timeline to track daily inpatient results, vital signs and medication

This week’s tip of the week has been suggested by Dom LeGros, Solution Lead – Unity EPR:

Use the Patient Timeline to easily track daily inpatient results, vital signs and medication.

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.

Virtual sessions for coffee and a chat around alcohol

It’s Alcohol Awareness Week and colleagues will be able to take advantage of some one-to-one time with members of the alcohol care team.

One member of the alcohol care team will be having a Zoom virtual coffee and chat with colleagues who feel they would like to talk about any issues they may have.

The virtual sessions are running daily this week between 2.30pm – 3.30pm, see access code and password below:

Meeting ID: 950 4599 0419

Meeting password: ACT123

Note: This meeting is hosted via the Zoom platform. You will need to visit https://zoom.us/join and enter the above details when prompted.

For more information or if you are having any issues joining this meeting please contact s.morgan10@nhs.net or call 07967760189.

COVID-19 Bulletin: Tuesday 17 November

To keep up to date with the pace of change we will be sharing a bulletin on a daily basis. There’s a lot of change taking place at the moment so please make sure you catch up with the latest bulletins throughout the week, as even if some points seem familiar you may find the details have been updated a great deal.

During this second lockdown period, we must ensure we look after ourselves and others within our community. Make sure you keep in touch with those you love and your neighbours. People may well be feeling anxious, lonely and scared at this time.

Thank you for looking out for one another.

1. New: Palliative Care and the Supportive Care Plan

We all have different ideas and thoughts about how we would want to be cared for in the last months and days of life. Clinicians can access the supportive care plan to do this, which is an end-of-life plan that is used to ensure that anyone with an advanced life-limiting illness receives the best possible care during their final days. It ensures that their wishes are at the centre of all decision-making in the last months, weeks and days of their life.

It is set out in a document, in either paper form (for community colleagues), or electronically (Unity or SystmOne1) which is used by healthcare professionals as a guide to how care is planned and delivered. The document shows healthcare professionals how they can consider, with the patient, if some treatments are beneficial or not and to plan care appropriately. There is a guide clinicians can refer to in order to help with those decisions.

Colleagues are able to access further guidance about how to fill out the document correctly on Connect.

2. Updated: Face masks to be worn in all Trust buildings at all times

The Infection Prevention Control team at City Hospital is preparing for a visit tomorrow from the Health and Safety Executive, which will involve the inspectors checking how we are ensuring safe working in light of COVID-19 including social distancing, safe working spaces and use of PPE. This will include visiting a number of areas at City Hospital – both clinical and non-clinical. As we have previously mentioned, it is essential that you wear the right PPE, whether you are in a clinical or non-clinical settings, such as an office, catering venues or whether you are simply walking in the corridor.

This is alongside social distancing and stringent hand hygiene.

Face masks should be worn in all Trust buildings at all times.

 Steps for all colleagues to take:

1. All colleagues will need to wear a fluid resistant surgical face mask while inside all SWB buildings. Masks are available at the welcome stations in the main entrances to each clinical building. Alternatively departments can order and collect masks from stores.
2. A mask needs to be worn throughout the duration of the time spent in the SWB buildings.
3. When leaving work it is essential that masks are disposed of safely when finished. In non-clinical areas they can be disposed of in a black bag waste bin. PPE disposal process in clinical areas remains unchanged. Remember to maintain frequent handwashing/ sanitising at all times.
4. Face masks must be worn at all times unless you are working in a room on your own. If you leave that area for any reason, you MUST immediately wear a mask. This includes corridors, communal areas.

Wear your mask properly

Masks only work if they are worn properly, we have all seen people wear masks in some truly bizarre ways.

The instruction here is simple – your mask should cover your mouth and your nose.

Protecting your skin from damage beneath PPE

If you are finding that your masks are uncomfortable or are causing you issues with your skin, please take the time to read the helpful guidance produced by the tissue viability team for colleagues to protect and treat skin from damage beneath PPE.

3. Reminder: Hand in your scrubs and get a chocolate bar in return

Have you been stockpiling scrubs at home or in your locker? If the answer is yes, then now is the time to offload and hand them in, as we’ve launched a scrubs amnesty running today, tomorrow and Thursday between 10am and 3pm.

No questions will be asked, each and every staff member who returns scrubs will earn themselves a delicious chocolate bar. Yes – that’s right a CHOCOLATE BAR!

Currently we do not have sufficient sets of scrubs to meet the increase in demand as many have been stored and stockpiled by individuals, contrary to Trust policy.

A drop off point is now available in the main reception at Sandwell Hospital where returned scrubs can be deposited and once laundered will return back in to circulation.

The systematic supply and laundering of the scrubs is dependent on staff returning them at the end of their shift pattern, when people take scrubs home or store them in their lockers they remove them from our stock and deplete the numbers available for circulation, putting a strain on supplies and our ability to provide scrubs where they are required.

Please support us by taking scrubs to the drop off point at Sandwell Hospital main reception next week, and earn yourself a tasty treat for your journey home.

No scrubs rules:

• No scrubs should be stockpiled in lockers – they must be laundered regularly on site
• No scrubs should be worn in undesignated areas
• No scrubs should be binned, they should be deposited in to the blue trollies situated on the links and in departmental areas
• No scrubs should be worn outside the hospital or while travelling to and from hospital or taken home for laundering. By doing so you are putting yourself, your family and the public at risk.

Remember, when the amnesty is over, managers and colleagues alike will be challenging colleagues they see arriving or leaving work in scrubs.

4. Reminder: Microbiology – change of routine test provision

Due to the pandemic, Black Country Pathology have temporary reduced their test repertoire. They have now ceased processing samples of limited clinical value, with the caveat that they retain the ability to test individual samples if, after discussion between clinicians, it will have impact on the patient’s clinical management.

1. Mycology – toenail clippings and skin scrapings will not be processed for microscopy or fungal culture. Treat patients on clinical grounds.

2. Sputum samples – these will only be processed for specific locations such as critical care, respiratory wards/clinics and immunocompromised patient areas such as Haematology/Oncology. Please manage other patients clinically.

3. Urine microscopy and culture – The majority of BCPS sites had to suspend microscopy early in the pandemic. They now need to suspend culture of clear urine samples. These will be reported with a comment “Urine clear. Infection unlikely. Consider repeat or empirical treatment if symptoms change.” They will only continue to process pre-operative urology urine samples where it is clearly stated in clinical details that the urine sample is pre-operative.

4. Genital swabs – (except where clinical details specifically state STI or pregnant) will no longer be processed.

5. Swabs from chronic wounds – (e.g. ulcers) will not be processed.

6. Catheter specimens of urine – will not be processed unless specifically discussed with a microbiologist that this will change management.

7. Parasitology – stool samples will no longer be processed unless there are specific clinical details of travel dates and destinations outside of Europe (unlikely now due to COVID-19) or that the patient is immunocompromised.

For more information read the notice in full by clicking here.

Whilst the general principles above apply across the BCPS laboratory sites, we appreciate that some local detail to clarify acceptance/rejection criteria is required. The laboratory on the SWB site will continue to process the above sample types providing this information is clearly included in the clinical details of the accompanying request. Please see further detail on the last page of the notice.

IT update to NHS Smartcards: 18 – 19 November from 6.30pm to midnight

The National Smartcard system is being updated and during the update we will not be able to reset passwords on smartcards or issue new ones but they will still be usable.

The work is scheduled to begin at 6.30pm on Wednesday 18 November and should be completed by midnight on Wednesday. The work will then begin again at 6.30pm on Thursday 19 November and will be completed by 8.30pm on Thursday.

Should you have any queries on this please contact the IT helpdesk on ext. 4050 or 0121 507 4050 for home workers.

Important IT update on 25 November, 5am affecting multiple IT systems

Please be aware there is essential third party IT maintenance taking place on Wednesday 25 November from 5am affecting multiple IT systems. The work is scheduled to begin at 5am and should be completed by 6am.This will result in the systems detailed below being temporarily unavailable for up to 45 minutes:

• Patients new to the Trust will not be able to be registered on iPM (Lorenzo) and FirstNet – full BCP required.
• Patients new to the Trust will not be able to be visible in Medisoft – full BCP required.
• Inpatients admitted from ED will not show up in iPM until the systems are back up.
• Inpatients transferred between Wards will show on Capman but not on iPM until the systems are back up.
• Inpatients discharged during this time will not show as discharged in iPM until the systems are back up.
• Any new baby registrations will not be able to be completed until the systems are back up.
• Ormis Theatre system will not be available – BCP required.

Note: Other Unity functionality will not be affected by this activity. Desktop alerts will be issued from 4am reminding colleagues about the planned downtime.

 Please be assured the activity will be closely monitored at all times.

Please do call the 24 hour IT service desk if you experience any prolonged issues after this time on ext. 4050 or 0121 507 4050 for home workers.

Lucky colleague scoops £200 of vouchers for completing the staff survey – there’s still a chance for you to win too

Christmas has come early for one lucky colleague who has scooped £200 worth of shopping vouchers for being one of the first 100 people to complete this year’s staff survey.

You too could win as we still have £50 worth of shopping vouchers available for six lucky winners!

Thank you to the 2,585 colleagues who have already completed the survey. The survey helps our Trust see what issues colleagues raise and understand how to make improvements. In order to ensure that any changes made as a result truly reflect the views of all colleagues, we need more of you to have your say.

The national survey is mandatory for all NHS organisations and the results inform national initiatives that can help support improvements in staff experience and well-being. Importantly we are able to benchmark our results against other organisations. This helps us to see where we excel compared to other, similar organisations and also where we are not as good as some other Trusts. Looking at those Trusts that score more highly than us in certain areas will provide a good way of us to learn from other high performing organisations.

The results are also used by NHS England to support national assessments of quality and safety and the Care Quality Commission uses the results to inform their Intelligent Monitoring work to help to decide who, where and what to inspect.

Every member of staff has been given the opportunity to have their say. Surveys will be distributed predominantly through email with a small number of colleagues receiving papers copies. Please take the time to complete yours. The results will be reviewed and acted upon so we can make our organisation a great place to work. We had our highest response rate ever last year so let’s see if we can beat that!

Note: The email survey will come from survey@quality-health.co.uk (with the subject heading NHS Staff Survey 2020 Invitation: Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust). If you have not received your survey, please contact the communications team on ext. 5303 or email swbh.comms@nhs.net. The survey will be open until Friday 27 November.

Working from home colleague survey – your views are important to us

We want to hear from you so that we can shape our future home working guidelines around the things which work best for you.

We would greatly appreciate it if you could take a couple of minutes to complete our short work from home survey by clicking the link here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/wfh-colleague-survey

You are able to read the working from home policy in full by clicking here.

Note: Your responses are anonymous and you won’t be identified.

COVID-19 Bulletin: Monday 16 November

To keep up to date with the pace of change we will be sharing a bulletin on a daily basis. There’s a lot of change taking place at the moment so please make sure you catch up with the latest bulletins throughout the week, as even if some points seem familiar you may find the details have been updated a great deal.

During this second lockdown period, we must ensure we look after ourselves and others within our community. Make sure you keep in touch with those you love and your neighbours. People may well be feeling anxious, lonely and scared at this time.

Thank you for looking out for one another

1. New: Out-of-hours support for colleagues

We have a number of health and wellbeing initiatives in place for colleagues to help support them out-of-hours as well as during normal working hours as we continue to face the pandemic.

This includes “A Listening Ear” where someone is there to speak to you seven days a week, between 8am and 10pm. You can call for support or to “simply offload”. You can find out more about “A Listening Ear” by clicking here.

A support line operated by the Samaritans is also available seven days a week, between 7am and 11pm. To access this click here.

Other resources that can be accessed out-of-hours are available by clicking here and they include 10 tips to help you de-stress and information on looking after yourself and colleagues.

Managing your stress and psychological health at this time is as important as your physical health and so it is important that you take care of your basic needs and use helpful coping strategies.

2. New: Trust’s COVID-19 response plan Q&A sessions

A series of briefings are being held for colleagues who wish to find out more about the Trust’s plans as we face a second surge during the pandemic.

They are being led by our Executives over the next two weeks and will be held via WebEx.

Colleagues will be given an opportunity to ask questions about our COVID-19 response plan.

The first will be held tomorrow at 4pm for one hour, whilst the second session will take place on Friday, 20 November.

• To join the briefing tomorrow go to https://swbhnhs.webex.com/swbhnhs/onstage/g.php?MTID=e8dda43a624dc1584d5a1ea74a9044af1.
• Friday’s briefing can be accessed via the following link: https://swbhnhs.webex.com/swbhnhs/onstage/g.php?MTID=e59c590edf4adec548c2b89b43a4dbf2f

Further briefings are planned on 23 and 25 November – more details on these sessions will be released nearer the time.

3. Updated: Clarification on enhanced Bank rates

On Friday we shared news about a change in bank rates for some bank shifts to thank and reward colleagues who are supporting the Trust in this way, and to help reduce our reliance on agency staff. To clarify, the new rates apply to:

• All Band 5 Nurse bank shifts across the Trust
• All Specialist Nurse bank shifts (ITU, neonates, theatres, ED and NIV)

We hope that you will continue to support our workforce needs through the winter period, whilst also ensuring that you get sufficient rest and recuperation after what has been a very testing year. The new rates are as follows and come into effect immediately:

There is no longer a requirement to book five shifts with the Bank to be entitled to an enhanced rate. If you would like to sign up to the Trust Bank there is a fast-track process in place. Call 0121 507 3600 or email swb-tr.trustbankrequest@nhs.net for a pack. We will also be reviewing AHP bank rates.

4. Reminder: Use purple bags for urgent swabs

Starting today wards and departments will have access to purple bags which can be used to place urgent rapid samples.

The bags have been introduced to replace the urgent stickers. But don’t worry if you use the urgent stickers, your samples will still be processed.

One of the key issues experienced is swabs being sent for routine rather than rapid testing due to the correct labelling not being used. The introduction of purple bags will be clearer and easier for all to use and will also help the lab to identify any samples that need to be processed urgently thus improving turnaround times.

If you need these bags out of hours they can be collected from D18 at City Hospital and the Bryan Knight Suite at Sandwell. Please note that rapid swabs are not processed overnight but will be done the following working day.

In other news, we have now temporarily increased the availability of urgent and rapid PCR sampling to 158 tests per day for two weeks only until 29 November. Urgent respiratory PCR including COVID is also now increased to 30 tests per day.

We will be running a pilot in ED and AMU for the next two weeks when all patients who come through this route will receive a rapid test.

For further information see the test allocation table on Connect by clicking here.

If you have an urgent sample:

• Place the correctly labelled specimen into a clear specimen bag and seal.
• Place into the second larger clear zip locked specimen bag.
• Place this doubled bag specimen into a purple urgent COVID sample bag
• The purple urgent bag can now also be posted into the COVID drop off box.

Further information on processing samples can be found on Connect by clicking here.

5. Reminder: Contacted by NHS track and trace? Do not give details of your work contacts if you have complied with our IPC guidelines

Many of you will have downloaded the new NHS contract tracing app designed to help the NHS understand where and how quickly the virus is spreading, so we can respond quickly and effectively.

On the chance that you are contacted through NHS track and trace stating that you are considered a contact of a case of COVID-19, it is important that you ONLY give your personal/community contacts if you have been complying with PPE and infection control guidelines whilst at work. You should then contact your line manager, who will complete a risk assessment with you to understand the occasions where you may have been in close contact with a patient or member of staff who has tested positive for COVID-19.

As the app is anonymised, it will not be apparent whether your contact occurred within or outside the Trust setting. Where there are cases of transmission of the virus within the Trust we will carry out our own contact tracing processes.

Remember to pause the app when at work

You must pause the app when:

• You are at work following infection prevention and control (IPC) guidance.
• You are wearing correct PPE at work and maintaining 2m social distancing in clinical and non-clinical areas.
• You are working behind a fixed Perspex (or equivalent) screen and are fully protected from other people.
• You store your phone in a locker or communal area.

You can read the latest government guidance for healthcare workers by clicking here

Fraud Awareness Month

Throughout Fraud Awareness Month we will be highlighting the most reported frauds across the NHS, providing some guidance on preventing these and identifying when you should report your concerns.

Identity theft/fraud:

Throughout Fraud Awareness Month we will be highlighting the most reported frauds across the NHS, providing some guidance on preventing these and identifying when you should report your concerns.

Identity theft happens when fraudsters access enough information about someone’s identity (such as their name, date of birth, current or previous addresses, place of work etc) to impersonate them.

Identity fraud is when the details obtained are used to commit fraud, by: opening bank accounts, obtaining credit, taking over accounts, impersonating you at work to purport to authorise transactions.

Preventing Identity Theft

Any information used to identify your or your family, or that is used to answer any of your security questions should be closely guarded.

• Do not give out information over the phone.
• Never divulge your PIN or passwords.
• Never click on links on any suspicious emails or text messages.
• Do not write your personal information on social media.
• Ensure any sensitive paperwork is shredded and old phones or computers are properly disposed of when no longer required.
• Secure any online accounts with strong passwords that cannot be guessed.

If you receive any unusual payment or change of bank detail requests from colleagues, managers or suppliers, you must verify this with a known contact, using a previously known telephone number. Fraudsters may take over email accounts or mask the sender’s email address. Any person making a genuine request will allow security checks to take place.

Anything you believe could constitute fraud and should be reported to your Local Counter Fraud Specialist (LCFS). If you require any further information regarding fraud or bribery within the NHS, please contact the organisation’s LCFS. 

Heartbeat: Book of memories comes together

As we move through the second wave of COVID-19, colleagues have been sharing their stories and memories of the first wave, when we braced ourselves for the unknown and turned to each other for support.

The stories are now being pulled together into a book of our memories and colleagues can share their stories for inclusion in the book. You do not have to be a writer – the comms team will work with you to produce your editorial. All you need to do is tell us you are interested in being part of the project. If you know of a colleague who would be keen to take part, you can nominate them and, we’ll do the rest. We plan for the book to be a lasting reminder of the year and a valued piece of our Trust history.

To give you a flavour of the content, here we read a snippet of Clinical Endoscopist Warren Chapman’s story as he recalls how he was torn when his son who had returned from a teaching role in Beijing started talking about returning to China.

He explained: “When I first became aware of COVID 19, last December I had a sense of relief; my son had been working as a teacher in Beijing but had recently come back to the UK. However, as we went into February, he started talking about returning to China. I was naturally worried, but then as COVID-19 seemed to be heading this way anyway, I encouraged him to return, which he did in early March. I think he made the right choice!”

Then after volunteering to move into critical care, Warren found a sense of camaraderie with his new work colleagues, as he explains: “I was impressed with the autonomy and skills of my ITU nursing colleagues and, I enjoyed finding out more about their roles. It was also good to talk with the other staff that had been redeployed and find out about their usual jobs. Of course, as I’ve worked in the Trust over so many years, I saw a lot of people I knew already and, it was good to renew old friendships.”

You’ll be able to read Warren’s full story next year on publication of the book, and if you’d like to join him in print as a lasting reminder of how we worked during the pandemic please contact Vanya Rogers, Head of External Communications, by email at vanya.rogers@nhs.net.