Monthly archives: December 2020

COVID-19 Bulletin: Thursday 31 December

As we enter 2021, we’d like to wish all our SWB family a Happy New Year.

Celebrations won’t be the same this year due to the tighter restrictions as Sandwell and Birmingham, along with the rest of the West Midlands has now moved into Tier 4.

We urge everyone to stay safe as they look to bring in 2021 and thank each and every one of you for your hard work during what has been a very challenging year.

Numbers not statistics: This week (Last week)

1. New: Vaccinators thanked for hard work in delivering jab to colleagues

Thank you to those who have helped to deliver the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine this week and to colleagues who attended their appointment to receive their jab.

We have successfully used the supply allocated to us on Tuesday to vaccinate colleagues and are expecting a second delivery next week when we will also begin to protect patients who are aged 80 and above.

If you receive an email inviting you for the jab, please call the booking line on ext. 4112 for an    appointment. Please note:

• The vaccination booking line is closed today, (Thursday) and New Year’s Day, (Friday).
• The booking line will be open again daily, including weekends from Saturday 2 January, 8am – 8pm.

Can you help administer the vaccination?

We also still require the help of volunteer medical staff at ST3 and above to support the vaccination hub.

Volunteers will need to be on site and support with prescribing and enhanced assessment for the rare occasions that this may be required.

Vaccinations will be administered between 12.30pm and 10pm and then from 8am on Wednesday and Thursday. Volunteers are required to do 4-6 hour stints. If you are ST3 or above and are willing to help, please contact your Group Director as below:

• MEC – Chetan Varma (c.varma@nhs.net)
• SS – Siten Roy (siten.roy@nhs.net)
• W&CH – Nick Makwana (nmakwana@nhs.net)
• PCCT – Tammy Davies (tammy.davies@nhs.net)

2. New: Enhanced bank rates to continue until 28 February 

Rates for several bank levels have been temporarily enhanced so that we are favourably benchmarked against our neighbouring Trusts and to help reduce our reliance on agency staff . The enhancements that were brought in earlier in the year for some bank levels for booking five or more shifts are now awarded regardless of the number of shifts booked. The new rates are as follows and are already in effect and will remain in place up to and including 28 February:

All AHP Bank duties are increased by £2 per hour – continuing from March 2020.

WTD will be added to the basic rate @ 12.07%.

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.

3. New: Guidance for vulnerable colleagues as we enter Tier 4  

Today marks the first day in Tier 4 for Sandwell and Birmingham. This means that colleagues who are clinically extremely vulnerable will need to work from home because the risk of exposure to the virus may be significantly higher for people in this group. If you are in this group, you will previously have received a letter from the NHS or from your GP telling you this.

If you are clinically extremely vulnerable:

• You are strongly advised to work from home. If you cannot work from home, then you should not attend work.  Members of staff should speak with their manager about taking on an alternative role or make a change to current working patterns temporarily to enable you to work from home where possible.
• The formal shielding letter you receive must be shown to your manager, who will share it with HR so that accurate records are maintained. This also supports our requirement to report nationally on COVID-related absences.  Your manager will maintain contact with you while you are shielding at home.

How to identify if you are defined as clinically extremely vulnerable:

1. You have one or more of conditions listed below, or
2. Your clinician or GP has added you to the shielded patient list because, based on their clinical judgement, they deem to you be at higher risk of serious illness if you catch the virus.

If you do not fall into any of these categories, and have not been contacted to inform you that you are on the shielded patient list, follow the general Tier 4 guidance.

If you think there are good clinical reasons why you should be added to the shielded patient list, discuss your concerns with your GP or hospital clinician.

People with the following conditions are automatically deemed clinically extremely vulnerable:

• Solid organ transplant recipients
• People with specific cancers
• People with severe respiratory conditions including all cystic fibrosis, severe asthma and severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• People with rare diseases that significantly increase the risk of infections (such as severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), homozygous sickle cell disease)
• People on immunosuppression therapies sufficient to significantly increase risk of infection
• Problems with your spleen, for example splenectomy (having your spleen removed)
• Adults with Down’s Syndrome
• Adults on dialysis or with chronic kidney disease (stage 5)
• Women who are pregnant with significant heart disease, congenital or acquired
• Other people who have also been classed as clinically extremely vulnerable, based on clinical judgement and an assessment of their needs. GPs and hospital clinicians have been provided with guidance to support these decisions.

We have updated shielding guidance which has a full list of the conditions. It can be found in section four of the resource pack for managers.

           4. New: SIREN study comes to a close 

Thank you so much to everyone who has come forward to take part in the SIREN study. The Research and Development (R&D) team have now exceeded their target of 500 participants so have ended recruitment.

If you signed up to the study, you will continue to be involved for another year,  attending for a swab test every two weeks and a blood test every four weeks (every two weeks for eight weeks if you have COVID). You will also need to complete the short questionnaire when prompted.

All of these tests will be carried out by Phlebotomy, so please book appointments via ext. 6104 or email swbh.phlebotomy@nhs.net. We hope now that you will all become research participation advocates and help our patients understand the role of research in their care. If you would like directing to materials to help you with this, please contact Gina Dutton, Head of R&D, Gina.Dutton1@nhs.net.

The Trust is still recruiting patients to a wide range of COVID-19 studies and has research underway involving new treatments, new tests for the virus, sampling for genomic sequencing, as well as returning data on the majority of our admitted patients and research into hospital acquired infections. The full list of studies can be found on Connect and downloaded with links to individual study websites here. Over 600,000 participants have taken part in COVID research nationally in just eight months, which is an amazing achievement.

We are delighted that so many colleagues who don’t have research in their job title have supported the Trust’s research studies at the same time as coping with other changes and workload pressures. Thank you all very much.

A little festive cheer from some of our local musical artists

Here’s a little something to entertain you this New Year’s Eve.

Grammy-nominated Dennis Seaton is best known as the frontman for the 80s reggae band Musical Youth – famous for the song Pass The Dutchie which he performs especially for colleagues at the Trust, along with some Christmas favourites. Dennis is local to City Hospital and was thrilled to sing for his very own NHS heroes.

Watch his performance here:

Birmingham born multi-platinum award winning artist Apache Indian is best known for his 90s hit Boomshackalak. The singer has been celebrating today after the announcement he has been awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) in the New Year’s Honours for services to young people and music. Today you can view Apache’s very latest release Stronger which he is delighted to share with our colleagues.

Watch the video here:

Do you have patients suitable for the RECOVERY trial?

If you have any patients who are either COVID-19 positive or suspected to have the virus in your ward or area please consider talking to them about the RECOVERY trial.

The study aims to find effective treatments for patients with the virus and has already established the use of dexamethasone as standard therapy.

It has three randomisation stages which means that it is possible for the patient to receive any combination of these treatments or none at all.

Colleagues can discuss the aims and the treatment options with a research nurse, or they can simply seek permission for the research nurse to visit their patient to discuss the study in more detail and obtain the consent. An eligibility form will need to be completed and this will also establish the suitability of the treatment options. The research nurse will be on hand to help you.

The recovery trial was one of the very first COVID-19 studies to commence running here at the Trust with the primary investigator being Dr Sarb Clare.

To find out more details, please watch this short video featuring Ash Turner, Clinical Research Charge Nurse:

For more information please visit https://connect2.swbh.nhs.uk/recovery-trial/ or call ext. 6657.

Midland Met – the progress made in 2020

Despite the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic, development of our new Midland Metropolitan University Hospital has seen huge strides in the last 12 months.

Be sure to check out the video below which shows just some of the fantastic milestones both big and small, we have reached this year.

For more information regarding everything Midland Met, please contact rachel.barlow2@nhs.net.

Enhanced bank rates to continue until 28 February

Rates for several bank levels have been temporarily enhanced so that we are favourably benchmarked against our neighbouring Trusts and to help reduce our reliance on agency staff . The enhancements that were brought in earlier in the year for some bank levels for booking five or more shifts are now awarded regardless of the number of shifts booked. The new rates are as follows and are already in effect and will remain in place up to and including 28 February 2021:

All AHP Bank duties are increased by £2 per hour – continuing from March 2020.

 WTD will be added to the basic rate at 12.07 per cent.

 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.

Early notification of essential Unity database update taking place 27 January, 1am

Please be aware for early visibility that there is an essential update in Unity taking place in the early hours of Wednesday 27 January in order for our supporting vendor Cerner to apply the latest oracle day light saving time zone conversion updates to the Unity databases.  This will result in Unity being unavailable and is required to ensure continued Unity functionality.

This work is scheduled to begin at 1am and should be completed by 3am on Wednesday 27 January.

This activity will result in 2 hours full Unity planned down time and will require all departments to revert to business continuity plans and utilise 724 boxes.  This is because the update requires a number of database cycles and restarts to take place in order to apply the change.

We will of course provide further reminders with more details to ensure all departments are fully aware of action required to accommodate this over the coming weeks.  

In the meantime please do call the 24 hour IT service desk if you have any further queries on ext 4050 or 0121 507 4050 for home workers.

No shuttle bus service today between 12pm – 1pm

There will be no shuttle bus service today between 12pm – 1pm from either the Sandwell or City.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

COVID-19 Bulletin: Wednesday 30 December

New: 

• Sandwell and Birmingham move into Tier 4
• Arranging COVID pneumonia follow-up appointments

Updated:

• Vaccination slots available today and tomorrow
• Wear the right PPE and save lives

1. New: Sandwell and Birmingham move into Tier 4 

As you know, the government has announced that Sandwell and Birmingham along with the rest of the West Midlands, has entered into Tier 4 Coronavirus restrictions.

This means stricter government restrictions will be in place from midnight until further notice. These measures are necessary to help stop the spread of Coronavirus and we ask each member of our SWB family to follow this guidance and stay safe.

A new year is just around the corner and we want to start it off looking towards a brighter year. We have made huge progress over the past few months and we have two vaccines available which brings fresh hope of returning to a more normal way of life.

These are the restrictions in tier four we all need to be aware of:

• Residents should stay at home, unless they have a “reasonable excuse” such as work or education
• All non-essential shops are closed
• You cannot meet other people indoors, unless you live with them or they are part of your support bubble
• People should not leave tier four areas or travel abroad, except for limited reasons (including work and education)

There are things you are still allowed to do in Tier 4. Activities allowed include:

• Meeting one other person from another household in an open public space, if you are both alone
• Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
• You can leave home for work, education, training, childcare and for medical appointments and emergencies
• Support bubbles are still allowed and children can move between separated parents
• People can also exercise outdoors or visit some public outdoor places, such as parks, the countryside accessible to the public, public gardens or outdoor sports facilities.

For a full list of what you can and can’t do click here.

We have come this far and we will see this through. Please continue to follow this guidance and together we will look to a happier, healthier 2021.

2. New: Arranging COVID pneumonia follow-up appointments

COVID-19 continues to evolve, which in turn means we must do so too. Keeping our patients safe and well remains our number one priority as we head into 2021, and we need your continued support to do this.

If your patient is aged over 16 and has suspected or confirmed COVID-19 or PLUS COVID (a rare bacterial infection) with changes on their chest X-ray or chest CT scan, the respiratory team would like to see them for a follow-up appointment.

Should your patient fit these criteria, please email swbh.covidfollowup@nhs.net with the patient’s RXK number and date of admission. The patients will then be contacted to arrange a follow-up.

3. Updated: Vaccination slots available today and tomorrow 

Our vaccination programme got off to a good start yesterday, with 250 colleagues receiving the Pfizer/BioNTech jab at the Education Centre in Sandwell.

Slots are still available tomorrow for those who fit the criteria.

The phased roll out is currently targeting colleagues in the very high, high, or moderate risk categories and those working in Red areas, including porters, ward service officers, therapists, imaging staff and colleagues in the community both adult and children who have contact with COVID+ patients.

If you have received an email inviting you to book an appointment please call ext 4112. 

If you have an appointment please note the following:

• Arrive on time (not early) and wear warm clothing as you may have to wait outside
• The process will take around 30 minutes
• If, for whatever reason, you are no longer able to attend your appointment, please contact the booking team to cancel and reschedule.

It is important that you continue using the self-testing home kits (lateral flow test) following your vaccination. You can upload your test results here via Connect, but only when you are on the Trust network.

Our programme of vaccination will include patients and care home partners from next week.

Please note, if you have either a first or follow up appointment booked at Walsall Manor Hospital, they will be honouring these so please ensure you attend.

For more information about the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, read the frequently asked questions here.

4. Updated: Wear the right PPE and save lives 

One of the key things we must all do is continue to observe the infection control guidelines we have laid out; in particular around PPE (including the use of masks), being bare below the elbows and appropriate social distancing.

Along with the addition of the Very High infection risk area, which has its own PPE requirements beyond those of a regular Red ward, earlier this month we rolled additional updates to the PPE guidance which you can view in full here.

Network upgrade at City ED on 7 January, 4am

As part of our ongoing work to improve the network links across all sites, there is an essential maintenance taking place on Thursday 7 January from 4am affecting the emergency department at City.

The work is scheduled to begin at 4am and should be completed by 6.30am on Thursday 7 January. This will result in all networked IT services including Unity being temporarily unavailable for up to 30 minutes from 4am. Wi-Fi will also be unavailable for approximately 15 minutes from 4am – 4:15am.

This activity will affect City’s emergency department ground floor, first floor staff room and matron’s ground floor office. Colleagues will need to ensure they have saved their work prior to 4am to avoid losing unsaved work when the upgrade takes place. Desktop alerts will be issued from 3am reminding colleagues about the planned downtime. Please have BCPs in place; including full BCP for Unity with paper documents being required during this time.

Please be assured the activity will be closely monitored at all times and has been scheduled in the early hours to minimise impact when ED numbers are lower.

Please 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.

International year of the nurse and the midwife: Rebecca O’Dwyer

This year marks International Year of the Nurse and Midwife, a campaign by the World Health Organisation in honour of the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale.

Nurses and midwives play a vital role in providing health services in our workplace. They devote their lives to caring for mothers and children; giving lifesaving immunisations and health advice; looking after older people and generally meeting everyday essential health needs. They are often the first and only point of care in their communities. Throughout the year we will be highlighting some of our nurses, HCAs and midwives who are making a difference to our patients.

Today we feature Rebecca O’Dwyer, lead nurse and joint clinical lead for critical care services/deputy group director of nursing, surgical services.

Rebecca won the special award of International Year of the Nurse and Midwife at the this year’s Star Awards. She originally started nursing in March 1990 and has worked at SWB since November 1996. She is a phenomenal nurse leader who has led her team to a CQC outstanding rating and Clinical Team of the Year at the Star Awards 2019. She has successfully led the team through the first surge of the COVID-19 pandemic with professionalism and humility and has always had the welfare of the patients and colleagues foremost in her mind.