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Monthly archives: March 2021

Heartbeat: Midland Met build continues on track despite COVID-19

 

Whilst COVID-19 and the ensuing pandemic has brought industries across the world to a crashing halt, our flagship hospital continues steadily on its journey to completion in 2022. As we finally begin to regain some control of our lives, we look forward to the collaborative acute care models we’re set to see in Midland Met.

With multiple trades on-site at any one time, all vying to play their part and complete the long-awaited hospital, it has been no mean feat to keep COVID-19 at the door, and the build continuing its progression.

Thankfully, when you have an army of trade staff on hand who can build you a world class facility, it doesn’t take much to create the facilities to help colleagues’ social distance and sanitise.

We’ve been working on the build now for several months, and you can start to see the difference. Slowly but surely, the hospital is taking shape. Partitions are going in, areas are getting ready to be signed off on, and you can envisage what it will look like.

Keeping everything moving has been at the top of our priorities and, we’re mindful of COVID-19 too. We have taken measures to keep the site safe, including dedicated areas for people to wash their hands and of course, following social distancing guidelines. We’ve also given snoods to Balfour Beatty staff which are not only warm when working outside but practical too helping to reduce the risk of transmission.

Once complete in 2022, our acute hospital will offer maternity, children and inpatient adult services to half a million people, and, as we take small but significant steps towards opening our new hospital, we will keep you updated along the way. We’ll bring you the latest news, sneak peeks behind the scenes, plus lots more so that when the time comes, you are ready to move to Midland Met.

So what have we achieved in the past 12 months? Since 6 January 2020, when construction began, Balfour Beatty have worked hard to make our vision a reality. Spring 2021 is when we expect to see the power go on, another milestone as we move closer to our grand opening. This means we can start to progressively see permanent lighting be switched on as we head into the summer months.

In practical terms, we have also made progress in what will be our clinical areas. Partitioning in the clinical areas is almost complete, and ductwork installation to the first zones on levels two and three are nearing completion.

Rachel Barlow, Director of System Transformation, commented: “The Midland Metropolitan University Hospital project is, as you can imagine, made up of many people, teams and stakeholders. Once open it will have a far-reaching impact – not only on those we care for but also for colleagues and our community in terms of regeneration, jobs, housing, our charitable endeavours, transport and so much more.

“I feel privileged to be a part of this project. Seeing our hospital being built from the ground up is an honour, and I am looking forward to when we can officially welcome colleagues into their new home. It will significantly advance what we do and how we do it. We will have access to the latest technology, and colleagues can focus on delivering the best possible clinical outcomes and an overall enhanced patient experience.”

Case study: Widening participation as a strategic approach initiative

 

Our Trust sits in the second most-deprived area of England, with low quality housing, a transient community, and poor levels of education.

We have developed a widening participation programme as part of our core strategy to attract a diverse workforce, capturing talent from the local community who have a wealth of transferable qualifications and skills.

By facilitating people from the local refugee and migrant population to return to a career in healthcare, and also engaging with young people and ex-offenders, the Trust and the community have reaped huge rewards, helping 300 people take steps to return to a medical workforce role. We have also placed four interns at the end of their learning disability internships into paid permanent work in catering, hospitality and finance in the Trust or other local Trusts and developed a workforce representative of the local area and patients, using diverse methods of recruitment and talent spotting.

You can learn more about this initiative by reading this case study.

Guidance for colleagues regarding activities during the pre-election period

 

With local council elections scheduled to take place on Thursday 6 May, purdah (the period of time immediately before an election when specific restrictions apply to the public sector) comes into effect at midnight tonight, which means that care must be taken around announcements and activities by public sector bodies which could influence or be seen to influence the election.

NHS employees are free to undertake political activism and public debate in a personal capacity. Colleagues should however ensure that the Trust is not involved or that an impression of Trust involvement in a campaign or political activity is not created.  Colleagues are not permitted to use any official premises, equipment or information they would only have access to through their work and which is not publically available. This includes photography of colleagues in Trust uniforms. If staff use social media in a professional capacity as a representative of the Trust they should ensure that nothing contentious is posted on social media accounts, and that only essential factual information is published.

Colleagues should also avoid attending events where you may be asked to respond to questions about policy or on matters of public controversy.

Communications activities necessary for operational delivery purposes are able to continue as normal. If you would like any further information or advice please contact Head of External Communications vanya.rogers@nhs.net.

Discounted jewellery for Trust colleagues

 

Minakshi jewellers are offering a up to 10 per cent discount on their jewellery products for all Trust colleagues. To check out their current product range please click here.

For more information please call 07803606541.

 

Women and Child Health group changes from 1 April

 

From Thursday 1 April, breast services will move from Surgical Services into the group of Women and Child Health, into the Gynae and Gynae Oncology directorate. Also from 1 April, Heath Street GP practice will also align to Women’s and Child Health group.

 

Heartbeat: welearn – innovation, evidence and actions lead poster competition

 

Our annual poster competition culminated in a socially distanced online ceremony earlier this year when the contestants came together to showcase their hard work with a hope to be the lucky winner of a £5,000 grand prize.

From just shy of 100 posters submitted, 11 shortlisted finalists had the opportunity to present their poster to an audience of their peers and judges, highlighting how their work shows good practice, provides quality improvements, supports innovation, research or partnership working, and most importantly how it has resulted in improvements for patients, relatives and colleagues.

Announcing the results of the staff voted for ‘People’s Choice Award’ fell to Chief Finance Officer, Dinah McLannahan who awarded it to Louise Tromans for her poster entitled ‘A well timed innovation in imageguided pre-operative breast localisation’. Presenting the award, Dinah highlighted how the innovative work deploying the use of RFID tags had made a significant impact to breast cancer patients, improving their surgical outcomes and allowing procedure to continue even throughout the disruption brought on by COVID-19.

Announcing the first of the highly commended runners up fell to Non-Executive Director, Professor Kate Thomas who awarded Jason Yap and the Gynaeoncology team for their poster titled, ‘An innovative surgery which offers women with cervical cancer the opportunity to preserve fertility’. Awarding the team, Kate said: “This poster tells a very clear story through illustrations, graphs and text, it’s a fantastic story of how gynaecologists in this Trust have implemented a fantastic surgery that allows women with cervical cancer a chance to preserve their fertility. The poster shows how the proportion of women undergoing the surgery and going on to have at least one live baby is greater than that of published literature.”

The last highly commended award was presented by Head of Improvement, Melanie Griffith to Diya Baker from the Department of Ophthalmology for their poster ‘Assessing patient perspective of pre-printed forms in vitreo-retinal surgery’. Announcing her awards, Melanie said: “This poster is one that was very data driven, involved patients, took the time to gather data and took the time to design the test and from improvement terms did a fantastic job. Patients are really benefiting from this improvement with this work”.

The winner of the £5,000 grand prize was announced by Acting Chief Executive and Medical Director, Dr David Carruthers and went to Kathryn Dunn from the Department of Speech and Language Therapy for her poster entitled ‘Service Improvement – Speech and Language Therapy Services to mainstream schools’. Commending the poster, David said: “This poster showed evidence based change in practice, with engagement with service users, collaboration across systems and efforts targeted where the need was greatest.”

If you haven’t yet seen the posters, they will remain on display in the Education Centre at Sandwell. If you have the opportunity to do so, you can find out about the great quality improvement initiatives taking place across the Trust.

 

Wellbeing Wednesday: Kindness

 

Every Wednesday we bring you information about our health and wellbeing services. This week we are covering kindness and how to be kind to yourself.

Kindness comes from many sources. We can be kind to others but are we kind to ourselves?

Often when someone asks how we are we say okay, but are we really? Quite often the person we should rely on the most is ourselves. However, are we always kind to ourselves? Have you ever relived a day or situation and been your own worst critic?

Negative self-talk is something some of us do, we often say things to ourselves that we would not like if we heard someone say negative things to someone else. So take a step back; rethink your negative self-talk and be KIND to yourself. The joy of being kind to yourself, naturally supports you and helps support others with our kindness to each other too.

Reaching out is a strength not a weakness. You may find the resources below useful.

Be sure to also check out these videos around negative self-talk and tips around being mindful:

Should you be concerned about your mental wellbeing please contact your doctor or our occupational health team.

COVID-19 Bulletin: Tuesday 23 March

 

1. New: Shielding guidance

Shielding for those who are extremely clinically vulnerable from COVID-19 is due to end on 31 March and this will have implications for a number of colleagues. A letter will be going out from our Chief People Officer, Frieza Mahmood over the next few days to all staff who have been flagged as shielding to reassure them of the processes in place to support them back to work and asking them to complete a risk assessment  to inform discussions with their manager.

There is no automatic expectation for staff who are shielding to return to full duties from day one of restrictions lifting and managers will work with affected colleagues to support a safe and steady return as they may have concerns or be anxious around returning to the workplace.

For more information please see national guidance update from NHS Employers by clicking here.

A flow chart outlining the management process to support staff is also available on Connect here.

2. New: COVID infections increase in pockets of West Bromwich

Although we have seen a marked reduction in the number of COVID-19 cases within the community, unfortunately there are still pockets of Sandwell where infections remain high. The areas affected in West Bromwich are Newton, Greets Green and Lyng, with new data showing a surge in infection rates in those areas. These statistics – published on Monday by Sandwell Council – come despite the borough showing one of the fastest falls in COVID-19 case rates in the country. Please continue to follow the current restrictions.

3. New: BME Staff Network hosted event 29 March: COVID vaccine your questions answered

The BME Staff Network are hosting a Q&A event aimed at answering the questions and concerns you may have about receiving the COVID vaccine. They will be joined by a panel of senior leaders within the organisation including:

  • Dr Masood Aga, Consultant and Specialty Lead in Occupational Medicine
  • Puneet Sharma, Chief Pharmacist
  • Dr David Carruthers, Medical Director

There will also be an opportunity hear from Steven Shanu, Lead Pharmacist, who will talk about his own experiences of being part of the clinical trials for the Astra Zeneca vaccine.

The event will be held on Monday 29 March, between 1pm and 2pm. Please join in and send your questions prior to the event to BME Staff Network Vice Chair, Malik Umar malik.umar@nhs.net.

Everyone is welcome.

To join the event, please see instructions below:

Additional Q&As are available on Connect on a number of subjects. Please click below for more details:

4. New: National Day of Reflection

Many colleagues will be aware that today is National Day of Reflection designated to remember those who have died during the pandemic and to show support for everyone who has been bereaved over the last 12 months. To mark the occasion at 12 noon, one minute’s silence was observed by colleagues across the Trust.

Spearheaded by the charity Marie Curie, today marks the one year anniversary of the country going into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Pictured below are colleagues outside Sandwell main entrance.

Shine a light at 8pm tonight: We are also urging everyone to shine a light or light a candle at 8pm tonight for all those who have tragically lost a friend or family member due to the COVID pandemic.

5. Updated: Change to PPE guidance regarding Amber stream

Due to the reduction of COVID-19 positive patients being admitted and the reduced case numbers in the community, we’ve now amended our PPE guidance to match national Public Health England guidelines.

This means when colleagues are working on an Amber ward the PPE required when in direct contact with a patient will be a fluid resistant mask, eye protection (sessional use), disposable apron and disposable gloves.

We must remind colleagues that all red wards or for all Aerosol Generating Procedures in Red and Amber areas, you must continue to wear enhanced PPE (FFP3 mask/silicon mask/respiratory hood).

In addition to the required PPE in your area, you are encouraged to follow your individual risk assessment for PPE. If you have not yet completed your COVID risk assessments you can do so on Connect. This may mean that, due to these individual risk assessments, different levels of PPE are being worn on the same ward.

Note: Revised posters have been distributed to relevant wards. However a supply of the revised posters are held by the communications team. If you need an extra poster please call ext. 5303 to arrange collection. 

You can read the full updated PPE guidance on Connect.

6. Updated: LAMP testing continues

LAMP (Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification) testing continues to be rolled out to all colleagues at the Trust – thank you to everyone who has taken up this new speedy and more accurate way of testing for COVID-19.

Instructions for the test have now been updated and can be found here. Changes have been made to the way the request form is folded and where it is now placed, within the bag provided.

We must remind everyone that LAMP testing is open to both clinical and non-clinical colleagues. It is vital that we continue to test despite colleagues having had the COVID vaccination and infection rates starting to drop.  

Additional specimen collections bins are now available at City, Sandwell and in the community:

  • City: on the main spine by Pharmacy, A&E and outside pathology along with the existing drop off point in BTC phlebotomy
  • Sandwell: Bryan Knight, outside pathology and A&E  along with existing drop point on the 1st floor outpatient phlebotomy
  • Community: Lyng centre, Neptune health park, Oldbury health centre, Victoria health centre and Rowley Regis Hospital

If you haven’t yet signed off for LAMP testing, please ring 0121 507 2664 option 6 to register and book a kit collection slot between Monday to Friday, 8am – 6pm. If the result comes back positive you and your household will need to immediately isolate for 10 days and you will not require a PCR swab test to confirm the result.

7. Updated: Vaccination centre is back up and running

Today sees the reopening of the vaccination hub at the Education Centre, based at Sandwell site, for those colleagues who will be receiving their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

Colleagues will already have their second appointment booked. You are encouraged to keep your original appointment or rearrange via the vaccination call centre (on 0121 507 4112), but you are advised not to go beyond 12 weeks after your first jab. It is essential that you attend as there will be no further appointments beyond 26 April for you to receive your Pfizer second dose. The Sandwell vaccination hub will also be open on Bank Holidays so please attend if you are booked on those days.

If you have had your 2nd vaccine dose elsewhere please could you ring and cancel your appointment, stating that you have had your vaccine and where you had it so that we can update our records and offer the slots to other people.

It’s not too late to have your first jab!

If you are yet to get the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccination, you can still book in to get your jab at either Walsall Hospital or at the newly opened at Tipton Sports Academy vaccination centre. Alternatively colleagues can also book their jab through the Your Health Partnership Primary Care Network at Whiteheath Medical Centre in Oldbury.

To book your jab online use one of the following links:

If you had your first dose at City Hospital’s hub, based in the Cardiac Rehab Gym, at Sheldon Block, please complete the following form to ensure you secure an appointment for your second jab:  https://forms.office.com/r/i9HgiAvGgN.

The team at the vaccination hub will contact you nearer the time to confirm the date of the appointment.

Access blood collection training via Connect

 

Did you know you can update your yearly blood collection training by following the link on our Blood Transfusion pages on Connect?

The update includes a short training video that must be watched prior to answering the knowledge questions. This video gives you all the information required to be able to complete the knowledge questions.

If you have not been trained to use the current blood issue fridge then please email swbh.Bloodtransfusion@nhs.net to arrange your training and competency assessment.

For more information please contact swbh.bloodtransfusion@nhs.net.

Want to join our exciting ‘green’ programme to help make a difference?

 

We know many of you are already doing your bit for the environment. We want you and your teams to join us in our movement to go green with our environmental sustainability programme – Green Impact. All you have to do is work with your teams to take simple actions that can collectively make a big difference.

We make it achievable, fun and informative with rewards, recognition and an awards ceremony lunch.

This week is Power Week where teams are completing as many actions as they can until Friday – click here for further details.

For more please contact Francesca.silcocks@nhs.net.

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