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Monthly archives: April 2021

TeamTalk taking place today – Ensure your team is represented

 

TeamTalk is our monthly Trust-wide team briefing. The next session will take place today (Wednesday 28 April) at 1pm.

Please ensure you are able to access a computer with speakers or headphones to enable you to participate.

Slides for today’s session are available here: Team Talk May 2021

Details on how to login are as follows:

If you have any questions about how you join the briefing please email  swbh.comms@nhs.net

Essential IT maintenance affecting community sites this Wednesday from 5.30pm

 

Please be aware essential IT network maintenance is taking place to the community sites supporting infrastructure today (Wednesday 28 April) from 5.30pm – 6.30pm to help improve performance of the infrastructure and network.

From 5.30pm today for up to 10 minutes there will be a loss of network services and Wi-Fi affecting the following community sites:

  • Coneygre Family Centre
  • Glebefields Surgery
  • James Preston Health Centre
  • Leasowes
  • Neptune Health Centre
  • Oldbury Health Centre
  • Warley Medical Centre
  • Whiteheath Medical Centre
  • Yew Tree Health Centre
  • Your Health Partnership Mace Street Clinic

Colleagues working from these sites are advised to ensure they save any work before 5:30pm. 

Please do call the 24 hour IT service desk on ext. 4050 or 0121 507 4050 if you have any further queries.

Contacting the ENGIE helpdesk in the community

 

Colleagues logging a job on the ENGIE helpdesk from the below properties are now advised to call 0333 666 0117:

  • Carters Green Medical Centre
  • Glebefields
  • Lyndon Practice
  • Mace Street
  • Malling Health
  • Neptune
  • Oakham Village
  • Oldbury Health Centre
  • Parsonage Street
  • Regis Medical Centre
  • Rowley Village
  • Summerfield GP and Urgent Care
  • Lyng
  • Victoria HC
  • Warley Health Centre
  • Yew Tree

Logging jobs via the portal

Please note that the TABS system is no longer live for logging jobs. The new system is linked via the Connect page and can be found here.

Please delete any shortcuts you have to TABs on your PCs.

Less than 100 Pfizer vaccinations slots remaining for colleagues at Sandwell Vaccination Hub

 

Colleagues who are yet to be vaccinated or who have been recommended to be vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccination are being encouraged to come forward and book in to the last remaining vaccination slots at Sandwell Vaccination hub before the site closes tomorrow.

If you are yet to be vaccinated with the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, please contact the vaccination booking line on 0121 507 4112 to book your vaccinations urgently.

The Pfizer vaccine is available to all colleagues, those who are under 30 years old, clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV), pregnant or who have allergies preventing them from receiving the AstraZeneca vaccination are encouraged to take this opportunity to be vaccinated.

Remember, the COVID-19 vaccination still remains the best way to protect yourself and those around you.

To book a vaccination slot, contact the booking team  on 0121 507 4112.

Heartbeat: Putting safety first

 

We all play a part to ensure safety is a vital part of work culture. Since December 2020, the Trust has introduced new short multidisciplinary meetings, held at a predictable time and place, focused on reducing harm.

We caught up with Liam Preece and Sophia Gaddu from the improvement team who told us about how they’ve been working with areas to introduce safety huddles.

Sophia explained: “The safety huddles are an opportunity for teams to get together and raise any issues, share news and find solutions to any problems at the start of the day. The teams that have started holding safety huddles have found having those conversations early on enables effective planning and generally helps shifts get off to a good start.

“Safety huddles have lots of positive benefits, but one of the main ones to highlight is enabling better commutation between nursing and medical colleagues and helping teams to find collaborative solutions to any issues that may arise.”

Sophia added: “Safety huddles are usually led by either a consultant or ward manager. Representatives from the nursing staff, HCAs, therapies and pharmacy should also attend where possible. Other team members are welcome to join depending on the issues discussed.”

For any team unsure about how to get started, Liam had one top tip, “Jump right in and get started. At first, it may seem like a daunting task pulling everyone together at the start of the shift to have a conversation, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve been working with the team on Lyndon Ground, and they have successfully implemented safety huddles.”

Avnash Nanra, Ward Manager from Paediatrics, told us: “At first we were concerned that the huddle might take us away from tasks we need to do, but we have found it is a great way to let the whole team know about any issues quickly. It also helps us to find ways of overcoming any problems together as a team.”

So how do the team structure their huddles? Avnash explained: “We use a template, provided by the Trust to write down the discussion points beforehand and use that as a guide us in our huddles. It’s easy to set up and, a daily huddle should last between 10-15 minutes, that’s all.”

“I’ve found the huddles to be particularly beneficial. There was a safeguarding concern a few weeks ago in regards to one of our inpatients. We used the huddle to quickly discuss the issue with the team and plan how we were going to address the safety risk to the patient and other stakeholders.”

Avnash added: “We cover a range of issues including capacity, safeguarding and IT problems. For example, last week, we had an IT issue, and we used the huddle to make sure everyone was aware of it and that it flagged with Informatics.”

Deputy Medical Director, Dr Chizo Agwu, previously said: “Safety huddles increase safety awareness among front-line staff, allow teams to develop action plans to address identified safety issues and foster a culture of safety. They are a well-established form of huddle across many organisations and, we intend that they are part of normal care across our organisation by spring 2021.”

Healthcare support worker continuing professional development survey

 

As part of the enhanced recruitment and onboarding workstream of the NHS England and Improvement healthcare support worker (HCSW) programme, Health Education England have designed a questionnaire to capture the views of HCSWs regarding training, education and development, specifically around continuing professional development (CPD).

They’re keen to capture the thoughts of HCSWs across all the different regions and clinical settings in England and would therefore appreciate if colleagues who meet the criteria could complete the questionnaire by clicking here.

The survey offers a great opportunity to ensure the voices of HCSWs are used in shaping the direction of the programme. The survey is designed specifically for HCSWs across all clinical settings, is anonymous and  should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete.

The closing date for this questionnaire is Friday 21 May.

Have your say on uniform!

 

Supply Chain have launched a consultation about the potential introduction of a consistent national healthcare uniform for NHS colleagues working in clinical roles across England.

They’re keen to hear the views of healthcare assistants, nurses, midwives and allied health professionals working in hospital and non-hospital settings across the country on whether a culturally sensitive, national approach to uniforms should be taken and if so, should all Trusts adopt it?

The consultation survey is available here and closes on 31 May

Urgent product recall: Standard Dochem type IIR mask facemasks

 

We have been notified that a delivery of standard facemasks (Dochem Type IIR mask – Product code 1A3100) we received last week into our PPE store have been recalled because they have not been through the formal checks by DHSC before being released for distribution.

Therefore, it is imperative that any stock of standard facemasks you may have had delivered last week are checked and if you find you have stock of this particular brand, please quarantine them immediately and contact any of one of the procurement team listed below who will arrange for them to be collected and replaced.

For further details about the mask please see Dochem type IIR mask information sheet

  • Lisa Southall ext. 4938 (City)
  • Mark Shervington ext. 4937 (City)
  • Jackie Graham ext. 4937 (City)
  • Earl Ebanks ext. 4699 (City)
  • Gurprit Galsinh ext. 2824 (Sandwell)
  • Rebecca Vanes ext. 2689 (Sandwell)
  • Debra Chetwynd ext. 2823 (Sandwell)

Do you have any published works for the Library?

 

Our library services along with three other Black Country health libraries have been chosen to pilot NHS Shared Repository working in conjunction with the British Library and Health Education England.

This repository will allow us to showcase all the staff publications (both medical and non-medical) of the Trust.

To ensure that we have covered all of your publications, (especially non-medical publications), please email a list of your published works to swbh.library@nhs.net .

A list of publications, articles, poster presentations or conference abstracts, by Trust colleagues are already collated and are currently available on the library pages on Connect.

The library services also provides publication support to colleagues. You can now submit articles to BMJ Case Reports or BMJ Open Quality using an institution code from the library. For BMJ Case Reports the code is 5195505 and for BMJ OpenQuality it is 4173517698.

For more information please email swbh.library@nhs.net or ext. 3587.

Star of the Week – Claire Jones

 

Star of the Week this week is Claire Jones, Infection Prevention Nurse.

During the pandemic, Claire has been working with Sandwell public health team to monitor and advise care homes in Sandwell on managing outbreaks of coronavirus. The role has involved developing close relationships with care home managers. She has developed training for care homes on specific infection prevention and control precautions.

The importance of correctly donning and doffing PPE has been crucial to prevent transmission of coronavirus to colleagues and residents in the community. Claire led practical training sessions within our care facilities. She was instrumental in developing a care plan for residents with coronavirus and has developed proformas to enable data to be collected from information provided from the care homes.

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.

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