Monthly archives: July 2021

COVID-19 Bulletin: Friday 30 July

Twelve days ago government restrictions were lifted. However it’s still important to remember COVID-19 hasn’t left us.

We are still seeing increasing numbers of COVID-19 positive patients admitted to our hospitals, and a rise in cases in the local area. Whilst we all wish to return to pre-COVID times, we must not lower our guard, we must stay cautious.

Our current arrangements for colleagues, patients and visitors at the Trust will continue. We must ensure we are able to continue to protect our patients, public and each other. These arrangements will remain in place in line with national guidelines for the NHS.

This also means our visitor guidance will stay in place across all our health services to ensure patients and staff are protected. 

Set an example, wash your hands, wear your mask, practice social distancing and play your part in keeping yourself and those around you safe.

Numbers not statistics: This week (last week)

1. New: Help share the message around receiving the right care

We are currently experiencing high levels of attendance to our emergency departments, yet around 50 per cent of those seeking help could have been cared for quicker in a different setting.

It’s important that we work together in spreading the word about using alternative healthcare facilities, like GP surgeries, pharmacies and contacting NHS 111 online.

Therefore we have created a number of videos in conjunction with doctors working within ED, delivering this message in different languages so that we reach our diverse communities. It’s important that our patients are aware of the various ways in which they can receive care.

We are asking colleagues to share the videos with their friends and loved ones in the languages that are most relevant so that together we can ensure patients receive the right care in a timely manner.

The links to the videos are below:

• English
• Arabic
• Punjabi
• Urdu

2. New: Do you want to take part in our latest research project? 

A research culture is important to the delivery of care to our patients, especially in our fight against COVID-19. We know that patients who are treated in Trusts who are research active have better outcomes and patients want to be asked about research. To embed a research culture all colleagues should be research aware.

Be a part of a new COVID-19 antibody research study

A new research study called “COPE-WM The contribution of occupational exposures to risk of COVID-19 and approaches to control among healthcare workers” is underway at the Trust. The research aims to identify why workers in healthcare settings are at higher risk of catching the virus and how best to maximise safety for all staff. There is even an opportunity to win an iPad or £200 prize draw by taking part.

Colleagues can find out more information here: www.birmingham.ac.uk/COPE-study.

If you would like to participate go to either https://is.gd/copewmret, contact the COPE-WM team by emailing cope-wm@contacts.bham.ac.uk or call 0121 414 3151.

But be quick, recruitment ends TOMORROW (31 July).

3. New: How to report abusive or offensive behaviour

As you know we are seeing a growing number of patients in our healthcare settings and we recognise the pressures that colleagues are facing across the Trust.

Yet you all continue to demonstrate true commitment and dedication to caring for your patients. However, some of you have encountered offensive behaviour from those you are treating, or their family members. This is particularly so when asking questions about vaccination status.

We want to stress how important it is to raise an incident in the event of this sort of behaviour – you should not need to tolerate this and can call security if there are any issues of safety or concerns about the way you are being treated.

You can report an incident by clicking here. Alternatively you can call security on ext. 4133 (City) or ext. 3163 (Sandwell).

4. New: Trust Bank rates

The Trust has recently reviewed its pay rates for shifts undertaken via the Trust Bank. Our preference remains to try to fill shifts where staff are absent due to ill health or vacancies, via our own Trust Bank rather than via agency. This is because we have greater assurance over the quality of care from our own colleagues who are used to our systems and processes.

During wave 1, from April 2020, we established enhanced bank rates for Trust nursing and HCA shifts which later included enhancements to rates for other roles. These enhanced wave 1 rates will now remain and will be in place for all bank shifts undertaken, regardless of role.  These rates have been benchmarked across other Trusts in the Black Country and are consistently higher than the equivalent rates in neighbouring Trusts. This means that bank shift rates will either remain the same or will increase slightly for some professions.

Additional enhancements are temporarily in place until the end of August for nursing shifts in areas where we need to ensure the right numbers of qualified staff are in place to maintain patient safety.

We are continuing to review all of our Bank rates to ensure consistency and fairness of pay, and will continue to work with colleagues across the Black Country to align our rates over time.

Thank you to everyone who is carrying out additional shifts via the Trust Bank. Please ensure you are allowing yourself sufficient time to rest and take annual leave and look after your wellbeing before booking additional bank shifts.

To find out more about the enhanced rates or to sign up, contact Trust Bank.

5. Updated: Join the saliva testing programme to protect your patients and loved ones

Did you know saliva testing (known as LAMP – Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification) is a speedy and less invasive way of detecting COVID-19?

You can book a kit collection slot for the weekly test, which requires you to spit into a tube in the morning before you brush your teeth or an hour after you have eaten.

When you arrive at work, you can deposit your sample into a red collection box. Many of these are positioned around our acute and community sites.

For a full list of drop off points and for details on how to register, click here.

Uptake of the weekly saliva test is monitored to ensure we are doing everything we can to protect our patients, the public and each other.

The latest data by group is below:

6. Updated: Revisions to our swabbing pathways

We continue to see increasing levels of COVID-19 positive patients within our hospitals, therefore it is absolutely essential that colleagues ensure they are following the correct swabbing pathways.

Please see updated pathways below:

• Unplanned admissions pathway
• Planned admissions pathway for elective or aerosol generating procedures

7. Reminder: Still time to get your vaccination!

The City Hospital vaccination hub in Sheldon Block is still open (under the leadership of SWB) for those aged 18 or older who would like their first or second jab. Colleagues are able to walk-in to the City Hub for their vaccination.

The hub operates from 8am – 6pm daily for walk-ins, whilst it is open until 7.30pm for those who have booked an appointment. Bookings can be made via the national booking website.

The hub will be administering both Pfizer and AstraZeneca. Pfizer will be administered to the under 40s and AstraZeneca to the over 40s as per the current JCVI guidelines.

“Grab A Jab” is also back at the Baggies tomorrow and Sunday. Anyone aged 18 or over can go along to get vaccinated at The Hawthorns.

Alternatively, to find a venue closer to your home, click here.

Clinical Chemistry, Haematology and Immunology addon requests at Sandwell must be sent by paper

Clinical Chemistry, Haematology and Immunology are experiencing IT printing problems with ‘Add-on’ tests at Sandwell site and are unable to view/action all ‘Add-on’ tests since 10am today; City site is unaffected.

Please can ensure that ‘add on’ requests at Sandwell are sent by paper form.

We are working closely with IT to resolve the issue.

Our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused at this time. We will keep you updated.

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 30 July

Thank you for your continued efforts to step up and face this latest wave of COVID-19. This increase in inpatients with COVID-19 is meaning that we are having to rapidly enact our surge plans to ensure that we can safely stream patients to red, amber or green areas. For many of you this is our fourth wave and feels like stepping once more into the eye of the storm. Let us not forget, however, that we are as well-prepared as we have ever been – COVID-19 treatments are better known and practised and more people are getting vaccinated which should give us comfort. However, unvaccinated people still make up the vast majority of those admitted to hospital and to ITU who are critically unwell. Younger people are becoming seriously ill, sometimes fatally so.

Our message remains that vaccination must be a key way to help break the cycle of transmission, along with regular testing, social distancing, handwashing and use of PPE. Thank you for keeping going with all this.

We have spent the last week reviewing once more the pay rates for bank shifts so that we rightly do all we can to maintain patient safety and encourage take up of additional shifts in high risk areas. This meant we have temporarily increased bank rates for registered nurses in certain areas. We are also able to confirm that the wave 1 enhancements that the Trust put in place in April 2020 to respond to the first wave of the pandemic will remain in place until there is a consistent approach to bank rates across NHS organisations in the Black Country. We have checked our bank rates against our neighbouring Trusts and are assured that they are higher than others locally. We want to firstly fill our shifts, where there is sickness or a vacancy, with our own, valued staff rather than rely on agency workers. You are all far more familiar with our systems and processes, and our standards of care.

I also know that, at times, some of our areas are not able to fill all the shifts we need to, so that some shifting around needs to take place day by day.  The Board are well aware of the fact that we are at times needing to change our nurse to patient ratios at the moment and do not consider this a long term sustainable position, however it is, on the balance of risk, safer to do this than to leave acutely unwell people in overcrowded emergency portals.  I am sorry if this affects and frustrates you but it is vital that we maintain patient safety with the numbers of staff on duty across the Trust. Thank you for being flexible and accommodating these changes. I know that this is tough and it is relentless.

I have heard this week about the verbal abuse that some of you have faced from people when you are asking their vaccine status or explaining that they have COVID-19. I am sincerely sorry for what you are experiencing – it is not acceptable. People are entitled to their different opinions about lockdown restrictions and vaccinations but when you are being faced with hostility and being called liars because of your professional diagnoses and taking of medical history this crosses a line. I would urge you to ensure that you report all cases of verbal abuse, declare them on our incident system and call our fantastic security team if you feeling in any way unsafe. We will do all we can to make a stand to protect our colleagues.  In certain cases we will consider prosecution, if we feel it appropriate.

Be sure to grab an ice cream on us today

Today we will have an ice cream van on site at both City and Sandwell until 5pm. The ice cream van at City will be based at the small taxi rank space at the very front of the hospital, between the Birmingham Treatment Centre and the ED main entrance doors. The ice cream van at Sandwell will be based outside Trinity House under the canopy in one of three spaces.

The ice cream van will also be stopping by the below community sites from 11am onwards:

• Victoria Health Centre, B66 3PZ
• Summerfield House, B18 7AL
• Soho Health Centre, B21 9RY
• Lyng Health Centre, B70 7AW
• Great bridge Health Centre, B70 0BF
• Oldbury Health Centre, B69 4DE

Note: We must remind colleagues that it is only one ice cream per person.

For more information please email Sarah.Gammidgejefferson@nhs.net.

Midland Met – Did you know?

When Midland Met opens it will have a range of state-of-the-art imaging and diagnostic equipment thanks to our managed equipment contract and agreement with Siemens Healthcare.

Heartbeat: Clinicians to lead new study into Behçet’s disease

Our clinicians will lead one of the largest studies into the rare auto inflammatory disorder Behçet’s disease to identify prevalence and incidence and assess the impact of the condition.

Dr Priyanka Chandratre, Consultant Rheumatologist, is the primary investigator for the study which has been funded equally by Your Trust Charity and Behçet’s UK to the amount of £71,862.

Dr Chandratre said: “The aim of our study is to establish the prevalence of Behçet’s disease in adults in the UK. To our knowledge this will be the largest study to systematically identify patients with a diagnosis of the disease.

“The most important milestones will include establishing the prevalence and incidence of Behçet’s disease for the first time in the UK, using multiple data sources to maximise case ascertainment.

“Our project will identify cases for inclusion in a national Behçet’s registry populated via a validated pipeline.”

It means that for the first time it will be feasible to assess the impact of the National Centres of Excellence for Behcet’s disease. There are three situated across the UK – one at City Hospital, another in London and the third in Liverpool. The aim of these centres is to optimise care and improve outcomes for patients with Behçet’s disease in the UK, shortening time to diagnosis from first symptoms and reducing complications such as visual loss.

The study will also mean those living with the disorder will be able to take part in clinical trials where available.

Dr Chandratre added: “The study will be led by myself and supervised by Dr Deva Situnayake, who is lead for the National Centre of Excellence for Behçet’s disease in Birmingham.

“Our collaborators include both centres in Liverpool and London and the Institute of Applied Health Research, University of Birmingham. We want to thank both Your Trust Charity and Behçet’s UK for funding this important study.”

In the UK, Behçet’s disease is a rare immune mediated multisystem inflammatory disorder. It can lead to blindness, brainstem atrophy, blood clots and pulmonary aneurysms. But little information is known on the frequency of poor outcomes.

Job of the Week: Director of Integration – (6-9 month secondment)

Director of Integration – 6-9 month Secondment
VSM Salary Range £125 – £145k per annum

Sandwell Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) leaders are developing new integrated ways of working to improve the health and wellbeing outcomes of the Sandwell population, increase the quality of care provided and ensure long term financial sustainability of the Place. The recently adopted Case for Change, produced in partnership with KPMG, sets out the new proposed model of care through which the ICP will improve the way specialist support is delivered in the community to meet these objectives. This programme of work supports the wider NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE/I) ambition for Place-based partnerships to define their Place level strategy by the end of Q2. Our work is being aligned to the 4 core purposes of Integrated Care Systems (ICS) nationally.

Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust (SWBT) aspire to be the host organisation for the ICP and we will host this key role. The Trust is an integrated care organisation with a budget of approximately £600 million and over 7,000 staff. Integrated care and improving life chances is our purpose as the Trust provides Community and Acute Services to over half a million people in an urban centre that demands massive regeneration and has substantial premature mortality and declining healthy life expectancy.

Our new acute hospital serving Sandwell and West Birmingham, the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital (MMUH), opens next year and will provide care to our local population from first class, purpose-built premises. The development of the new hospital will play an important role in the regeneration of the wider area and in improving the lives of local people and reducing health inequalities. The new hospital will also keep integration at the heart of our journey, providing an opportunity to design and shape services that are fit for the future and offer exceptional quality of care to our communities.

The Director of Integration will lead the senior leadership team of the partnership, made up of senior colleagues from the statutory organisations, primary care and the voluntary sector, to deliver the recommendations of the Case for Change and to develop and implement the programme of strategic change, so our chosen population outcome measures are met.

Accountable to the ICP Board and also as a member of the SWB executive team and Trust Board, you will be a proven leader in the multi-agency environment, who has ideally worked at or near Board level in provider organisations in either health or social care. You will be conversant with the new strategic context of integration and collaboration as reflected in the health and care white paper.

• Executive Director of Integration Job Advert
• Executive Director of Integration Expressions of Interest Form
• Executive Director of Integration Job Description

If you are interested in this opportunity and would like an initial discussion about the role then please contact Richard Beeken, Interim Chief Executive Officer by emailing r.beeken@nhs.net

This opportunity is open to employees of any of the Black Country and West Birmingham Integrated Care Partner organisations. If you are interested then please complete the attached Expression of Interest (EOI) Form highlighting your experience (in line with the Person Specification) and suitability for the role and submit this to ruby.stone2@nhs.net by 5pm on Thursday 12 August.

Applications close at 5pm on Thursday 12 August and we would expect to undertake interviews week commencing 30 August.

Heartbeat: Doctor’s research will improve quality of endoscopy

Consultant Gastroenterologist Dr Nigel Trudgill has been successfully appointed to the prestigious Clinical Research Network West Midlands Health and Care Scholars Programme.

This is a two year programme which will provide funding to free up consultant time for a day a week to allow Dr Trudgill time and support from the CRN to focus on and develop his research ideas.

Dr Trudgill explained: “We will be working with support from the Birmingham Clinical Trials Unit on a major grant application for a national randomised trial to improve the quality of endoscopy in the UK and reduce the chance of cancer being missed at endoscopy.”

Dr Derek Connolly, Director of R&D said: “This was a competitive interview and Dr Trudgill has done very well in attaining this valuable post. It builds on our previous successful applicants Dr Ispoglou and Mr Velota Sung.

Research is at the heart of everything we do at SWB and it’s imperative as we go into the new hospital that we have world-class researchers.”

When to come to A&E

We are currently experiencing high levels of attendance to our emergency departments, yet around 50 per cent of those seeking help could have been cared for more quickly in a different setting.

It’s important that we work together in spreading the word about using alternative healthcare facilities, like GP surgeries, pharmacies and contacting NHS 111 first.

Therefore we have created a number of videos in conjunction with doctors working within ED, delivering this message in different languages so that we reach our diverse communities. It’s important that they are aware of the various ways in which they can receive care.

We are asking colleagues to share the videos with their friends and loved ones in the languages that are most relevant so that together we can ensure patients receive the right care in a timely manner.

Note: The video above is also available in Arabic, Punjabi and Urdi.

Sad passing of Bernie Parish

On Saturday 3 July, a very dear colleague Bernie (Bernadette) Parish sadly passed away after a very short illness.

Bernie trained at what was then Dudley Road Hospital and spent over 40 years at the Trust.

She was the theatre manager and senior sister of theatres 6 and 7 and ENT theatres and then became the theatre manager of the Birmingham Treatment Centre when it opened, until her retirement in 2011. Bernie has been a mainstay in theatres since the 1970’s, passing on a wealth of invaluable knowledge and skills to students and theatre practitioners.

She was a well admired and much appreciated colleague and enjoyed her retirement travelling across the globe including Thailand, the Maldives, the south of France and Ireland.

Bernie’s funeral service is scheduled to take place today (Tuesday 27 July) at 2pm, at St Marys RC Church, Harvington, Kidderminster.