Michelle Hemmings will be hosting a black tie event on Saturday 21 August at the Holiday Inn, Chapel Lane, Birmingham, B43 7GB to help raise funds and awareness for organ donation through Your Trust Charity.
If you wish to purchase tickets or find out more about the black tie event, please call 07967048125 or click here.
Be sure to check out this short video to find out more about Michelle’s story.
As you are aware the situation is changing all the time within our region and the nation at large and we are seeing an increase in cases once again. Please be on the lookout for additional COVID-19 bulletins alongside our usual Friday update, as these will be being released as needed.
For ward staff, in recognition of the increasing patient admissions and difficulty in accessing time away from their areas to get cold drinks and snacks – especially given the hot weather – we are reintroducing snacks and drinks.
Please see following:
The first collection and delivery of ward snacks, water and fruit juice will be this Friday 23 July, however wards can contact catering today or tomorrow for bottles of water, which will be made available for collection.
Following national restrictions relaxing on Monday – in all but healthcare settings – you may wish to consider what rules to follow with regard to mask wearing and social distancing during your much needed time out together on Trust wellbeing days.
Whilst rules in venues will differ from the restrictions we adhere to across the Trust, our stance is that you should respect others and be cautious in your behaviour so ensuring that everyone feels comfortable and safe. You’ll be aware that COVID has not gone away and we are seeing numbers rise, so it is sensible to follow precautions, whilst getting the most out of your Trust organised away days.
The Government has confirmed from Monday 19 July 2021, double vaccinated frontline NHS staff who have been told to self-isolate can attend work in exceptional circumstances. This includes staff that have been contacted as a close contact of a case of COVID-19 by NHS Test and Trace, or advised to self-isolate by the NHS COVID-19 app.
In exceptional circumstances, fully vaccinated frontline NHS and social care staff, if identified as a close contact of a positive case, may be allowed to leave self-solation in order to attend (including travelling to and from) work.
Staff can only attend work during isolation not any other activities. If you are pinged or contacted please contact your line manager to discuss your ability to return to work. The following questions and areas must be discussed:
For more information please see here.
Some of you will be familiar with the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Masters Programme in Healthcare Leadership which has been running since 2013. There is now a new opportunity to participate in this programme as a Senior Leader Apprentice. To find out more about this opportunity please join the webinar on Wednesday 28 July, 12pm – 1pm. This webinar is open to potential apprentices and line managers. The first cohort due to start in January 2022 for candidates from our Black Country ICS is ring-fenced to colleagues from an ethnic minority background working between a Band 6 – 8A and employed with the Trust until March 2024 (due to the programme length).
If you are interested please complete the EOI Anderson expression of Interest form and return it to swbh.landd@nhs.net. If you are unable to join at the allotted time on Wednesday 28 July, please register your interest in viewing the recording by swbh.landd@nhs.net.
To join the Microsoft Teams meeting please click here.
For further details please see Anderson Senior Leader Apprenticeship FAQs.
On Sunday 13 June, a very dear colleague, Mary Donaghie unexpectedly passed away.
Mary had worked at City Hospital since 2006 when she joined the breast screening service and trained as an assistant practitioner. She retired in October 2020 but loved her job so much she returned part time until her untimely passing. Mary has been an amazing colleague and friend to so many. She was kind and caring to a fault, had a heart of gold, often going above and beyond, always bringing a smile and laughter to both clients and colleagues. Mary will be forever in our memories and will be greatly missed by all those who knew her and had the pleasure of working with her.
Tribute from Syeda Khan, Programme Manager (line manager): “Everyone who had the pleasure of meeting Mary has warm and wonderful memories of her, particularly of her infectious laughter and sense of humour. A huge void has been left in our work family due to Mary’s sudden and unexpected passing. We have all not only lost a colleague, but so many of us have lost a wonderful friend, one who had a heart of gold and will be forever in our memories.”
Funeral arrangements: Mary’s funeral will take place tomorrow (Thursday 22 July) at 12.20pm at Gornal Wood Crematorium. Due to COVID-19 restrictions only those who have been directly invited to the funeral should attend. However the funeral will be streamed live in the breast unit at City Hospital and in the breast unit at Walsall Manor Hospital. Colleagues are invited to write in the memorial book.
Charitable donation: Anyone wishing to make a donation in Mary’s memory should contact the breast unit on 0121 507 4967. This will be passed to Sarah-Jane and William, Mary’s wonderful children.
Sandwell Council are carrying out a needs assessment in relation to domestic abuse in the borough, examining any gaps or barriers to support and to consider potential areas for improved service provision. With this in mind, the council have put together a short survey to gather feedback and information to help improve the service going forward.
Note: You can skip any questions if you don’t feel comfortable in providing an answer, but please do take the time to answer the questionnaire as thoroughly as possible, as your views are really important in shaping future provision. Any specific comments used in the research will be anonymised.
Please click here to complete the survey.
Black Country NHS Healthcare Foundation Trust and Transforming Communities Together will be hosting a mental health and wellbeing Q&A session tomorrow (Thursday 22 July), 6pm.
The session will be led by Dr Bhawana Chawda, Associate Medical Director at Black Country Health Care NHS Foundation Trust and Rachel Moore, Mental Health Development Worker from Transforming Communities Together.
Click here to join this event and find out more.
You may be aware that some incidents that happen to patients are called ‘never events’ as they have been identified as events that should never happen, largely because there are mechanisms or systems in place to prevent them.
Recently we have had four ‘never events’ all relating to the same issue – patients being unintentionally connected to air instead of oxygen. There have been a total of 108 similar incidents in the past three years across the NHS, enough to make NHS England issue a patient safety alert.
Whilst we review our long-term actions to prevent inadvertent use of medical air, we have issued a learning alert to remind colleagues of our current practice.
Patient safety notice – air flow meters
We ask all clinical colleagues to bring this safety issue to the attention of everyone and share the above patient safety notice relating to air flow meters.
There will be only one shuttle bus running between 12pm – 3pm on Friday 23 July so please keep this in mind when planning your journeys across site when using the shuttle bus service. Normal service will resume at 3pm.
This means between 12pm – 3pm, there will only be shuttles at the below times.
Note: We must remind colleagues to continue to wear face masks on the shuttle. If you do not have a face covering they can be obtained from entrances on both sites or upon entry onto the shuttle.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
The Black Country and West Birmingham CCG and local GP practices are currently looking at ways in which technology can help to improve patient access to GP services and extend patient choice.
Whether or not you have experienced video consultations or online consultations with your GP practice, the CCG would like to hear from you and welcome your views on what you think about potentially accessing consultations in such ways.
The CCG would be grateful if you could please complete their short survey to help them understand what things are important to you that you would want or expect from an online consultation.
You can access the survey by clicking here.
Following remedial estates works Hallam Restaurant at Sandwell has now reopened.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.