Monthly archives: July 2021
Wellbeing Wednesday: ABC – your ten step guide to staying well and connected
Every Wednesday we bring you information about our health and wellbeing services. This week we bring you the ABC of wellbeing and a step by step guide to support mental wellbeing.
Ask for help if you need to
Be kind to yourself
Connect with someone
Ten ways to de-stress and support your personal mental wellbeing:
1. Connect with nature – Psychological research shows your mood can be improved by just a taking a walk. When you do, it’s very important not to just look at the ground, take notice of the surrounding, and be mindful. What did you see? A budding crocus? Ducks on the pond? A glimpse of blue sky? It’s something to look forward to.
2. Exercise – Try something new such as mindful yoga with Chris – available to do from home, each lesson just 20 minutes to switch off and unwind.
3. Connect with someone. There are many options available to you from people who care about you:
- Connect with a colleague or friend
- Book a chat at the Sanctuary by calling 0121 507 5886
- Call our counselling service on 0800 06 96 222 between 7am – 11pm
- Have a conversation with one of our REACT Practitioners by calling 0121 507 5886
4. Relaxation pod – the luxury relaxation pod is available to colleagues keen to unwind. Call 0121 507 5886 to book
5. Cleanse your space and recharge – Turn off phones, plan a nice meal and enjoy ‘me’ time.
6. Healthy eating – Look after your wellbeing by trying some new healthy recipes. This is a great time to eat well and live well
7. Get Creative or learn something new:
8. Music – This has been found to have a very calming effect with research showing visible benefits in MRI scans
9. Meditation – Just 10 – 20 minutes can benefit your mood in a positive way. Why not check out our Thrive app
10. Sleep – Tips to get to sleep better
Note: Additional bereavement support can be accessed by calling 0300 303 4434 between 8am – 8pm.
Network maintenance affecting bleep system at City tomorrow from 12.05am (midnight)
Please be aware IT will be carrying out essential network maintenance which will affect the bleep system at City on Thursday 15 July from 12.05am – 12.15am (midnight). This is required to update the Trust’s supporting software to the latest version.
The bleep system at City will be temporarily unavailable for approximately 10 minutes from 12.05am – 12.15am on 15 July so colleagues are advised to utilise radios during this time. Please collect radios by 10pm on Wednesday 14 July.
The activity will be closely monitored and desktop alerts will also be issued.
Please do call the 24 hour IT service desk if you have any queries on this on ext. 4050 or 0121 507 4050 for home workers.
Shafilea Ahmed Day – national day of remembrance for victims of ‘honour-based’ abuse
People suffering ‘honour-based’ abuse are being urged to seek help and support, as we mark the annual Day of Memory today to remember lost victims.
The day was inspired by Bradford-born Shafilea Ahmed. Shafilea was murdered by her parents in a so-called ‘honour’ killing in 2003 when she was just 17 years old. Her parents believed she had brought shame upon the family as Shafilea had refused an arranged marriage.
Shafilea’s parents were convicted of her murder and jailed for life.
The annual Day of Memory remembers men and women affected by ‘honour-based’ abuse.
The term ‘honour-based’ abuse refers to controlling behaviour including physical violence and abuse motivated by a perceived need to maintain, or restore, family honour.
The warning signs of ‘honour based’ abuse can include:
- Broken communication between victim and friends
- Absence from education or the workplace
- Criticism of the victim for ‘western’ dress or make-up
- Restrictions in leaving the house or being accompanied outside the home
- Depressive or suicidal tendencies in an otherwise happy person.
To contact our safeguarding children office, please call 0121 507 2844. If you are worried about yourself, a patient a friend or colleague, you should call the police on 999.
For further information and advice around ‘honour based’ violence please click here.
The Karma Nirvana charity helps and supports victims of ‘honour based’ abuse, you can find out more about the charity by clicking here.
Bed asset collections taking place today and tomorrow
Throughout today, (Wednesday 14 July) and tomorrow (Thursday 15 July), Arjo will be working across our sites to collate asset information on beds across the Trust. They will be visiting wards and departments to obtain bed numbers and review their condition.
Arjo will be visiting these areas:
- Wednesday 14 July – City Hospital, Leasowes and Rowley
- Thursday 15 July – Sandwell Hospital
Should you have any questions, please contact suzanne.gray9@nhs.net or lloyd.williams2@nhs.net.
Wellbeing Wednesday: Domestic abuse – support is available
Domestic abuse is one person exerting power and control over another. Abuse may be psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional. Domestic abuse can affect anyone regardless of age, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation.
Support is available so don’t suffer in silence:
- Call the 24-hour helpline for men and women on 0121 552 6448
- National domestic violence helpline can be called on free phone 0808 2000 247
- Mankind specialise in helping men escape domestic violence and can be contacted on 01823 334 244
- If you can’t make a phone call, you can text or WhatsApp message 07384 466 181 (9am-9pm weekdays)
- You can speak to an advisor via web chat (10am – 2pm weekdays) via blackcountrywomensaid.co.uk. Black Country Women’s Aid support women, men and children
- More online support materials and information is available at sandwell.gov.uk/domesticabuse
- If you are worried about your own behaviour towards others you can call the Respect Helpline on 0808 802 4040.
Note: In an emergency you should always call 999
Did you know the Domestic Abuse Act has changed: The Domestic Abuse Bill officially received a royal assent. This means the ‘landmark’ Domestic Abuse Act explicitly recognises children as victims if they see, hear or experience the effects of abuse and is designed to provide greater protection to those who experience domestic abuse and to increase measures available to tackle perpetrators. You can click here for further details about the measures and its benefits.
Heartbeat: Hocus-POCUS provides a magical remedy to saving patients’ lives
Acute Medical consultant Dr Sarb Clare has been recognised for her work in introducing ultrasound scans at the front door to detect COVID-19 and other serious conditions – saving hundreds of lives.
Dr Clare led on delivering the POCUS (Point of Care Ultrasound) which means patients are given the test, reviewed by a doctor and either discharged within five days or given further treatment, which could involve being transferred to the critical care unit.
The scan is able to determine the severity of the COVID-19 infection as well as other lung conditions, and also heart failure and kidney failure. It takes place at the patient’s bedside, avoiding a transfer to the radiology department, and the doctor and patient are able to see the results in real-time.
There are two dedicated scanners within the acute medicine unit, which were funded through WRVS and are used to carry out POCUS.
The doctor’s work has been given the Meridian Innovation and Improvement Champion Award at the WMAHSN (West Midlands Academic Health and Science Network) Meridian Celebration of Innovation Awards 2020.
Dr Clare MBE, who is also deputy medical director said: “I am honoured to have won this award – along with the other winners who were also recognised for their outstanding innovation. My work on POCUS is my true passion and mission. It saves lives, empowers clinicians with knowledge, skills and ability to make decisions, and most importantly it improves the patient journey.”
Dr Clare’s work stems back to 2014 when she used POCUS in Cape Town, South Africa, to carry out humanitarian work for young children who were unable to access traditional health care due to poverty.
She added: “Having portable scanners results in simple preventable illness being diagnosed and managed in a timely fashion.
“We are currently working on project ‘EPICENTRE’ which involves taking POCUS out into the community – which will a new way of preventing admissions to hospitals.
“Alongside this I have started training some local GPs to offer this service in the community. This is a really exciting time to be involved in acute medicine.”
Dr Clare has created free accessible educational tools for fellow clinicians on how to scan and what to expect, with City Hospital leading on this work nationally. She has also developed the website www.ultrasoundatthefrontdoor.com which provides free learning, education and training. Whilst her book “Ultrasound for the Generalist – A Guide To point of care imaging”- co-authored with Dr Chris Duncan, is due to come out later this year.
Tammy Holmes, Head of Innovation Exchange at WMAHSN, said: “We’d like to congratulate all of the winners at this year’s Meridian Celebration of Innovation Awards. We received many fantastic entries and are truly humbled by the work that has been taking place within the region, in what has been an incredibly challenging year.”
Meridian Innovation Exchange is a platform open to any individuals or organisations to find healthcare innovations, share ideas, build groups, and grow networks to collaborate and improve healthcare provision across the West Midlands. The platform helps users showcase their ideas, spread good practice, and bring about change with collaborators from across sectors.
Heartbeat: SWB part of national review on care of heart attack patients
A national report on the standards of care for patients who are admitted to hospital following a cardiac arrest has included data from SWB.
Dr Jon Hulme, Consultant in Anaesthesia & Intensive Care Medicine was one of the national reviewers to the In Hospital Care of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrests: Time Matters report produced by the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD), published earlier this year.
We interviewed Jon and this is what he told us.
Q – What is the Time Matters report and what’s its purpose?
Time Matters is a report from NCEPOD published in early February. It assesses the quality of care provided to patients aged 16 years and over who were admitted to hospital following an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. By taking a detailed review of care, key recommendations can be given that are related to current practice. It is a one off report but NCEPOD is continuously undertaking reviews across a range of different topics. As the topics and reports are large and time-consuming there are typically one to three reports published every year.
Q – What is your involvement with NCEPOD
NCEPOD is an organisation in which practising clinicians review the management of patients undergoing medical and surgical care by undertaking confidential surveys and reviewing care provision and resources.
The reports are varied but essential reading for clinicians, policy makers and public representatives. NCEPOD is extremely well respected; it is a charity and not allied to government and so can be said to undertake reviews that are independent and insightful.
Q – How did you become a contributor to the Time Matters report?
One of my areas of expertise is resuscitation medicine and cardiac arrest. I am involved in this within my role as an ambulance service/helicopter doctor as well as within the intensive care unit. I am the SWB lead clinician for resuscitation and run the life support training group at the University of Birmingham, too.
When I saw that NCEPOD was asking for national case reviewers, I applied and was successful in being appointed as part of a group of approximately 30 reviewers who assessed the data from across the country. I am pleased to have been able to represent our Trust as part of such a large scale report.
Q – What data was used for your contribution of the report?
Data for the whole chain of survival and recovery was assessed. This includes initial treatment of the patient out of hospital by the ambulance service, where that patient was then taken to and management within the emergency department, acute cardiac care and intensive care unit.
There was also focus on how to prognosticate (the assessment of how good a recovery somebody might make) and then provision of rehabilitation and support services following this. Copies of ambulance service patient report forms and patient notes (anonymised) were provided to us.
Q – How is the report used by colleagues across the NHS?
NCEPOD provides reports that are trusted widely across the NHS. They provide as good a representation of how that type of care is being given as one is likely to achieve. The reports are able to highlight what is generally done well and what areas require more attention. Trusts, and in this case ambulance and hospital and community, can then use the report to compare against how they are working and determine how they can implement the key recommendations.
Q – What benefit is the report to patients?
The benefit to patients is that they can be reassured that an independent organisation is interested and skilled in assessing aspects of care to make recommendations for improvement. The reviews are undertaken by practising clinicians and the reports are well written, easy to understand and well supported by decision-makers in healthcare.
Heartbeat: Managing safety huddles in medicine
A total of eight wards are now taking part in daily safety huddles within medicine and emergency care.
The journey first started on D15 and D17 in April this year, and just two months down the line eight wards are now involved with daily huddles taking place with the multidisciplinary team in attendance.
Since incorporating safety huddles to support effective communication at key points in the care of patients, significant improvements have been made.
Heartbeat caught up with Jo Thomas, Patient Safety Specialist for Medicine who told us: “The team within the group have completely embraced safety huddles and we are delighted with the progress we have made in just a little over two months.
“The compliance for example on D11 has been sensational. Nearly every indicator is on the up constantly or maintaining/ surpassing the Trust target.
“Brand new multidisciplinary partnerships have been established between the wards, pharmacy and the therapy team; leading to great collaboration.”
Group Deputy Director of Nursing, Debi Fretwell added: “Safety huddles have enabled us to concentrate on daily areas of concern at ward level. This means ward multidisciplinary team meetings are in control of working closely together to highlight, focus as a team and make changes. The dashboard has been helpful in giving us data that we can all see and decide which area to focus on.
“In rolling out the huddles, we have focussed on some key areas to try and make safety huddles meaningful to wards with clear roles which have supported the wards with project team support and patient safety specialist direction and focus which we are grateful for. The principles we have used have included a roll out speciality by speciality with buddies, good support framework, a project group that is representative of all disciplines and lots of energy!
“Our next step – How to share learning, capture improvements and sustainability.”
Essential iPM maintenance 13 July, 8pm – 14 July, 2am
Please be aware an essential maintenance in iPM is taking place on Tuesday 13 July, 8pm by our support vendor to the IT infrastructure which will affect iPM.
Please be assured iPM will remain fully available; however, depending upon which server colleagues are connected to, you may be forcibly logged off iPM between 8pm – 8.05pm and 8.30pm – 8.35pm. You will be able to log straight back in and connect to a different server.
Desktop alerts will be issued from 6.30pm advising colleagues about the maintenance and at completion. The activity will be closely monitored at all times by our support vendor and our IT Support Teams.
As always, should you have any further queries or experience any issues with iPM after the maintenance then please do contact the 24 hour IT Service Desk on ext. 4050 or 0121 507 4050 for home workers and the duty manager.
Learning disabilities training sessions
We will be hosting learning disabilities virtual training sessions via WebEx from 10am – 12pm on the below dates:
- Thursday 19 August, Sandwell Education Centre, Room 12/13
- Thursday 23 September, Sandwell Education Centre conference room
The training is aimed at patient facing colleagues and will cover topics including how to support patients with a learning disability, reasonable adjustments, hospital passports, capacity and how to support patients with learning disabilities.
For booking details and information please call ext. 2669 or email r.begum19@nhs.net.
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