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Monthly archives: October 2021

Essential IT upgrade affecting Alfresco: 2 November 7pm – midnight

 

Please be aware an essential database software upgrade will be taking place on Tuesday 2 November affecting Alfresco. The work is scheduled to begin at 7pm and should be completed just after midnight. This is required to apply essential bug fixes .

For up to 5 hours during this time Alfresco scanned legacy case notes and episodic paper folders linked from CSS and Unity will be unavailable. All other documents stored directly in Unity and CSS will be unaffected. The activity has been scheduled at this time to minimise impact to our outpatient clinics.

The activity will be closely monitored by our support vendor and IT support teams. Desktop alerts will be issued from 6pm to remind affected colleagues.

As always, should you have any further queries or experience any issues after the maintenance then please do contact the IT Service Desk on ext. 4050 or 0121 507 4050 for home workers.

Fancy an e-bike worth £2,500?

 

As part of a raffle to raise money towards our Midland Metropolitan University Hospital campaign, E-Bike Brum are giving you the opportunity to win a brand new e-bike worth a whopping £2,500!

You can choose any bike from the following ranges:

  • Urban hybrid e-bike
  • Step thru Dutch style e-bike
  • Folding e-bike
  • Commuting/shopper e-bike

And there’s more…

Thanks to our generous partners we have secured some fantastic prizes including:

  • Facebook Portal Mini x1
  • WBA FC goody hampers x3
  • Toy Hamper x2
  • Chilly Bottle x 5
  • Bronnley mini hamper x4

The raffle is open until Tuesday 30 November and the winners will be announced on Wednesday 1 December.

Raffle tickets are £5 each – you can buy your tickets by clicking here.

Note: If you are a UK tax payer, you can complete the box and allow the charity to claim an extra 25 pence per pound on your donation.

Star Awards 2021: Chairman’s Award for notable contribution to the local health and social care system – Paula Arlington, Lead Nurse for Quality in Care Homes

 

Paula Arlington started her NHS career at Rowley as a healthcare assistant in 1999.

In order to pursue a career in nursing she went to university in 2004. Upon qualification she worked in care homes and in 2010 worked for a short period at Russells Hall focussing on renal cardiology and diabetes.

She came back to our Trust in 2012 and worked as a community nurse. She then undertook her community nursing practitioner degree and became an autonomous practitioner and held an independent prescribing qualification.

In 2016 Paula joined the community outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy team driving the development of intravenous antibiotics in the community, a service she developed for two years.

In 2018 she was successful in securing the better care funded post as lead nurse for quality and safety in care homes, working with Sandwell MBC and our Trust. This post was the first of its kind in Sandwell and has led the way.

Paula has built up strong relationships with care home managers and she is the go to person for advice and support which stood her in good stead when managing the pandemic.

During the peak of the pandemic, much of the council’s front line services were not patient facing and it was our winner who would be available and working alongside the care homes.

Paula supported the management of outbreaks and provided expert advice regarding PPE requirements.

She even delivered essential supplies and provided a crucial bridge between public health and the care homes.

The number of COVID related deaths in care homes was sadly devastating. But Sandwell had the lowest regionally and nationally.

Fitting research into clinical practice event – service evaluation and audit: 11 November

 

Hear how clinical academic AHPs across the West Midlands successfully collect routine data to make an impact on service delivery and patients at this special digital event on Thursday 11 November, 7.30pm – 8.30pm.

 Shaun Johns, clinical scientist from SWB will also be one of the speakers at the event.

To join the event and for further information, please click here.

Heartbeat: New fleet goes green

 

Sustainability, environment and air quality – not necessarily three things you would associate with a new fleet of vehicles, but they proved the winning combination as our Trust took delivery of a new fleet of environmentally friendly focused vehicles earlier this year.

Whilst patients might simply associate the brightly lit ambulances with the NHS, it actually takes an incredible fleet of vehicles and drivers to keep a busy NHS Trust ticking over. Ferrying colleagues from site to site, picking up supplies and moving equipment – it’s all in a day’s work and it all has an impact on our surroundings, the environment and ultimately the health of our staff, patients and public.

With an aging fleet of vehicles and improvements in technology it was clear we had an opportunity to meet our practical needs whilst making sure we made the right choice for our future and the environment we live in. The call went out our suppliers to meet our stringent requirements and they delivered the perfect mix.

With their pristine paintwork and proudly embellished logos the new vehicles rolled in to the Trust, with fully electric Nissan Leafs becoming our new general transport vehicles currently being used by our anticoagulant teams to our security team taking delivery of their Hybrid Toyota Rav 4.

Delighted with the new vehicles, Transport Deputy Manager Jay Akbar said: “We knew our old vehicles were in need of replacement and we had the ideal opportunity to meet the sustainability goals we have been trying to meet for some time. We have always been limited by the fact the demand we placed on our vehicles far surpassed the technology available so electric vehicles until recently just weren’t practical, but with improvements to technology and the roll out of charging points across the Trust, our dream became a reality

“We’ve been able to take a fresh look at our fleet and to match it to our current needs and to the needs we will have as we develop to our new models of working transitioning to Midland Met. We will have more reliance on smaller, more manoeuvrable vehicles and the improved emissions and fuel economy will improve our finances and health.”

Congratulations to all our winners at this year’s Star Awards!

 

Last Friday we held our 2021 Star Awards where a total of 20 awards were handed out to both clinical and non-clinical colleagues across SWB.

Our awards ceremony, which was held at Aston Villa Football Club, aims to recognise the hard work and dedication of our colleagues and volunteers, both on the frontlines and our supporting services.

Throughout this week, we will be celebrating all our award winners from the annual awards.

Today we feature:

Be sure to also check out the video below featuring some of our very own NHS Heroes after they were crowned winners at the Star Awards 2021.

Duty of Candour month

 

As you may be aware, throughout October the patient safety team has been releasing communications highlighting the Duty of Candour (DoC) process and providing different tools to help colleagues to complete this process.

This week, we look at a document put together by the National Patient Safety Agency which goes in detail about saying sorry when things go wrong and being open with patients. Click here to access the document.

In case you missed it, you access last week’s Duty of Candour month message by clicking here.

Creative thoughtfulness in the care of others online course

 

This is a new course available for all colleagues via online class and is divided into 6 one hourly modules focusing on the small things that can make a world of difference across the hospital.  It is suitable for both clinical and non-clinical colleagues and could also be an opportunity for you to update your CPD.

The 6 modules do not have to be done in any particular order so you can do them to suit your own timetable.

  • Session 1 volunteering – childhood memories -activities
  • Session 2 surroundings – comfort
  • Session 3 welcome – communication
  • Session 4 hygiene – carers – waiting
  • Session 5 nutrition – bereavement – mobility
  • Sessions 6 Long term care – home and away

On completion of a simple reflective journal at the end you will receive a certificate which can count towards your CPD, and if you don’t want to complete all 6 for CPD purposes, you can dip in and out of them as you wish.

Places can be booked via ESR and you will receive an email with session log on details prior to the course.

For more information please email swbh.landd@nhs.net.

Congratulations to all our winners at this year’s Star Awards!

 

Last Friday we held our 2021 Star Awards where a total of 20 awards were handed out to both clinical and non-clinical colleagues across SWB.

Our awards ceremony, which was held at Aston Villa Football Club, aims to recognise the hard work and dedication of our colleagues and volunteers, both on the frontlines and our supporting services.

Throughout this week, we will be celebrating all our award winners from the annual awards.

Today we feature:

Be sure to also check out the video below featuring some of our very own NHS Heroes after they were crowned winners at the Star Awards 2021.

Chemocare upgrade taking place this week

 

Please note that Chemocare will be unavailable on Thursday 21 October due to a system upgrade. The new version of the system will be available through Connect under Clinical Systems, alongside recordings of the training sessions conducted over the summer. Usernames and passwords will remain as they are.

Please contact the pharmacy aseptics team for any queries.

Click here to log into Chemocare.

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