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Monthly archives: December 2021

New vulnerable adults risk management process

 

A new risk management process for vulnerable adults has been introduced across Sandwell for colleagues to follow.

Vulnerable adults risk management (VARM) aims to ensure an effective multi-agency working around vulnerable adults deemed to have mental capacity, but who are at risk of serious harm or death through self neglect, risk taking behaviour or refusal of services.

The process aims to embed early intervention through multi-agency meetings and the use of a risk framework to manage the risk to a vulnerable adult.

VARM will:

  • Identify the relevant risks with the individual
  • Discuss and agree involved participants responsibilities/actions
  • Record, monitor and review progress with the agreed action plan
  • Agree when the risks have been managed and evaluate the outcome

The new process has been developed in response to identified learning from safeguarding adult reviews in Sandwell. These reviews identified that professionals often struggled to understand who to share information about risk with.  Identified themes have included drugs and alcohol misuse, hoarding, mental health needs and/or learning disabilities, and homelessness.

A number of awareness sessions are taking place for those colleagues who will be using the new process. Sessions will take place on Monday 20 December and Tuesday 21 December between 2-3pm and colleagues can book by clicking here.

Give yourself a boost – protect each other during the festive season

 

The festive season has arrived and as we meet with friends and family, it’s important we’re as safe as possible. Visit the vaccination hub or a pop-up clinic to get your flu jab and COVID-19 booster to protect yourself and those around you as soon as possible so we can all enjoy the festivities safely with our loved ones.

When and where to get your jabs:

Sandwell:  Pop up clinics are taking place in the Berridge Suite on 2 and 16 December between 9am – 4pm.

City: The City vaccination hub in Sheldon Block is open seven days a week between 8am – 6pm for walk-ins.

Be sure to check out this short video featuring Louise Allmark, Catering Assistant encouraging everyone to get their booster jab.

Wellbeing Wednesday: Tips for working from home

 

If you are working from home your personal wellbeing is of paramount importance. Consider how we can support you with your, personal wellbeing, physical health and mental health.

  • Plan a routine

It’s good to have a plan, so try to stick to the same each day as this helps you to have a start and finish to your day.

  • Your workspace

Consider a clear plan to make it easy to separate work from home life. Have a system for ending your day; so hide or cover your laptop and pack away your equipment rather than looking at it in your leisure time.

  • Don’t forget to take a break and fun Fridays – Stay connected

Connect with your colleagues. If you are in your office, you could consider a 10 min Microsoft Teams coffee break together or do similar at lunchtime and have a lunch break together. Some teams plan a mindful Monday, or a fun Friday Zoom, plan a short Microsoft Teams with your team to have a laugh, share your thoughts and start and end your week positively.

  • Are you sitting well? Improve your ergonomics – stretch your body, improve your posture.

It is great for your physical and mental health if you are able to stand up and stretch once an hour. If you are unable to do this move away from your keyboard and stretch from your chair or sitting position. Check your computer is at eye level not flat on your table, this supports your neck and body and every 20 minutes look away from your screen to stretch and improve your eye muscles.

  • Be kind to yourself

Don’t forget to switch of mentally and turn off your computer at the end of your day. Whether you are working from home or in the office you are working hard and contributing so, be kind to yourself and if no one else is there to do it say “well done!” to yourself.

Additional support, if you need to talk to someone in confidence:

 The Wellbeing Sanctuary ‘a place of calm’ we can support you:

  • You can book a confidential conversation at The Wellbeing Sanctuary by calling 0121 507 5886
  • Connect your with your local REACT practitioner by calling 0121 507 5886
  • Occupational health, access to counselling support by calling 0121 507 3306
  • On Connect you have access to the speak up guardians
  • NHS an external confidential counselling number 0800 06 96 222 (7am – 11pm)
  • Chaplaincy team: All trained listeners and people who care for you – email mary.causer@nhs.net or call 0121 507 3552/4055 or 07972 572854
  • Speak to your doctor

Service of Seca scales

 

A service engineer from Seca will be servicing all adult scales across our sites from Monday 13 December – Friday 14 January. Please ensure that scales are available during this time.

For more information please call ext. 4070 or email sharanjeet.malhi@nhs.net.

Attention junior doctors: Fill out the diagnosis section of the Unity discharge summary correctly

 

Recent data analysis has shown that the diagnosis section of the Unity discharge summary is not being filled in correctly.

The Professional Records Standards Body Guidelines states that the patient’s correct diagnosis must be stated in the discharge summary. This is vital for continuity of patient care, patient safety and understanding.

For further details please see Unity discharge summary information sheet.

Change in pathway – ronapreve

 

Ronapreve (a neutralising monoclonal antibody therapy) is now available for COVID-19 positive patients that are aged more than 12 years and weigh more than 40kgs. Positive patients that are unwell and well could be eligible to receive Ronapreve. Be sure to check out this short video featuring Dr Chizo Agwu, Deputy Medical Director to learn about the new pathway and how your patients can benefit from this treatment.

Note: All pathways including the full Neutralising Monoclonal Antibody (nMAB) (Casirivimab and Imdevimab) Ronapreve in Hospitalised Patients guidance can be found on the Covid Clinical Guidance page.

SCP: Your Guide to Giving Excellent Palliative & End of Life Care

 

National Standards tell us that a key part of excellent Palliative and End of Life Care is using a structured care plan to guide care.

We know that early conversations help people with a palliative diagnosis  meet their goals of care including where they die and families. For example allowing time to plan a ‘fast track’ discharge for someone to die in their own home or patients to have important conversations with people they love.

At SWBH for people who we think have a prognosis of less than 1 year , so Months, Weeks or Days, we use the Supportive Care Plan (SCP) as our guide. It can be found in the Clinical Work Flow in Unity.  Our ambition is that for 80% of people this will be in place in time to allow people to have a dignified end of life experience.

Recognise palliative care needs we have built the SPICT Tool within the Unity SCP Workflow which will help you identify people who are likely to have palliative care needs and support discussions within the ward MDT & patient about priorities, care needs and the future (and family/carers as appropriate). It can be completed independently of the SCP as a screening tool by any clinician and can then be added to when the SCP is agreed as appropriate.

Initiation of the SCP is done by the medical team responsible for the patient’s care by populating the initial medical assessment in the workflow including medical condition, patient and family’s understanding and wishes for the future including preferences about onward care. There will then be a flag assigned to that patient highlighting the need to ensure excellent supportive and palliative care.

Nursing Care can be then documented using the SCP shift assessment to guide symptom assessment and family/carer support in the same workflow.

SCP ward round notes will then pull info from nursing shift reviews and  reviews to keep information together and reduce time inputting information.

After death – use the ‘Aftercare module’  in the workflow to document verification, property and care of the bereaved.

https://issuu.com/oldstable1issuu/docs/ml6505_unity_supportive_care_plan_pocketbook_conve

For more guidance about using the SCP in Unity you can use the ebook link above (NB supported in chrome or Edge – avoid using explorer) or find it via  Unity ‘eCoach’ which is accessible from the tabs at the top of Unity where you will find the Quick Reference Guide and online learning modules.

Training modules can also be accessed directly here
– Log In if you already have an account OR click Register – follow the instructions and look out for
authorisation email
– Click at the top left and then Library
– Click Unity Training and scroll down to the four Supportive Care Plan courses
– Click the header / picture for the course relevant to your role
– Click Enrol at the top right of each course and then scroll down to complete the modules listed (followthe on-screen instructions as the formats vary)

Data ready QI project: time to get going

 

We know that many people want to improve the experience of the people that look after particularly that touch time as they reach the end of their lives and need excellent care more than ever.

Using Quality Improvement methodology to drive change using using national standards to bench mark against is a great way to do this.

For Palliative and End-of-Life Care the national standards to bench mark against are from the National Audit of Care at the End of Life (NACEL)

You can see the last SWBH results here They weren’t good, we were below national average on most of the metrics.

The good news is we have mapped these metrics to data we can extract from Unity and you can now access the data and set up your own QI project using high quality ready made data – less time reading through notes and more time with your team getting on and making much needed changes.

Alongside this we have collected resources and tools to help you on your local QI journey which you can find here.

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