Monthly archives: February 2022

Reduced parking at rear of AMU1 at City: 25 February – 1 March

We must inform colleagues that parking spaces to the rear of AMU1 at City Hospital (opposite the gym) will be unavailable to park in from Friday 25 February at 12pm until Tuesday 1st March.

This is to allow the positioning of a temporary generator whilst emergency repairs are conducted on hospital generator number 1 which serves the Accident and Emergency department.

Plenty of additional City parking is available at the rear of Summerfield House, around Brookfield House, at the rear of the old Laundry building and in the Sunken Gardens car park.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Star of the Week: Safraz Hussain

Our Star of the Week is Safraz Hussain, Vaccination Marshal at City vaccination hub.

Safraz always goes above and beyond to help vulnerable patients attending hub. We had an individual with multiple mental and physical disabilities attend the clinic recently when it had been snowing. The gentleman came in soaking wet and cold. Safraz provided him with a hot drink and also walked him home as it was dark by the time he had his vaccination. The patient was so grateful he later phoned hub to report kindness and empathy shown by Safraz and also sent a thank you letter.

Do you know someone in your team that has gone above and beyond the call of duty? Why not put them forward for Star of the Week by clicking here.

Pothole works at City: 24 February

From tomorrow, (Thursday, 24 February), please be aware that resurfacing around a pothole and ramp will be taking place at gate three just off Western Road at City Hospital.

During this period gate three will be closed and colleagues are asked to use gate four instead. This is situated slightly down the road.

Colleagues are reminded to plan for delays when travelling to and from City Hospital today.

Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

Drug safety notice: Levomepromazine injection

There is currently a supply issue with levomepromazine 25mg in 1ml injection. Our pharmacy department have minimal stocks and stock is not expected to be available until the first week of March. All clinical colleagues should be aware of the information in the levomepromazine injection alert and prescribe alternative options accordingly.

For more information please contact the pharmacy department on ext. 5263/3783.

Compassionate conversations – regional pilot training session: 25 February

A pilot training session will be delivered via the Microsoft Teams platform Friday 25 February aimed at non-clinical patient facing colleagues.

For further details please see Compassionate conversations training information sheet.

To view the available dates in your region and sign up please click here.

Autoimmune haemolytic anaemia education session: 22 March

The Midlands RTC are hosting a free educational session aimed at all clinical colleagues around the topic of autoimmune haemolytic anaemia on Tuesday 22 March, 12pm – 1.30pm.  There will be presentations from Helen Thom who will offer the Lab’s perspective and Lorna Cain who will be speaking from a clinical perspective.

To register for the event please click here.

For further details please see haemolytic anaemia flyer.

Job of the week: Secondment opportunity – surgical day unit and centralised pre-assessment role (Band 7)

Do you have good leadership skills and work well within a team? If the answer is yes then this could be the job for you. You need to have a minimum of two years’ experience as a Band 6 sister/team leader.

We are looking to appoint a strong clinical leader who is up for the challenge of being at the forefront of the restoration and recovery of surgical services.

An individual who has the ability to enhance and lead teams, to provide safe, effective and high quality care. Someone who is motivated, enthusiastic and a dynamic innovative leader with excellent interpersonal, communication and organisational skills to support development of pathways in preparation for Midland Metropolitan University Hospital.

The successful candidate will work across both Sandwell and City sites working a flexible seven day shift pattern.

Please make sure you have your line managers support before applying, anyone without this will not be considered. Applications will be internal only via an expression of interest letter and CV, detailing your experience and suitability for this role. Your expressions of interest should be emailed to angela.dudley@nhs.net by Tuesday 22 Marc, 12pm. Interviews will be held on Monday 7 March.

For further information please call Kayleigh Jepson, Senior Sister on 0121 507 2648.

Heartbeat: Opportunity knocks at Midland Met

The opening of Midland Met is highly anticipated, and rightly so.

It’s fair to say our move to Midland Met is a journey and one we’re all on together. Over the past year, we have planned, prepped, and worked tirelessly to ensure that we provide safe and high-quality services when we open.

Midland Met brings a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a healthcare facility that will significantly enhance the care we provide. It means we can transform services across our estate at SWB and in our communities. We will have dedicated consultant-led acute care teams seven days a week, a clinical model focused on keeping patients mobile, and a children’s emergency department and assessment unit, to name but a few things we will benefit from when Midland Met opens. Plus, we have secured funding to develop with partners a learning campus that will train our future workforce.

But in reality, it is so much more than that. For colleagues who’ll be working onsite, it means the opportunity to work on a brand-new campus with a much-improved working environment. And our other sites will be reconfigured to make the most of our estate. For example, we will create additional meeting rooms at Sandwell and City Hospitals.

To ensure that we stay united on our journey to Midland Met, we’re introducing a new way of tracking our progress as an organisation. The six-step change programme will be adapted across all services to ensure consistency. It will mean that we are checking off certain critical activities and tasks as we take steady steps towards opening our new hospital.

Our new six-step programme consists of:

1. Transformation planning – A period of controlled change and planning
2. Testing and getting ready – Putting our plans into action
3. All aboard – colleague orientation and induction
4. Ready to move checkpoint
5. Our first 100 days
6. Optimising for continued success.

Ruth Wilkin, Director of Communications, remarked: “We are adopting this new approach as we have reached a point in our programme where we must all be joined up. Everyone needs to be aware of what is happening as we implement our plans to open Midland Met.

“2021 saw a lot of change and progress, and now we’re building on that with a consistent communications approach. It means that everyone will recognise where we are on our journey and, importantly, what we need to do in each phase before we move on to the next.

“Currently, we are in the transformation planning phase. As you’d expect, we have ongoing building work with lots of work going into our clinical pathways. We cannot move forward until we have checked off all these points. Next, we will move onto the testing and getting ready phase, a period of readiness and testing. There is so much to test, and we’ll continue to do this across all areas, refining processes as we go until we’re ready to open our doors.”

Ruth added: “We hope that this will help colleagues recognise and respond to the upcoming content over the coming months. In 2022 we’ll share news of our staff induction process, community engagement, and technical commissioning will begin.

“A lot of hard work has got us to this point, and I thank everyone for their professionalism and continued support.”

West Midlands clinical academic careers programmes

Birmingham Health Partners are offering three programmes for West Midlands based nurses, midwives, allied health professionals, pharmacists and healthcare scientists who wish to combine clinical practice with research that benefits patients.

Programmes include taught and directed study and require you to complete a range of
research related work. Each programme involves 48 days funded release over 12 months. The programme will also gives access to the University of Birmingham learning resources but does require attendance at an academic writing course.

For an application form please email clinicalacademics@uhb.nhs.uk or call 0121 371 8162/4245.

Note: The deadline for all applications is Friday 29 April, 12pm.

For further details please see ICA flyer.

Maternity and neonatal career workshop: 8 March

Are you an experienced midwife, maternity support worker or nurse but not sure where to go next? Or are you newly qualified and want help to kick start your career?

Why not come along to our career workshop on Tuesday 8 March between 11am – 7pm in the parent education room in the maternity department at City.

You’ll be able to find out more about the following:

• Available career pathways
• Training opportunities (internally and externally)
• Improving your interview skills
• Coaching
• Apprenticeships

To find out more or register your interest, please email afrah.muflihi@nhs.net.