Monthly archives: February 2022

Antibiotics are not harmless

Antibiotics are not harmless. They are medicines in their own right and can have serious side effects, as well as important drug interactions.

• Always check a patient’s drug allergy status before prescribing or administering any antibiotics. You can find patients’ allergy status on Unity.
• Always check for drug interactions before prescribing them. Make sure the dose is appropriate for their weight and renal function.
• Report adverse reactions to medicines via the Yellow Card scheme online at https://yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/.

Every extra day of antibiotic treatment counts, so always think about stopping antibiotics if they are no longer needed.

Be sure to also check out this shot video from Dr Chizo Agwu, Deputy Medical Director pledging to raising awareness of antimicrobial resistance.

Would you like to become an antibiotic champion? We are currently seeking clinical colleagues who want to become antibiotic champions. This could be nurses, junior doctors, ward managers, registrars, pharmacists, consultants, matrons and pharmacy technicians – anyone who is interested in helping to improve the use of antibiotics at the Trust to improve patient care and limit the spread of antibiotic resistance.

If this is something of interest to you, please see the antibiotic champion information sheet for further details.

Heartbeat: On a mission to a greener NHS

A nurse for over 30 years, Clare Nash, Head of Clinical Products Management at the Black Country Alliance is on a mission to influence and inspire her colleagues to make greener choices.

Speaking to Heartbeat she explained: “I love meeting and working with many clinicians across the acute and community sectors, and believe together we make great improvements in patient care. Being able to influence and implement the Greener NHS agenda is what gets me fired up each day though. I lead a regional greener care group that is implementing several net zero programmes of work on reuse of products including silicone tourniquets. We are also looking at how we might expand our reuse of walking aids, and implementing reusable theatre caps and gowns, and I am always looking for colleagues to share their ideas on what products we focus on next to go green.

“As a clinical procurement nurse I ensure the products we use to care for our patients and colleagues are safe, fit for purpose, sustainable, standardised, and deliver quality and value for our trusts, the taxpayer and the planet. Around 62% of NHS greenhouse gas emissions come from the products we procure for us to care for our patients. We have developed a Sustainability Impact Assessment for the Black Country ICS to measure any adverse and positive effects from the products we procure. We are already implementing greener solutions across the ICS, including reusable respirators in place of single use FFP3s, reusable non-sterile gowns, and type IIR surgical masks. This has reduced waste, ensured continuous supplies even at the height of the first wave of COVID, and saved precious planetary resources.”

As part of a wider procurement team across SWB and Dudley, Clare works alongside clinical colleagues to understand their needs, and source sustainable products that are fit for purpose whilst adhering to National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance and evidence-based practice.

The NHS uses 45 million single use tourniquets every year. Working with the critical care outreach team, Clare is currently evaluating a reusable wipeable tourniquet which she is hoping we will transition to if tests go well. Her focus on sustainability came after she had been working in clinical procurement for a few years when her current role was advertised, and seeing the positive impact she could have on patient care, she naturally jumped at the opportunity. Now, working across two Trusts, and leading a regional group, she supports more staff to deliver safer, greener care for patients.

Clare believes that we all should sign up to delivering greener care. She explained: “The climate emergency is a health emergency and every one of us has a role to play in getting to net zero and doing our patients no harm. Delivering on our regional programmes of work will contribute a significant reduction in carbon emissions and waste reduction, improve air quality, and deliver greater social value to our local communities.”

Tax avoidance: Don’t get caught out!

Tax avoidance is when people bend the rules of the tax system to try to pay less than they owe. HMRC’s report, the Use of Marketed Tax Avoidance schemes in the UK, has shown that contractors are often targeted and drawn into schemes marketed by companies promising higher take home pay and less administration. Many of these schemes do not work and there could be significant financial implications for anyone involved. Use the risk checker to check whether your current contract could involve tax avoidance.

You don’t need to be a tax expert to spot an avoidance scheme. If you’re offered higher take home pay simply for rearranging how it reaches you, for example as a non-repayable loan or as a trust payment, it almost certainly is tax avoidance.

Look out for any of the following signs:

• A scheme that allows you to keep more of your income than you would expect, with little or no deductions for Income Tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs)
• Some, or all of the payments are said to be “non-taxable”. These could be described as loans, annuities, bonuses, or shares. These payments are no different to normal income and you still need to pay Income Tax and NICs on them
• You may be told the schemes are safe and compliant or approved by HMRC. This is not true - HMRC never approves avoidance schemes
• Only a part of the total payments you receive are taxed as income. If you are employed, this is often close to the national minimum wage
• You are offered a choice between a standard or “enhanced” pay scheme. The enhanced version is likely to be tax avoidance
• You have been asked to sign more than one contract or agreement
• Your employment contract or agreement does not state how your income will be paid, or provide you with a breakdown of all your deductions
• You may even be offered a ‘cash bonus’ if you recommend the scheme to a friend.

Recognise tax avoidance. Learn how to spot the signs, understand how it works, and know the risks.

Understand how umbrella companies work. If you work through an ‘umbrella company’ – here’s what you need to know about how they should operate.

Check your pay and contract arrangements. Looking at your payslip is a useful way to check for signs that you may be involved in a tax avoidance scheme.

Get help if you think you’re already in a tax avoidance scheme and don’t know how to get out.

If you think you have spotted a tax avoidance scheme, you can report it by using the Report Tax Fraud Online form. Please make sure you enter the words ‘Contractor campaign’ in the ‘Other information’ section. You can also phone HMRC on 0800 788 887 (outside the UK +44 (0)203 080 0871).

If you think you are in a tax avoidance scheme, contact the team and the will help you get on the right track. They won’t be judgemental and if you can’t afford to pay everything in one go, they may be able to offer you an instalment arrangement. Email exitsteam.counteravoidance@hmrc.gov.uk

For further information read Tax avoidance: getting out of an avoidance scheme.

Star of the Week: Marie Matthie

Our Star of the Week is Marie Matthie, Rota Coordinator for Women’s and Child Health.

Marie’s role involves ensuing the consultant and junior doctors rotas are covered within Women’s and Child Health. Due to COVID her role has become monumental to ensure all clinical aspects of the ward areas are covered to ensure patients received their care but despite this, Marie continues to work to exceedingly high level ensuring all tasks are complete. Marie has had extra pressures in ensuring shifts are covered due to COVID and increased sickness within our areas but has still completed all her work to a satisfactory level. Marie ensures all rotas are consistently monitored and kept update on all the relevant systems used. Marie is hard working and always gives 100 per cent.

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.

Star of the Week: Marie Matthie

Our Star of the Week is Marie Matthie.

Marie’s role involves ensuing the consultant and junior doctors rotas are covered within Women and Child Health. Due to COVID her role has become monumental to ensure all clinical aspects of the ward areas are covered to ensure patients received their care but despite this, Marie continues to work to exceedingly high level ensuring all tasks are complete. Marie has had extra pressures in ensuring shifts are covered due to COVID and increased sickness within our areas but has still completed all her work to a satisfactory level. Marie ensures all rotas are consistently monitored and kept update on all the relevant systems used. Marie is hard working and always gives 100 per cent.

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.

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 11 February

Hello colleagues

There have been many positives that have occurred as a result of the pandemic, in my opinion.  Those positives include things like a greater societal understanding that social care is separate from health care and equally important; the speed at which the NHS and its staff responded to the crisis, abandoning bureaucracy to deliver quick change; the focus on staff health and wellbeing which now cannot be reversed.

However, the pandemic and its impact has also been very negative.  Beyond the obvious untold damage it has done to families and communities who have lost loved ones, it has also brought with it as a bi-product, deepening health and economic inequality, a concerning decrease in civility between humans, in mutual respect, in tolerance and understanding.  This manifests itself in, just to name a few:

• Intolerance of adhering to IPC expectations by the general public
• Increased aggression and violence towards our colleagues in clinical services
• Lack of respect shown to medical secretaries, call centre and admin colleagues by the general public who are concerned about lengthy waiting times

All of these are worrying enough, but our concern should be further compounded when we see or hear of examples in which our own colleagues are intolerant and disrespectful to both members of the public, to patients, to carers or even to each other.  I am afraid to say, whether it is because my senses are heightened at the moment, or whether its because there really has been a deterioration in the conduct of some, I feel it and I have got involved myself, in this kind of stuff with increasing frequency.

To illustrate, local residents near Sandwell General Hospital have complained about staff making noise and littering their streets.  We have one of our main sites in a strongly residential area.  We must respect that and consider what we would want if we lived on Hallam Street or Lyndon, for example.  I am also concerned that the journey to respecting others starts with self respect and that starts with self presentation.  Some colleagues have left their dress code and uniform standards slip during the pandemic and far too many staff are wearing scrubs and uncovered uniforms outside of Trust premises and even in shops and on public transport.

We need a post-pandemic reset on so many fronts, not least staff wellbeing, elective recovery, refocused Trust strategy.  We also need a reset on how we treat each other – our values, in other words.  We will be agreeing a new, shorter list of organisational values, with your help and support, over the next few weeks as part of that reset.  I’d be amazed if colleagues didn’t think that civility and respect would be in that final list in some way, shape or form.  Civility is important. Civility can save lives.  See the research here:

https://www.civilitysaveslives.com/

Have a good week

Richard

Do you know when you are moving to Sharepoint?

By the end of February all clinical and non clinical wards, departments and operational teams across our organisation will need to have moved all of their data and working practices away from shared drives and network shares and be fully migrated over to Office 365. 

This means all staff should now know when their area is scheduled to move to Office 365, and if you haven’t yet been told, please take the time to speak to your line manager.

The move to Office 365 is being carried out gradually, with departments organising their migration dates, informing their staff and working with colleagues in informatics to ensure that all of their current computers are compatible with the new system.

But if you are unsure of how the move should be organised, here are some pointers:

How does a migration to Office 365 work?

1. Wards, teams and departments are responsible for planning their migration date – with migrations planned to be completed by the end of February.
2. Departments to organise a nominated lead to prepare their data for migration. This lead should get in touch with informatics and agree which networks shares they will be responsible for.
3. Nominated lead to discuss their requirements with informatics including discussing any issues they feel might affect their ability to operate their department. This should include testing to ensure that all of their working practices and systems continue to work on Sharepoint and Office 365.
4. All staff to ensure they have working NHSmail logins and are able to access Office 365 online at https://www.office.com
5. Nominated lead (with support from IT where requested) to migrate their data to Sharepoint and to communicate with their team when they need to stop storing and accessing files on network shares and begin using Sharepoint.
6. Once migration is complete, network shares will be disabled.

Please take the time to plan, discuss and begin carrying out your migrations as soon as possible. Further information can be found on Connect, and support can be sought from colleagues in informatics by contacting ext 4050 or by emailing: swbh.sharepoint.migration@nhs.net

Share your feedback on revoking vaccination as a condition of deployment across all health and social care

Colleagues will be aware about a review of the Vaccination as a Condition of Deployment legislation. The Secretary of State for Health announced in parliament on 31 January that the legislation is being reconsidered. The Government’s decision is subject to a parliamentary process and requires further consultation and a vote to be passed into legislation.

The consultation is now open and is seeking views on the government’s intention to revoke regulations that would make vaccination a condition of deployment for all healthcare workers.

If you wish to take part in the consultation and give your feedback, please click here.

Please be aware that the deadline for feedback is Wednesday 16 February.

National Apprenticeship Week

This week is National Apprenticeship Week. The annual week-long celebration of apprenticeships aims to shine a light on the amazing work being done by employers and apprentices across the country.

To celebrate the awareness week, we will be promoting and sharing content about our apprentices and their fantastic contributions and efforts.

Be sure to check out this short video featuring Ryan Singh Lallie, Business Administrator talking about his apprenticeship role on Lyndon Ground.

Want to get in touch with our apprenticeship team? This week each member of the team will have a dedicated timeslot where you can catch up and have an informal chat about anything apprenticeship. Also be sure to get involved with the theme of day!

If you are interested in any degree and higher level apprenticeships, please take a look at what is available by clicking here and if something is of interest please contact  swbh.apprenticeship@nhs.net for the next steps.

DID you know…? Only 12% of patients in September had their nursing needs assessed using the SCP template

The SCP nursing template is designed specifically to ensure we are assessing and meeting the needs of patients who are dying and their families. Please ask your end of life care ward champion for your quick reference guide, collect a copy from the Education Centre or use eCoach in Unity to learn how.

Initiation of the Supportive Care Plan (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 should then be 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.

For more information see the connected palliative care pages. For training, use eCoach in Unity or collect your quick reference guide either from your end of life care champion on your ward, or from the Education Centre.