Monthly archives: March 2022

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 4 March

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Whether you are waiting to start your shift, taking a comfort break, or one of your patients hasn’t shown up for your clinic, please use two minutes to help shape our values[/caption]

This week I’d like to talk about values. What do I mean by “values”? I’ve used a dictionary definition here so as to help us all understand what we mean by the term when we use it:

“Values are principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is important in life” – in other words – the way we conduct ourselves with colleagues, with our service users. The standards of behaviour which we hold dear and against which we should hold ourselves to account.

This week we launched an important part of the work we are doing to develop a new, refreshed set of Trust values. Once developed, the Trust Values will replace our 9 Trust Promises, so they have a real importance to how we develop our way of working and acting as individuals, and as a Trust team as a whole. This campaign is aimed to engage all of us in a quick poll to help shape a list of values that we will all have an opportunity to vote on as we distil our thinking. Many of you have already taken part in workshops to share your views about the Trust and its values and there will be further focused sessions for staff to contribute to. This part of the values development process is where every single one of us has a say.

It will take two minutes to contribute…so whether you are waiting to start your shift, taking a comfort break, or one of your patients hasn’t shown up for your clinic, please use two minutes to answer three quick questions by following this link.

The values are the next important stage of delivering our Trust’s new strategy, that was approved by the Board at the start of February. The strategy will start to become more real and visible within the Trust and externally over the next few weeks. It is the bedrock on which our plans and priorities are built and will direct our activities over the next five years. The values are the “how”. Our values will define our organisation, help create a culture where we can all thrive, be comfortable speaking up, be genuinely inclusive and grow and foster great experiences for our patients and ourselves, as colleagues.

Please take just two minutes before 25 March so that our values can be truly shaped by us all.

I’d also like to follow up on the message we sent to staff last week, acknowledging the impact the concerning events in Ukraine may be having on many of us. A few colleagues have been in touch with me and others, wanting to know how practically we may be able to help, beyond the obvious hands of support we can offer to colleagues who are directly or indirectly impacted by the first major conflict on European soil we have seen since World War II. The emerging theme has been how we might offer practical assistance such as medical supplies or equipment and do so in a safe and coordinated way. What we cannot do is allow a knee jerk response which is potentially both well intended and doesn’t achieve anything. Therefore, I have started to have discussions with colleagues across the Black Country system about how we might take a system-wide approach to this. The tragedy we see in front of us will be enduring for some time, I fear. So we will take a bit of time to conduct our response correctly. I will provide clarity on this in the coming weeks.

Eating disorder awareness week: a parent’s story – Part 3

Eating disorder awareness week
(28 February – 6 March) aims
to raise awareness of eating disorders
in the UK. Eating disorders are a devastating mental illnesses that affect 1 in 50 people across the UK with many suffering in silence.

They are of all ages, genders and backgrounds – eating disorders do not discriminate. Eating disorders include bulimia, binge eating disorder, avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID), other specified feeding or eating disorder (OSFED), and anorexia, which tragically has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, though all eating disorders can be deadly. While this is the worst-case scenario, there are many ways in which eating disorders severely affect the quality of life of both those suffering and those who care about them. They steal childhoods, devastate relationships and pull families apart. But, with the right treatment and support, recovery is possible.

Emma Barton, SWB Convenor and Unite the Union Senior Workplace Representative continues to share her daughter’s eating disorder journey.

Discovering my daughter had an eating disorder, by Emma Barton (continued)

The day of admission to the unit

We arrived at the unit at the end of May. I remember the day I took her well, because of covid I could not see her room or the unit or meet most of the staff. This was incredibly hard as she was vulnerable and I had no idea what the place was like inside, or who and what the staff were like. I guess it hit home how awful covid had been, and all those loved ones that were unwell in hospital and family and friends couldn’t visit people really resonated with me. Both me and my daughter had covid during the first wave in April 2020 and although I was lucky to recover fully, she had months of headaches and still nearly two years on she cannot taste properly, which I have no doubt wasn’t great and a was mild influence in the manifestation of anorexia nervosa.

We went into a small clinical room where the nurse very briefly discussed some rules and left us to say goodbye. We were both in tears and sobbing, the window in the clinic room was slightly ajar, she spotted this and said I could change my mind and she and I could escape from the window, she said that I could look after her at home, and she would try to eat. This was tough for me as I wanted nothing more to take my daughter home to care for her, as a mum, but as a nurse I also had the naturally medical model to help, to cure her. Of course I wouldn’t let her escape, apart from that I wouldn’t be able to get through a window!! But even though I wanted to take her home and look after her, deep down I knew this was such a complex disorder, and that I couldn’t risk her getting worse under my care, I knew she would continue to decline.

She had absolutely no insight into her illness, every blood test that came back was ok, so she was able to minimise her disorder, which made things really hard to support her in seeing how poorly she had become. I couldn’t rationalise with her even with the evidence of her extremely low weight and the fact she had been admitted to hospital twice and she had been an in-patient for nearly eight weeks. She had pretty much all of the symptoms listed on the Beat website, which was a really helpful resource. She identified that she had the symptoms but explained possible reasons why she had the symptoms and they were nothing to do with an eating disorder.

We hugged, I left, sad that I was only able to have one visit for one hour per week. But I also knew this was her chance of recovery, and that the evidence suggested the earlier someone gets treatment the better the chance of a full recovery.

Eating disorder awareness week: a parent’s story – Part 2

Eating disorder awareness week (28 February – 6 March) aims to raise awareness of eating disorders in the UK. Eating disorders are a devastating mental illnesses that affect 1 in 50 people across the UK with many suffering in silence.

Throughout the week, Emma Barton, SWB Convenor and Unite the Union Senior Workplace Representative will be sharing her daughter’s eating disorder journey.

Discovering my daughter had an eating disorder, by Emma Barton (continued)

Hospital

My daughter was on a paediatrics ward, being nearly 17 this was quite hard for her. There wasn’t anyone of a similar age, but what was really hard was that she had a plan of food that was made for her, there were few choices for her. I had been giving her what she wanted when at home, which I assumed was the right thing. I was later to learn that giving someone with an ED choices also comes with danger as they will dictate the food that they can and can’t eat. I have to say at this stage her “fear foods” consisted of any products with flour in, bread, cakes, crackers and such like, rice, pasta and potatoes. Basically most staple carbohydrates.

So giving choice to her was innocently naive of me in my hope to just get her to eat. But now I understand that if you give an ED an inch it will take a mile. Even now she cannot make a choice about meal times, but is learning to select appropriate snacks. But I was at the start of this journey with her and neither of us and my extended family really understood how anorexia nervosa operated.

After a few days of a re-feeding diet and bloods taken every day gradually increased her food calorie intake on a plan known as the Maudsley Meal Plan. I visited every day for three weeks and when I could I stayed over. My daughter lives with me and two younger siblings, and I don’t have a partner so I needed to split my time between work/home and hospital.

She had her 17th birthday in hospital, the nurses were great and decorated her room and gave her presents. They allowed us to take her out in the wheelchair where we sat outside on the hospital grounds and had a socially distanced family celebration. I saw a spark of my old daughter coming back, she seemed to really enjoy that day.

A few nights after that I stayed over the night in the hospital as she had a side room and she had a shower and when she finished and was in her night clothes she started to sob. She confided in me to tell me she had felt a “fat lump”, it was on her stomach. She let me look at this and what I saw was a tiny blister. My daughter was still struggling from stomach pain and bloating so I had given her a hot water bottle to ease her discomfort, this had scalded her skin and caused a tiny blister. She then went into a panic saying that she was fat, and that she had “fat nodules” on her neck. These were in fact her vertebrae in her neck pocking out. I think the reality of her distortions were really hitting home.

During her time in hospital the nurses and Drs tried really hard to care for her but if I’m honest they were not equipped to support someone with an eating disorder, the meal pan couldn’t be followed as per the Maudsley plan, as it was quite prescriptive and didn’t accurately follow the hospital menu. The breakfasts were ok but lunch and dinners completely differed to the plan. If I’m honest that didn’t give me much confidence and I think it troubled my daughter, as she didn’t really know what she was having as she had been given the Maudsley plan by CAMHS to follow but the hospital menu did not accommodate the plan. Also no clinical workers were monitoring the portions when the food trolley went to the ward. The staff that were serving the food were giving far smaller portions than she should have been having, but as they were not clinical staff they could not be to blame. The problem is with an anorexic is that they will never ask for more and they are more than happy with less food. They are intensely frightened to gain weight and therefore to eat and sometimes it can be certain foods they refuse, sometimes not eating at all, other times purging as the fear to gain weight and the guilt of eating takes over and the need to control and restrict becomes stronger the more poorly they become.

All food should have been supervised but this was often done from a far which meant there was opportunity for my daughter to dispose of food when she had visited the toilet after eating. I didn’t know this was happening at the time and it was only after she was losing weight in hospital that I suspected something wasn’t right. I thought it was the potions being small but I found out when she was discharged after a week of being home she was hiding food and disposing of it in the ensuite toilet.

She was discharged due to her losing weight as she wanted to come home and I felt she could be monitored better- afterall, being a nurse I absolutely understand the pressures and demands of working on a ward. The advice on discharge was to eat normally with her, with normal family meals following the plan, to lessen her anxiety around food, but to always supervise her, which I did at mealtimes when we were eating together. I was off work at this time and I was ensuring the plan was being followed and we had the family meals we were advised to continue. After about a week following discharge I took my daughter to her appointment at CAMHS and I had an inkling something wasn’t quite right. I asked my mother to nip round and just check her room to make sure she wasn’t hiding any foods. We went to CAMHS, she had gained weight which was progress from the hospital, but as we were leaving my mum called me on the phone, she asked me to go round to her house as she had to share some worrying news. My mother had checked my daughter’s wardrobe (only her wardrobe), and in little over half a week there was half a black bin liner full of half eaten food. I was mortified. On one hand she had gained some weight which was great news, but on the other hand she was not following the plan. I couldn’t get my head around how she was hiding this food, it must have been in her pockets, hood, up her sleeves. That’s when I worked out that she may have done the same in the hospital and flushed it in the toilet. I told my daughter what had been found in her room, and asked her about hiding the hospital food, which she confirmed was correct. That night and the following day she point blank refused to eat or drink anything. I’m guessing now it was because her method of hiding food was no longer going to be an option as it was obvious to her I would have to check pockets and sleeves and supervise her like a hawk at mealtimes.

To illustrate how bad anorexia nervosa gets, even water is fearful for the sufferer. The water gain for an anorexia nervosa sufferer is frightening, they can easily become dehydrated as well as lots of other nasty complications like that come with the disorder.

She started to develop some strange ideas after being discharged, and her mental health was declining, she said that me and the medical professionals talk in code and she believed that we all thought she was overweight and we spoke in code regarding her weight. I was getting increasingly concerned and as she was not eating and drinking so I was requested to take her back into hospital.

After being admitted to hospital they decided when a bed became available she would be transferred to a specialist eating disorder unit. I was warned it could be very far away from our home, one previous admission ended up going to London. And the length of stay would most likely exceed a few months.

A bed became available after a few weeks and we were lucky as it was in the West Midlands. She was fully supervised in the hospital in the meantime. She had bathroom privacy only at this stage.

Incidentally during that time she was in hospital, I had to clean her room and check for hidden food. Her drawers were crammed with half eaten food, it was in plant pots, under her bed, in pockets hung in her wardrobe. I think one of the saddest moments was when she asked me to take into hospital a small pot of moisturiser on her bookcase, it was crammed full of tortilla chips. My daughter is a tidy girl and would never have normally lived like this, but it goes to show how the illness can take over an individual to the point you start to hardly recognise them. It was then that I started to separate the ED from my daughter, which really helped.

Eating disorder awareness week: a parent’s story – Part 1

Eating disorder awareness week: a parent’s story

Eating disorder awareness week (28 February – 6 March) aims to raise awareness of eating disorders in the UK. Eating disorders are a devastating mental illnesses that affect 1 in 50 people across the UK with many suffering in silence.

Throughout the week, Emma Barton, SWB Convenor and Unite the Union Senior Workplace Representative will be sharing her daughter’s eating disorder journey.

Discovering my daughter had an eating disorder, by Emma Barton

My daughter was 16 years old at the time of diagnosis. She had started college, after spending a fair time out of school in lockdown. She was the GCSE intake that never got to sit their exams.

I thought things were going well, and that family life was ok. She had a boyfriend, and she said she was meeting friends and going out with them when she had started college. I was very busy at work as we all were in the NHS during covid times. I guess I didn’t notice anything untoward at the time. But that all changed on the 11^th March last year.

I had a call from the college stating that they were concerned about her attendance. My daughter had always been a fairly studious student, she has great plans to become a zoologist. I remember the day when she was so excited to tell me she had worked out what she wanted to do when she left school “Mum, Mum, I know what I want to be when I am older, a zoologist, it means I can work with animals and maybe travel the world”, she was so chuffed. We looked at the qualifications needed she was about 14 at the time, so just at the right time to pick the subjects that would help her to achieve this goal.

I wasn’t phased by the call, in fact at the time when I was on the phone I called down my daughter from upstairs, to ask her if she had time off. I was mainly working from home, but I was often working in my kitchen/conservatory and she was, as far as I was concerned logging into her college lessons remotely. My daughter denied that she had time off and said that there was maybe an issue with her logging on and they hadn’t captured her attendance. I had agreed with the learning coach to check to see if the tutors had any concerns with her work/tests and if they didn’t it might be an issue with the logging on. If, she had missed as much as they thought (her attendance was 74%, then I was confident that this could be picked up in her grades. In hindsight I learned that this wouldn’t have been a good indication as many young people with eating disorders are in fact high performers and perfectionists. According to studies “perfectionism appears to play a role in the aetiology, maintenance, and treatment of eating disorders” (Bardone –Cone and Colleagues 2010).

At the time I thought this reasonable evidence to assure me all was ok with her. Later that evening after the phone call, She seemed a lot more withdrawn, quiet and she looked unwell, tired having dark circles around her eyes. We didn’t really discuss the call from the college as I was fairly satisfied that all was ok. But I was concerned about her subdued state. I kept asking if she was ok, unwell maybe? She said she was fine, until a few hours later and she broke down in tears. I immediately took her somewhere private and asked her what was wrong, she told me that she thought she had a problem with food. Being a nurse I have had some limited experience with binge/bulimia and anorexia nervosa. I remember one client having anorexia nervosa and me thinking at the time, I hope none of my children ever suffer this terrible illness. I’m not going to lie, the first thing I thought to myself of when she said she had an issue with eating was “I hope it’s not anorexia nervosa”. I calmed her down, I reassured her we would get some help, I stated that this is not something I can help her with on my own and I would need some professional help. I took it seriously from the minute she told me.

I remember asking her whether she weighs herself regularly and she said every time she uses the bathroom, maybe more. I had worked out her BMI to be very low. Being a nurse I knew she was seriously underweight. After reassuring her that we would get support and that she will recover she went to bed and I immediately threw out the scales that night. I knew that night that life would become different and that I needed to try and seek specialist help. Eating disorders are complex and should never be treated by family members alone. I knew life was going to get hard, but at that time I’m not sure I really understood how hard things would get for us all.”

The referral and wait for support

“So the next day I called the GP, who spoke with me and my daughter. The GP agreed for a referral to be put in to the eating disorder team as he thought she had anorexia nervosa. I reckoned this would take about a week or so, so I decided to call a private professional who specialises in eating disorders, who could give some telephone advice.

I discussed with him about offering food to her little and often. I was aware that she needed to eat but also the dangers around refeeding. Refeeding syndrome can occur when someone who hasn’t been eating starts eating and can have electrolyte imbalances, which can cause serious clinical complications. It was strange as I had seen her eat meals, it wasn’t like she hadn’t eaten for weeks on end, but I started to replay the times in my head that she said she had eaten before she came home, the times when she said that she was ill with a bug, the times that she may have skipped a meal. Then I asked her if she purged (made herself sick) she was honest enough in her answer. She said she started to occasionally be sick in September, then she said it got a bit better to only once a day, then in December with all the Christmas treats around she was being sick more frequently in the day. I was mortified that I hadn’t noticed any of this behaviour, I hadn’t heard wretching, I thought she was eating, I saw her eating meals, she sat and ate with the family most of the time. I went through a journey myself, as to why I hadn’t noticed. The guilt at being a mother and not noticing and then piecing all the behaviours that I hadn’t thought of being odd, now seemed to make perfect sense knowing about the eating disorder. The going to the toilet late at night, double flushing of the toilet, showers or taps on full blast to drown out the noise of wretching. The baggy clothes she was wearing wasn’t because of Billie Eilish as a role model, it was because she had an eating disorder and wasn’t comfortable with her body and was covering it with baggy clothes, or maybe she wanted to hide the weight loss from me?

The exercise I hadn’t even thought about, because I had taken my dog for a general check up in the January, the dog was a little overweight, and so my daughter went about taking her for long walks, for an hour or so each day. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but I felt guilty and feel I failed her completely.

The first two weeks whilst waiting for support to kick in was tough, she went through constant feeling of bloating and feeling sick. She had been eating very small amounts but even that was very tough for her.

One day she was complaining of pain in the chest. I took her straight to A&E, she had blood tests and an ECG. I saw my little girl scared for the first time. I remember her asking me in A&E, “have I caused permanent damage, will I die” I reassaured her that if she eats and gains weight she could recover fully. I had thought that might have been a lightbulb moment and it may have shocked her into eating, but eating disorders are complex, and sadly things got worse before it got better.

One thing that stood out from that day in A&E was that two Junior Drs asked my daughter about her weight, and said she felt overweight, and they told her that was silly to think that. This had upset her and she felt that her feelings were not validated. To me it felt that they seemed to down play her condition. A person with anorexia nervosa often has a distorted view of themselves even when they are dangerously thin.

Thankfully her bloods and ECG remained fine, the Registrar was happy that the GP had referred her onto an eating disorder service and she came back home. I mentioned to the Registrar about the Junior Drs and he apologised for what they had said. This incident of the two Junior Drs was the first example of many that I encountered from health professionals, family and friends with a distinct a lack of awareness of eating disorders. Having said this, it’s not easy to get your head around such a complex disorder. I know more than most, as it’s been a difficult journey for me to understand it.

In these two weeks I had gone from having what I thought was a daughter who was fit and healthy to learning that she was over exercising, purging, restrictiing calories, to the point of going days without food, and had some really awful body distortions. I was trying to be strong for her, but all the while feeling immense guilt that it hadn’t gotten so bad that I didn’t notice. But that’s the thing with an eating disorder, the sufferer wants to hide it. My daughter, as ever the perfectionist hid it well for as long as she could. Some people carry on for years like this. For others like my daughter it gets out of control fairly quickly and starts to take over normal life.

CAMHS

“After a few complications with the referral, the GP accidentally referred to adult services and actually put the wrong weight on the referral meaning no one really had an urgency to see her or escalate the referral quickly. After what seemed like a million phone calls she was finally referred to CAMHS to their ED team.

I knew something was serious when they called on the Thursday giving me an appointment for the following Wednesday, but they called, Friday, Saturday and Sunday to check on her. No exercise was allowed (which I had stopped the minute I had found out), three meals and three snacks. Milky drinks and no going to the toilet straight after food to prevent purging (up to and 30 mins after food as purging can reduce).

When we got to the CAMHS it was slightly surreal. She got weighed and I saw she had gained weight from the time I took her to A&E I was more confident we were on the right track and that given time I was hopefully she would gain weight at home. But after about 40 minutes into the appointment the ED Specialist CAMHS consultant said she needed to go to hospital for an inpatient stay as her weight was dangerously towards a healthy weight, meaning she needed to get to a target weight for discharge (that wouldn’t be a healthy weight, but a weight where she could function at home and college, until she would remain in hospital until she was around. I think at the time we were both in a bit of shock. I asked when to she needed to go and he said now as the paediatric unit had a bed ready. We both left the appointment to pack a few things before she went into hospital and we both cried on the way home, and to the hospital, I think we thought as she had gained weight there had been enough progress to stay at home. I was left questioning that why two weeks ago when I took her to A&E when she was at a lower weight she wasn’t admitted then, again I can only assume that there was a lack of awareness of the dangerously low weight by professionals (who were not ED disorder specialists or CAMHS specialists and probably did not understanding anorexia nervosa, and they maybe hoped that the CAMHS referral would be urgent (but no one at that stage knew the GP had put the wrong weight on the referral form). On a positive point finally we were getting some professional help some five weeks after I had found out. Those 5 weeks were scary as a mum, and I was frantically trying to research all I could about eating disorders, but I had no idea that things may get worse before they got better.

Eating disorder awareness week: a parent’s story – Part 4

Eating disorder awareness week (28 February – 6 March) aims to raise awareness of eating disorders in the UK. Eating disorders are a devastating mental illnesses that affect 1 in 50 people across the UK with many suffering in silence.

Emma Barton, SWB Convenor and Unite the Union Senior Workplace Representative continues to share her daughter’s eating disorder journey.

Discovering my daughter had an eating disorder, by Emma Barton (continued)

During admission

My daughter was in the unit for 9 months in total. Things got worse before they got better. She was highly anxious for about the first 5 months. She didn’t speak to any of the other patients. She slept pretty much most of the day and night apart from meal and snack times and in school. They had school Monday to Friday around set meal and snack times. I think during the first two weeks was really hard as she had no bathroom privacy, they have to closely supervise all new admissions like this until they know risks of self-harm and purging are less.

My daughter’s mental health really declined around two months in, she was up and down with her meal plans missing frequent meals and snacks but just enough for her to gain very small amounts of weight. Quite a few times she had a weight loss, but generally she was going in the right direction, but very slow progress.

During this time I felt guilt, frustration, powerless. I was warned by staff at the unit that I may get phone calls from her saying how horrible it was and that the staff are nasty, they said most patients will say that but it’s the eating disorder talking. She did this for months and it was really hard for her and me, as I never really knew if it was the ED or my daughter, or a combination. It was horrible knowing my daughter was elsewhere where I couldn’t care for her. One hour visit per week was awful, especially if she was distressed begging for me to take her home.

The unit did some work with me regarding understanding anorexia nervosa, I had some knowledge and had read up where I could, I understood about the body distortions, the hiding of food, the absolute fear of weight gain and the distortions around food and calories, my daughter’s perception was that even one mouthful of food would result in excessive weight gain, which of course isn’t correct at all. I knew she didn’t understand or have any insight into her illness, but I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t accept her illness. I thought if she could accept her illness we would be halfway there in recovery, that’s the perfectionist in her you see! What I learned, is that sufferers can develop something known as anosognosia, which means that a person who is ill cannot perceive that they are unwell. This is really hard to understand, and why it was so important for me to separate the illness from my daughter. Many people assume that ED are a choice, but no one really sets out to become unwell with anorexia nervosa, it’s really not a rationale choice that a sufferer makes or understands, in my daughter’s case she had no insight at all.

The best way that helped me to understand the illness, was that she had been clearly overwhelmed with emotions for lots of reasons and it may have been the first time she had experienced such intensive emotions and, somehow, she needed to control those emotions and she developed a strategy to cope/control by restricting food. I suppose similar to someone drinking alcohol or substance misuse at times of great stress, although I recognise none of these methods are healthy choices to cope. This kind of helped me to understand better because a long time ago I was a nurse specialising in substance and alcohol addictions.

Trying to get my daughter to see things this way or to accept this illness was far harder. All the professionals talk about the eating disorders “voice”, this helps to separate the eating disorder from the sufferer, but she struggled with this as for a long time she felt it was her “voice” and she thought we were all talking nonsense.

It took her a long time to accept she had an eating disorder and I think the turning point in the end was that she had an NG tube fitted after she started restricting for days on days on the unit.

It was hard to support her with her mental health. She had some real lows on the unit, she started thinking she was in a test and she was overweight in an ED unit as a subject to provide other anorexics patients on how not to over eat. She also thought I was being paid by the unit to keep her there for this test which was really upsetting, but nothing I said would make her believe this wasn’t the case. She was put on quite a few different medications to support her, but ultimately I was told that weight gain would restore a more lucid thought process.

I learnt that anorexia nervosa and a low body weight can causes the brain to starve and sufferers cannot think normally. Both grey matter and white matter can be affected. Although white matter restores fully when back to a normal weight it can take some time for the grey matter to recover.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, there were also some highs and they let me take her off the unit initially for a few hours, increasing to weekend leave.

She also started to speak with patients more when she had a roommate. We started to see her “old self”, and glimpses of a new emerging traits, in a more positive way.

Join the Birmingham Swifts as they mark International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day takes place annually on 8 March and celebrates the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The Birmingham Swifts are marking the occasion with social runs taking place tomorrow (Thursday 3 March) and Thursday 10 March. If you’d like to join the Birmingham Swifts and celebrate International Women’s Day, the social run will take place at 7pm at the Pagoda. More details can be found here.

The latest edition of Heartbeat is online

Check out the latest edition of Heartbeat!

In the February edition, we highlight some of the
fantastic opportunities for young people at our Trust including the Supporting Career Opportunities, Recruitment and Employment (SCORE) programme, the Youth Volunteering Champions project and the Kickstart employment scheme – opening the door to employment opportunities in the healthcare sector.

We also cover:

Apprenticeship success stories
The importance of talking about mental health
Raising awareness of eating disorders
Introducing our new non-executive directors

Do you have a submission for Heartbeat? Email lauren.jones104@nhs.net with your news, stories and achievements to feature in a future edition or call us on ext. 5303.

2minutes2 help shape our values

The best organisations have a clear, defined set of values – the guiding principles and beliefs that underpin the organisation and its employees. Values should be firmly embedded into everything we do. Our Trust has lived by our nine Care Promises for over a decade.

As we have developed our new strategy, with a focus on our People, our Patients and our Population, the time is right to consider a new set of values that will be the foundations of our Trust’s culture. Our values will need to be accompanied by behaviours that we should all live up to in our daily working lives. In order to build our own, new set of values, we are asking every colleague to tell us how you feel about working here.

What instantly comes to mind when you think about our organisation?

What do we do really well? What could be better?

We want to hear everyone’s voice. Take two minutes to help us shape our values – click here to find out more.

Engagement with Unions

The Trade Union collective will be doing some engagement sessions with Trust colleagues throughout March. We will be working across various sites and will be happy to respond to any questions or concerns that colleagues want to share with the Trade Unions. If you don’t get the opportunity to meet us, we have developed a staff survey which can be completed confidentially on this link or contact any reps directly, contact details can be found here.

Ash Wednesday – Join the chaplaincy team to mark the first day of lent

Join the chaplaincy team tomorrow (2 March) to mark Ash Wednesday at Sandwell, City and Rowley Hospitals.

Each year, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent and is always 46 days before Easter Sunday. Lent is a 40-day season (not counting Sundays) marked by repentance, fasting, reflection, and ultimately celebration.

The Chaplaincy team will be on hand at Sandwell, City and Rowley Hospital Chapels as well as Leasowes Intermediate Care Centre and would like to offer the opportunity for everyone in the Christian faith to be able to observe Ash Wednesday.

Whilst there is no service planned, colleagues are welcome to attend on an individual basis to mark the first day of Lent from 11 am to 12 noon at Leasowes and 12 noon to 2 pm at Sandwell, City and Rowley – officiated by our chaplains.

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Monthly archives: March 2022

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