Monthly archives: April 2022

Tipton vaccination hub update

Our COVID Vaccination Hub at Tipton Sports Academy is closed to walk-ins today. If you have a booked appointment please attend as normal. Thank you.

NHS supply chain/Unipart roll cages: Please return immediately

We have been asked by NHS supply chain to return all roll cages that belong to them and Unipart (see pictures below).

They do not belong to the Trust and therefore must not be used for storing items, equipment or laundry. Once you have unloaded the roll cage they must be available for collection by stores.  Spot checks will be made over the coming weeks and you will be asked to relinquish any roll cages you still have.

If you have any empty roll cages to be collected please contact call ext. 3135 if you based at Sandwell, ext. 4954 if you based at City or ext. 4938 if you based at Rowley, Leasowes or elsewhere in the community

Weekly mindfulness sessions every Monday

The Black Country and West Birmingham Staff Mental Health & Wellbeing Hub, are running rolling, weekly online meditation sessions. These mindfulness practice groups will be taking place for 30 minutes each via Teams and are open to all colleagues across the ICS. The session is open to all colleagues and is a way of helping us to practice good self-care and reduce stress at this time. All are welcome, it is completely guided and no prior experience is necessary, and you are welcome to drop-in and attend on the weeks you can. These sessions are held every Monday.

If you would like to attend, please either use the link below on the day, or if you would prefer contact Samuel.skelding1@nhs.net and you can be sent a calendar invite. The links will be the same each week.

• Body scan, 12pm – 12.30pm – Click here to join the meeting
• Breath meditation – 2.30pm – 3pm – Click here to join the meeting

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 29 April

Thank you to all of you who are continuing to work hard on supporting patients, supporting each other and keeping people safe while many services are under significant pressure. COVID-19 is very much still with us and, although, thankfully, we are seeing far fewer patients become seriously ill with COVID-19, the impact on how we stream patients to COVID / non-COVID areas continues to have a big impact. Our “Living with COVID-19” arrangements continue to progress and we keep a regular executive team (at least weekly) check on our arrangements, risk assessing to see what we can change based on risk assessments that take into account the community cases, inpatient numbers, staff sickness absence and outbreaks.

Contrary to belief or rumour in some quarters our IPC guidance at SWB remains unchanged at present which means:

• Mask wearing – is essential in all shared areas (clinical and non-clinical) within our sites and the clinics we provide services from. Please follow this essential rule and respectfully challenge those that don’t.  This also applies to meetings even on a 1:1 basis
• Asymptomatic testing – continue to test twice weekly using LFT kits that can be ordered free of charge for any NHS employee
• Follow the Trust guidance on return to work following a COVID-19 positive test result and when you are a household contact

I know some other NHS organisations are implementing different rules.  That is a matter for them.  Our view is clear that the current rates of community infection and the ongoing risk of nosocomial transmission locally, means we can’t change our approach just yet.

Our visiting arrangements remain somewhat restricted although I am pleased that we have been able to relax this for critical care so that those people who are most acutely unwell can have more contact with their loved ones. On occasions, a minority of visitors have been challenging to deal with when asked to comply with our visiting arrangements. I want to emphasise that none of us should have to accept verbal or physical aggression or violence at work. Please ensure you escalate any incidents. We will take action.  Where necessary, we will arrange for visitors who are abusive to be removed from our sites and suspend their ability to visit. What is helping to minimise these incidents is when relatives and loved ones are given clear information about the visiting arrangements when they book a visit so that they are not surprised on the day as to the length of time of the visit or that in most cases only one visitor is allowed at a time.

Due to last minute staff absence and the fluidity of our bed base you will appreciate that at times we need to balance the safety of our patients so colleagues are sometimes asked to move and work in a different area for all or part of their shift. I fully understand that this is not an ideal situation and I would like to thank the vast majority of you who cooperate willingly albeit reluctantly, to support our areas who are struggling. Only a minority are pushing back on this so I would urge you to reconsider your approach if asked to move. It is only done to ensure we can keep patients safe, which must be our priority at all times.  We do not ask you to move to another clinical area just to annoy or upset you.

For myself and fellow technophobes, this weekend is important.  This weekend a significant change is taking place when Microsoft end support for Office 2010. From Sunday 1 May colleagues using the Outlook 2010 desktop application to access emails will find that it no longer sends or receives any further emails. Please make sure that you use the online email portal at www.office.com by logging in with your NHS email address and password using Microsoft Edge. It is important that you take note of this so that you are not caught out this weekend. Further information on the migration to Office 365 has been shared in our usual communications channels including bespoke messages, that includes special licensing requests, what to do with email archived files and how to get support with Office 365. Make the most of the support on offer here so that your work is not disrupted.

Whether you are working or have a short break, please do have a good bank holiday weekend

Richard

Give your feedback in the NHS pulse survey

Listening to your views remains as important as ever to us. At SWB we use the quarterly pulse survey led by NHSE/I, to regularly check in with you and help improve the support we provide as an organisation.

The survey takes just five minutes to complete and allows you to tell us more about your experiences at work, including how motivated you feel and what other support would make the biggest difference to your experience at work at this time.

By sharing your views, you will help us improve the support we provide to you.

Most colleagues will have received an invite to the survey by email from ‘survey@quality-health.co.uk’ directly to their inbox. Please take the time to find the email, follow the link and complete the survey.

If you work in portering, ward services, transport services or catering you will have received paper copies.

Please give your feedback by 5pm on Friday 29 April.

If you have any further queries please email the communications team swbh.comms@nhs.net.

Switching to Office 365 on Sunday

Switching to Office 365 on Sunday – How to continue accessing your emails

On Sunday 1 May Microsoft will end support for Office 2010 and colleagues using the Outlook 2010 desktop application to access their emails will find that it no longer sends or receives any further emails. This means that colleagues must move to using the online email portal available at office.com by logging in with their NHSmail email address and password using Microsoft Edge.

Microsoft Edge can be found on your desktop with the following icon:

Colleagues who require more advanced functionality and need to retain desktop applications will need to apply for special licensing which can be ordered by managers using the form below.

Office 365 Enterprise Licensing Request Form.

Organising your archives – Ditch the PST files before Sunday

In the past, when colleagues ran out of inbox space they were able to save their emails to a local archive known as a PST file. However as part of Office 365 all colleagues now have access to an online archive where they can store 100gb of emails.

Colleagues who are currently using PST files to store their archived emails are now being encouraged to move their archived emails to the online NHSmail archive before Outlook 2010 is disabled on Sunday.

If you believe you may have emails stored in PST archive files, please follow the instructions in the following document to move them in to your NHSmail archive.

PST user guide for Online Archive

Need some help with Office 365 – Virtual support sessions are available

Colleagues who are keen to get a helping hand finding their way around the new Office 365 tools can now join virtual drop in sessions that have been made available.

Whether you are simply trying to get to grips with the new tools, migrate your data over to SharePoint or simply find your way around the new system, colleagues from Informatics will be on hand morning, noon and night to help you find your way.

Virtual drop in sessions are taking place 3 times a day Monday to Friday at 11am, 2pm and 9pm, and twice a day at weekends at 11am and 9pm.

Below is the schedule for the sessions, click on the time to join the respective session.

For more information, advice and support refer to Connect or email the support team on swbh.sharepoint.migration@nhs.net.

IT maintenance affecting bleep paging system: 4 May, 9am

Please be aware our support vendor will be carrying out essential IT maintenance to the Trust’s bleep paging system on Wednesday 4 May from approximately 9am to 10am.

At approximately 9.15am and again at 9.30am on Wednesday 4 May, the bleep paging system at all Trust sites will be temporarily unavailable for approximately 3 minutes and during this time colleagues are advised to utilise radios. Please collect radios before 9am on Wednesday morning and kindly return them to the security control room once the maintenance has completed. Note – this timeslot has been agreed and is supported operationally.

The activity will be closely monitored, and desktop alerts will be issued from 7am to remind colleagues and at completion.

Once the maintenance work is complete and the paging system is back online a test speech page will be sent to test pagers by informatics and switchboard.

Note: This will affect all colleagues working the day shift on Wednesday 4 May.

Please call the IT service desk if you have any queries on this on ext. 4050 or 0121 507 4050.

COVID-19 Bulletin: Thursday 28 April

Numbers not statistics: This week (last week)

1. New: IPC guidance

Our IPC guidance is remaining the same in light of the national guidance for the NHS. It is really important that all staff continue to wear masks in all shared areas (including non-clinical areas). Transmission of COVID-19 is still high with this current variant and we need to ensure we protect ourselves, our loved ones and our patients and minimise risk of passing on or catching COVID-19. Our IPC arrangements continue to be reviewed weekly based on community case rates, hospital outbreaks, inpatient numbers and staff absence due to COVID-19.

For the present time, please continue to follow our existing IPC guidance which includes:

Social distancing:

Please continue to abide by social distancing measures to keep a minimum of 1 metre between you and those around you at all times, including when you go for breaks and lunch.

Face masks:

Colleagues and patients are also required to ensure they wear masks in communal areas in our hospital buildings and in rest areas. Colleagues are reminded to ensure they follow the correct PPE guidance when in direct contact with patients. You must also follow your individual risk assessment for PPE. Occasionally this will recommend a higher level of protection depending on your individual assessment.

Audits of mask compliance are currently taking place. If you see someone not wearing a mask where they should be, please feel free to respectfully challenge.

Hand washing:

This is an essential part of infection, prevention and control. All colleagues must wash their hands and or use hand sanitiser frequently and always on entering and exiting clinical areas.

Bare below the elbow:

Please ensure that you are bare below the elbow whilst in clinical areas. This means your sleeves must be rolled up and any wrist jewellery should be removed, prior to entering the area.

Coats and bags:

Outdoor coats should be removed prior to entering a clinical area and should be placed, along with bags in lockers. They should not be taken into the main ward area. Handbags should not to be taken on ward rounds.

If you need further advice you can contact the infection control team on ext. 5900 or email  swb-tr.SWBH-Team-InfectionControl@nhs.net.

2. New: Visiting – new arrangements for end of life patients in critical care

The arrangements for visiting end of life patients in critical care have changed. Patients who are called to visit a loved one in the intensive care unit, because they are, sadly, dying and at the end of their life have new arrangements, facilitated by the ICU team as follows:

1. Visits to people at the end of their life in ICU can have up to five visitors (next of kin or equivalent) but a maximum of three at the bedside at any one time (rotating between those waiting and those at the bedside).
2. Additional people will not be able to remain within the ICU waiting room and are encouraged not to attend hospital.
3. Visitors must be agreed when the request is made and cannot be changed.
4. Visitors are allowed unlimited time at bedsides with patients.
5. All visitors must be free of COVID-19 symptoms, and they must not attend if they are a household contact of a COVID-19 positive case.
6. We regret children (under 16 years) or those who are immunocompromised are currently not allowed to visit.
7. Visitors do not need to provide proof of negative lateral flow tests.
8. All visitors must wear PPE.
9. All visitors will receive a risk explanation from the ICU team.

Please be aware that if your loved one is moved from ICU to the ward for ongoing palliative (end of life) care this same level of access cannot be guaranteed – cases will be considered on an individual basis

Routine daily visiting in ICU remains the same which is a one hour booked daily visit.

We continue to review visiting arrangements based on a risk assessment taking into account COVID-19 case rates in the community and the numbers of COVID-19 cases in our hospitals.

3. New: Violence and aggression from visitors

Regrettably there have been incidents of verbal aggression from visitors towards staff when asked to comply with our restricted visiting arrangements. We understand that relatives and other visitors may be distressed when they visit, however, it is not acceptable for staff to have to face verbal of physical aggression when asking people to following our visiting guidance. Please escalate any cases immediately. Security can be contacted for support if you feel unsafe.

We would request that as visits are booked, staff are clear with visitors about our visiting restrictions so that they are prepared and fully informed before they reach our sites. Managing these expectations will help visitors to understand our arrangements ahead of their visit rather than be surprised and upset if informed on the day. Thank you for your support with this.

4. New: International Workers Memorial Day

Today, (April 28^th) marked International Workers Memorial Day (#IWMD). Around the world, unions remember workers – it provides an opportunity to reflect, mourn, share memories of colleagues and loved ones who have lost their lives.

A workers memorial wall has been set up online which Staffside are in support of. If anyone would like to submit a tribute, please visit https://www.tuc.org.uk/workers-memorial-wall.

5. Reminder: The Big Conversation – the challenges of COVID-19

The Big Conversation is an free online two-day initiative, convened by the Improvement Directorate within NHS England and NHS Improvement, AQuA (the Advancing Quality Alliance), the Q Community of the Health Foundation and lived experience partners.

On Wednesday 11 May and Thursday 12 May, they are bringing together people from across the health and care systems for a range of interactive discussions, workshops and presentations, giving a space for people to talk through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, explore continuous improvement opportunities and share fresh insights and ideas on how to promote the improvement of health and care for the benefit of all NHS colleagues, people who use our services and their unpaid carers.

For more information and to sign up, please click here.

            6. Reminder: How to order your lateral flow test kits

You will know by now that it is Trust policy and national NHS guidance to for colleagues to complete twice weekly lateral flow tests before coming in to work. This is to ensure we understand the spread of the COVID-19 virus and that we are able to minimise the risk of transmission.

Lateral flow tests are free to NHS staff. You can order your lateral flow kit by visiting https://www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests. You will be prompted to set up an account using your NHS email address. Once set up please select “Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust” from the list and continue to place your order.

All completed lateral flow tests must be reported on the Trust Lateral Flow Test reporting form which can be found by clicking here.

Please ensure you only report your test results on the Trust system and not to duplicate your submission on the national reporting system.

Tissue viability training during May and June

The tissue viability team alongside Convatec will be hosting a variety of digital training sessions aimed clinical colleagues on pressure ulcer prevention and management on the below dates from 2pm – 3pm.

• Monday 9 May
• Thursday 9 June

For further details please see prevention support sessions information sheet.

To book on to any of the above training sessions and for more information, please email tissueviability2@nhs.net.

Postgraduate Centre closure: 3 – 4 May

The Postgraduate Centre at City will be hosting University of Birmingham year 5 students exams on both Tuesday 3 May and Wednesday 4 May.

This means there will be no access for anyone into the Postgraduate Centre at City. In addition, access to the medical library will not be available during the closure

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.