Monthly archives: April 2022

Star Awards 2022 – Nominations are open

Each year we host our annual Star Awards ceremony to highlight and recognise those who go above and beyond within their roles. Our 2022 ceremony will take place on 7 October at Aston Villa Football Club in true carnival style.

Nominations are open until Friday 3 June, so get thinking about those colleagues who have gone above and beyond this year, been part of something extra special or made a positive difference to the way we work or the quality of care our patients receive.

For the first time in four years, we have taken the decision to streamline our award categories as our organisation enters a fresh chapter with our new strategy focusing on People, Patients and Population and the development of new values and behaviours. The number of shortlisted nominees that go through to final judging has been increased from three to four.

Here are the award categories for this years’ awards ceremony

1. Employee of the Year
2. Clinical Team of the Year
3. Non-Clinical Team of the Year
4. Rising Star of the Year
5. Volunteer of the Year
6. Partnerships with the Community Award- NEW!!
7. Distinguished Service Award
8. Prize for Transformation and Research – NEW!!
9. Patient Safety Award
10. Learner of the Year
11. Award for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
12. Quality of Care Award (nominated by patients, visitors & carers)
13. Sustainability Award

There are three categories this year which the winners are voted for by you:

• Employee of the Year
• Clinical Team of the Year
• Non-Clinical Team of the Year

You can see the full list of award categories and their criteria on Connect, here.

Nominate your deserving colleagues below

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Pilot of Non-Invasive Ventilation Alert Team launched today

Nurses on the Respiratory Hub have gained a great deal of experience and knowledge in initiating Non-Invasive Ventilation (NIV) during the pandemic which as led to the launch today of the pilot of a NIV Alert Team (NAT).

The aims of the NAT pilot will be to primarily to facilitate a fast track response and escalation for a patient who requires NIV (for Type 2 Respiratory failure), transfer to the respiratory hub and initiate NIV, thereby improving compliance to meet the associated British Thoracic Society quality standards.

Respiratory Failure Pathway in ceiling (not for intubation) patients at SWBH -Non Covid

The NAT team are based at City Hospital (Respiratory Hub) and can be reached on bleep 5188 (SpR) and bleep 5192 (NIV alert nurse) between the hours of 8am-8pm 7 days a week.

PCR confirmation no longer required to confirm a positive lateral flow – how to apply for lateral flow tests

Colleagues are no longer required to confirm a COVID positive lateral flow result with a PCR, a move that comes as we learn to live alongside COVID-19. In our efforts to keep the virus at bay, it’s important that we continue to test and report in order to keep others safe.

All colleagues are required to complete a lateral flow test twice a week before coming in to work. 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.

Note: To submit results, colleagues will be required to create an account using their NHS email and password. If you test positive, you should continue to follow the current return to work guidance.

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

Colleagues are reminded that any unused LAMP test bags and sample containers can be returned to the phlebotomy departments on each site.

IT maintenance affecting Unity messaging 4 April from 7.30pm

Please be aware essential IT maintenance is taking place on Monday 4 April from 7.30pm – 9.30pm by our support vendor Cerner to carry out emergency hardware replacement activity which will affect Unity messaging.

Please be assured Unity will remain fully available; however during the activity the interfaces will be required to be failed over and back again. This will result in a slight delay at 7.30pm and 9pm of approximately 5 minutes with Unity iPM electronic orders and results messaging being processed.

This will result in minor delays of new inpatient admissions from ED, ward transfers into iPM, inpatient discharges into iPM, and imaging and pathology new orders.

Desktop alerts will be issued from 6pm advising colleagues about the maintenance and at completion. The activity will be closely monitored at all times by Cerner and our IT Support Teams.

Should you have any further queries or experience any issues after the maintenance please contact the 24 hour IT Service Desk on ext. 4050 or 0121 507 4050 for home workers and the duty manager.

April is Bowel Cancer Awareness Month

This month is Bowel Cancer Awareness Month which aims to raise awareness of bowel cancer and vital funds to support our work.

Did you know:

• Every 15 minutes somebody is diagnosed with bowel cancer in the UK, that’s nearly 43,000 people each year. It’s the fourth most common cancer
• Bowel cancer is more common in the over 50s but it can affect people of all ages
• Bowel cancer is the UK’s second biggest cancer killer. However it shouldn’t be because it is treatable and curable especially if diagnosed early
• Nearly everyone survives bowel cancer if diagnosed at the earliest stage. However this drops significantly as the disease develops. Early diagnosis really does save lives

Know the symptoms for you and your patients:

• Bleeding from your bottom and/or blood in your poo
• A persistent and unexplained change in bowel habit
• Unexplained weight loss
• Extreme tiredness for no obvious reason
• A pain or lump in your tummy

Do remember – many people with these symptoms don’t have bowel cancer as other health problems can cause similar symptoms. However, it is always good to remember if you have one or more of these symptoms, or if things just don’t feel right, book an appointment to see your see your GP or call NHS 111.

Drug safety notice: Supply disruption of Heparin in Sodium Chloride 0.9% infusion bags

We have recently been informed by manufacturers that there are currently supply constraints of Heparin (500 units) in Sodium Chloride 0.9% (500ml) infusion bags.

Colleagues who are responsible for preparing and administering drugs to be aware of the
shortage and how to make up the infusion bags if necessary. For further details please see Heparin information sheet.

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

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 1 April

The final report of The Independent Review of Maternity Services at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, led by Donna Ockenden was published on 30 March 2022. The review examined cases involving 1486 families between 2000 and 2019. The review team spoke to families involved about their care, examined medical records and conducted surveys and interviews with current and former members of staff.

The review found repeated failures in the quality of care and governance at the Trust throughout the last two decades, as well as failures from external bodies to effectively monitor the care provided. There were missed opportunities to learn, with families experiencing repeated serious incidents and harm throughout the period of the review.

More than 60 local actions for learning were identified along with immediate and essential actions for all maternity services cover ten key areas:

1. Financing a safe maternity workforce
2. Essential action on training
3. Maintaining a clear escalation and mitigation policy when staffing levels are not met
4. Essential roles for Boards in oversight of their maternity services
5. Meaningful incident investigations, with family and staff engagement, and practice changes introduced in a timely manner
6. Mandatory joint learning across all care settings when a mother dies
7. Care of mothers with complex and multiple pregnancies
8. Introduction at pace of the recommendations from the 2019 Neonatal Critical Care Review
9. Improving postnatal care for unwell mothers
10. Care of bereaved families

I am very conscious of the wide variety of concerns and views flying around about this review.  There is a big debate about what caused the issues, which to me seem to be a combination of two things: the Trust’s interpretation of a long standing national strategy to increase the percentage of births that were delivered “normally”, as opposed to caesarean section and poor quality governance and learning within the service at Shrewsbury & Telford Trust.

We must and already are in the process of reflecting on and acting on each of these two key matters as the findings are not unique to just one Trust.  Maternity and neonatal services in our Trust are subject to intensive oversight by the Board on a monthly basis.  Significant time and effort is being put in my a diverse and committed leadership team throughout maternity and neonatal services to ensure that we:

• Have strong quality governance in place and learn from when things go right as well as when things go wrong
• Listen to all staff’s views about how the culture, morale and practice within our services can be improved
• Deliver services which are culturally sensitive and therefore provide needs led, person centred care

I am conscious also about the impact the Ockenden report will have on the clinical and support staff in the service, as well as the impact it will have on those who may be considering joining the professions of midwifery or obstetrics.  Whilst well intended and ultimately necessary, the publicity these reviews often get can drive an unintended consequence of lowering morale in a service already under pressure.  We must all look out for the welfare and wellbeing of our colleagues in maternity and neonates over the coming months, as they work through the challenges they face day to day, whilst at the same time improving the quality of care they provide in a very public glare.

Have a good week.

iPM Lorenzo – fixes for those having issues accessing the new system?

The iPM Lorenzo patient administration system was updated yesterday and some colleagues have been reporting issues accessing the system.

There are a  couple of simple checks that should be carried out to ensure you are able to login successfully.

1. Ensure you have rebooted your system fully since midday yesterday.

This means clicking on the windows icon in the bottom left hand corner of your screen, followed by the power icon and then ‘restart’

2. Ensure your display scaling is set to 100%

Colleagues must ensure their Display scaling is set to ‘100%’ for iPM Lorenzo to operate correctly. This setting can be found by right clicking on your desktop and selecting display settings and ensuring that the ‘Scale and Layout’ option is set to 100%.

3. Ensure you are using Internet Explorer when trying to access iPM Lorenzo

iPM Lorenzo is not currently compatible with Chrome or MS Edge, colleagues must ensure they are opening iPM from Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer can be found on your desktop with the following icon:

4. Make sure you are using the new link to iPM Lorenzo.

Some colleagues still have outdated links to the old system on their desktop or in their favourite which has now been disabled. The correct link is on Connect and accessible under the ‘Clinical Systems’ shortcut.

iPM Lorenzo

5. Click ‘Open’ on the download bar that appears when you click on the iPM Lorenzo link.

Remember to click on ‘Open’ when presented with the alert bar shown below when you login to iPM .

The IT Service desk are on hand and available on 0121 507 4050 if colleagues need further support to get back on to the system.

Clinical engagement series session 1 – making best use of advice and guidance: 12 April

Following on from the series of events last year between SWB and primary care colleagues, you said you wanted to discuss a number of things with the first being to make better use of advice and guidance.

With this in mind, Sandwell Integrated Partnership are running an event for those that use advice and guidance to make and receive referrals on Tuesday 12 April, 12pm – 2pm.

If you would like to attend and help develop the process and pathway for advice and guidance please click here to register your interest via Eventbrite.

For more information please email steve.phillips@nhs.net or call 07977 948920.