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Monthly archives: June 2022

Strategy week: Introducing the 3Ps – people

 

After lots of listening, we tried to make our strategy as simple as possible. It is centred upon 3 strategic objectives, which can be remembered as the “3 Ps”: Patients, People, and Population.

Our people objective is all about improving staff experience, by cultivating happy, productive and engaged staff.

We are focusing on four areas.

  • Culture, where we will be doing focused work on making our organisation fairer, and developing more compassionate leaders.
  • Technology, where we will use the power of digital to make working lives easier.
  • Physical environment will look at how we can make our surroundings more inspiring and comfortable.
  • Learning and development looks at how everyone in the Trust can be supported to learn every day, formally or informally.

Over the next five years we will see the recruitment of more staff, as well as improving the staff journey from recruitment to retirement so we can retain our workforce too. Part of this is embedding compassionate leadership in the Trust, where all staff are valued and treated fairly.

How you fit in

As a large, integrated Trust with many different services and roles, it is not expected that every staff member will actively address all parts of the strategy at the same time. What is important is that you can see that your role does affect at least part of the strategic direction, and to think about how you could build upon or adapt what you do to help further deliver the strategy.

For example on the people objective this could mean how you work with colleagues as one team, whether that is in a ward or department, or crossing formal team boundaries by making sure we don’t work in silos; making sure we are inclusive and support each other to have more meaningful relationships at work.

Find out more

You are welcome to join any of the Q and A sessions below:

  • Monday 20 June, 9.30am – 10.30am via MS teams, click here to join
  • Monday 20 June, 3.30pm – 4.30pm, Committee Room, Rowley

You can read our five year strategy here.

Our summary presentation gives a useful overview of how our objectives and plans fit together and what our priorities will be.

To find out more watch our short film that explains our strategy.

See Connect for FAQs and all the latest info.

8B and above online symposium for nurses and midwives from black, minority ethnic backgrounds and allies: 6 July

 

NHS England and Improvement are hosting an online symposium for band 8B and above nurses and midwives from black, asian, minority ethnic backgrounds and allies on Wednesday 6 July, 9am – 3pm. The event aims to increase representation of band 8B and above black, asian, and ethnic minority nurses and midwives nationally by inspiring confidence, highlighting opportunities, harnessing system support and showcasing best practice.

If you wish to attend this free event or find out more, please click here.

This week is Clinical Audit Awareness Week

 

Today we are hoping to raise awareness of the NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) quality improvement project the clinical effectiveness team is currently running. NICE provide health and care settings with guidance on best practice, so can be really effective standards for clinical audit. However, we appreciate that there may be gaps in the NICE process at SWB, so the team would love to hear from you! If you click here the link will take you to an anonymous feedback form where you can help shape changes to the current NICE process.

Linking in with the national theme for day two of Clinical Audit Awareness Week (CAAW) which is advocating for patients in clinical audit, we are hoping that implementing a more robust NICE process within SWB, we will be able to identify more opportunities for patient engagement in the clinical effectiveness portfolio.

Join our drop in sessions: Tuesday – Thursday, 10am – 2pm at the following locations:

  • Hallam restaurant foyer, Sandwell
  • Postgraduate Centre library, City

Note: The team will also be at Rowley on Wednesday 15 June

Can’t get make any of the sessions? A series of free national ‘Learn at Lunch’ webinars are being run by National Quality Improvement including Clinical Audit Network (NQICAN) 12.30pm – 2pm everyday during CAAW22. These will cover the role of clinical audit in the following:

  • Patient safety
  • Patient advocates
  • Influencing change
  • Health inequalities
  • Future-proofing healthcare

During these webinars, the winners of the national ‘audit heroes’ for each category will be announced where SWB have five colleagues who have been nominated – click here to find out more.

For more information about the week and get in touch with the team, please email  swbh.auditteam-clineffec@nhs.net.

New patient air-assisted lifting devices training session now available

 

A training session for the new air-assisted lifting devices equipment will be available at Sandwell Education Centre on the Thursday 16 June – 9am, 10am, 11am, and 12pm.

Note: No booking is required for any of these sessions however each session will start promptly at the times stated.

For more information please email karen.morsley@nhs.net.

Strategy week: Introducing the 3Ps – patients

 

After lots of listening, we tried to make our strategy as simple as possible. It is centred upon 3 strategic objectives, which can be remembered as the “3 Ps”: Patients, People, and Population.

Our patients objective is to be Good or Outstanding at everything we do. We will focus on the fundamentals of care, so that we get the basics of quality and safety right for every patient. This is a multi-professional focus, bringing together clinicians including doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and clinical scientists with operational leads.

Together this will ensure every patient receives safe, high quality care, that is responsive, caring, and well-led. In the next five years, we will see a change in how we deliver care as part of our new hospital programme. More patients will receive care outside the hospital setting, as well as improving the care they receive on our sites.

How you fit in

As a large, integrated Trust with many different services and roles, it is not expected that every staff member will actively address all parts of the strategy at the same time. What is important is that you can see that your role does affect at least part of the strategic direction, and to think about how you could build upon or adapt what you do to help further deliver the strategy.

For example on the patients objective this could mean delivering safe and effective care, or enabling clinicians to deliver better care by keeping the organisation running effectively e.g. helping patients with what is important to them, keeping our IT systems up and running, providing insight and information, ensuring we keep our finances in check.

Find out more

You are welcome to join any of the Q and A sessions below:

  • Tuesday 14 June, 12 pm – 1pm, Room 10, Education Centre, Sandwell
  • Monday 20 June, 9.30am – 10.30am via MS teams, click here to join
  • Monday 20 June, 3.30pm – 4.30pm, Committee Room, Rowley

You can read our five year strategy here.

Our summary presentation gives a useful overview of how our objectives and plans fit together and what our priorities will be.

To find out more watch our short film that explains our strategy.

See Connect for FAQs and all the latest information.

SWB monkeypox guidance – patient pathway

 

The clinical pathway for suspected Monkeypox has now been published and is available on the following link:

SWB monkeypox patient pathway guidance

When assessing a patient please ensure you follow this guidance which details the signs and symptoms, IPC requirements, PPE as well as isolation and cleaning guidance.

For further information about monkeypox, please click here.

Maintenance affecting the pathology service – 14 June, 5am – 6am

 

Please be aware that an essential IT infrastructure maintenance is taking place on Tuesday 14 June between 5am and 6am which will affect the pathology service at Sandwell and City.

During the maintenance, Unity will remain fully available; however, between 5am – 6am on Tuesday 14 June colleagues will need to revert to requesting microbiology tests and Blood Bank requests on paper forms as well as on Unity.

Paper requests will be required to process pathology samples during the maintenance period and as soon as the maintenance is complete, orders will be booked in electronically and reported through to message centre ready for endorsement. Colleagues can continue to make ICE requests during the downtime but there will be a delay receiving results. 

Urgent results will be phoned to the affected users during the downtime.

The activity will be closely monitored, and desktop alerts will be issued from 4am advising colleagues of the need to revert to BCP for requesting microbiology tests and Blood Bank requests during the maintenance.

Should you have any further queries then please do call the pathology team on 0121 507 6600 or email on swbh.pathology-it@nhs.net.

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 10 June

 

As we move on from the long bank holiday weekend I firstly want to say “thank you” to everyone who is continuing to work hard to keep patients safe. We are in the Spring to Summer season and the pressure on our urgent and emergency care services has not eased, and at times it has become even more intense. It is no consolation, but we are not alone. Many of you will have seen in the news the nurse at another hospital having to face her overcrowded emergency department to explain the very lengthy waits that patients would be experiencing. Coupled with the rising pressure on our ambulance service, this is an incredibly difficult period for all working in our acute services. Your commitment to treating patients safely, under immensely challenging services is commendable and I know it is taking its toll.

This is not a situation that is solely affecting acute, front-line teams. Everyone here has a role to play. Our community services and primary care teams are vital in the treatment they provide for patients at home and in community settings. This is helping to avoid hospital stays and providing better quality of care for individuals. Community beds and wards too are focused on discharges and working with partner organisations to get arrangements in place as early as possible so that moving back home or to a more suitable care location is prompt and seamless.

We all have risks to assess and mitigate in these circumstances. We all strive to provide very high quality care, but when our front doors are under such pressure, then we must follow our planned action cards to prioritise safety. This means that patients ready to go home can sit out to allow for beds to become available for other patients. Following this policy is essential.

I am very proud of our teams for all you do. We are in a better place than some, but let me be clear, that this is a system, regional and national issue. The boundaries between organisations are immaterial for the patients who need care and working collaboratively and supportively with others remains a priority.

We have been celebrating Volunteer’s Week recently and I know that you will all join with me in our admiration and appreciation for these individuals, who selflessly support our colleagues and our patients. During COVID-19, whilst we moved volunteers from most clinical areas and supported clinically vulnerable volunteers in staying at home, many volunteers remained and continue to remain providing additional assistance particularly on the front doors of our buildings. Their role i supports patients and visitors in navigating our fairly disparate sites and helping people get where they need to be. Volunteers are beginning to be returned in greater numbers to clinical areas as our COVID-19 restrictions ease. Please take the time to thank our volunteers for their valuable support.

Next week we kick off our Strategy Week where we aim to make our new strategy, and particularly our three strategic objectives (the three Ps – Patients, People and Population), very clear for all colleagues. Look out for handy new materials in your areas to be displayed and shared with your teams. There are four staff Q&A sessions coming up as well from Monday – all colleagues welcome – so do book on to find out more.

Our strategy is supported by a number of plans that set out “how” we are going to achieve these five-year objectives. A really important feature of our Trust is our thriving research and development programme. Jilly Croasdale is leading work to help advance the non-medical research capability of our organisation. We know that organisations that engage in high quality, person-centred research activity have higher patient satisfaction, reduced mortality, improved CQC performance and improved organisational efficiency. It also improves department working and helps individuals improve skills, confidence and job satisfaction.

A short (10 minute) survey is being carried out as a benchmarking exercise to see where we are now with our Nurses, Midwives, Allied Health Professionals, Healthcare Scientists, Pharmacy staff and Psychologists (NMAHPPS) research. The survey is for non-medical staff and covers any levels of research you are doing, from presenting posters at conferences to running clinical trials. The results will help develop a research strategy to look at providing research training and opportunities at our Trust. Please follow this link to complete the survey – https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/NMAHPPS/

We all want to provide the best treatment to our patients. And to do this, we need research

Celebrating and developing a skilled AHP support workforce event: 30 June 

 

Black Country AHP and Nursing Faculty in collaboration with Birmingham and Solihull AHP Faculty are hosting a professional development event for AHP support workers on Thursday 30 June, 11am – 2pm.

The event aims to celebrate AHP support workers and provide information about what career development opportunities are available with the launch of the national AHP support worker competency education career development framework.

For further information and if you would like to attend, please click here.

Clinical Audit Awareness Week (13-17 June) – SWB patient safety audit heroes

 

Today we are focusing on clinical audit and patient safety and are highlighting colleagues who have been nominated to the national ‘Patient Safety Audit Hero’ competition, which is a brilliant celebration of their hard work:

  • Anita Kaur used clinical audit methodology to improve understanding of and access to Hypo boxes, which helps improves patient safety for our diabetes patients
  • Catherine Beatty and her team improved the referral process for audiology assessments for patients with hearing loss from childhood meningitis, meaning patients could receive the appropriate treatment in a timely manner.
  • Corrine DaCosta ran a clinical audit on the neonatal unit which helped improve compliance with the Lullaby Trust standards for safer sleeping, which reduces the risk of sudden incident death syndrome.

Join our drop in sessions: The team will be hosting drop in sessions Monday – Thursday, 10am – 2pm at the following locations:

  • Hallam restaurant foyer, Sandwell
  • Library, City

Note: The team will also be at Rowley on Wednesday 15 June

Can’t get make any of the sessions? A series of free national ‘Learn at Lunch’ webinars are being run by National Quality Improvement including Clinical Audit Network (NQICAN) 12.30pm – 2pm everyday during CAAW22. These will cover the role of clinical audit in the following:

  • Patient safety
  • Patient advocates
  • Influencing change
  • Health inequalities
  • Future-proofing healthcare

During these webinars, the winners of the national ‘audit heroes’ for each category will be announced where SWB have five colleagues who have been nominated – click here to find out more.

For more information about the week and get in touch with the team, please email  swbh.auditteam-clineffec@nhs.net.

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