Monthly archives: October 2022

Latest edition of Heartbeat now available online!

In this month’s edition of Heartbeat, we celebrate our stars by recognising the achievements of colleagues at the annual Star Awards. We’ve included a brief summary of the night, as well as all winning colleagues and teams, on pages 14-15.

We’ve also marked the opening of our new discharge lounges, at both City and Sandwell, on page 12. The lounges allow patients who no longer meet the criteria to reside to relax in peace on well-staffed wards as they await return to their homes or beds in the community.

With the weather getting colder, we’re all aware of a potential rise in viral infection rates. If you’re yet to get your COVID-19 and flu vaccinations, you can see a full calendar of staff clinics on page 5, as well as further information on the programme on page 4.

Happy reading!

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 28 October

This week I have two key topics to cover, one of which I have talked about before, but it is such an important part of our strategy that I make no apology for repeating it.

1.Complete your staff survey

The annual NHS staff survey is now out and every employee has been invited to take part, either by email or by receiving a paper copy. I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to complete the survey and have your say. The results of the survey tell us what matters to you and how we are doing in our ambition to deliver our three Ps strategy, but in particular the “People” objective – to cultivate and sustain happy, productive and engaged staff. How we get there is described in our People Plan, which has been developed in outline but we need to hear from you to understand what will really make a difference to improving your experience at work.

My expectation is that everyone does this as part of your role. Use your working time and your team meetings to do this. If you can’t access the survey contact Quality Health 0800 783 1775 or helpline@quality-health.co.uk for help. There are incentives for completion such as monetary vouchers for a prize draw and food vouchers for teams who do really well in terms of responses. Hopefully this encourages you and your colleagues to take just 10 minutes out of your working day to tell us your views.

2.Your safety at work matters

We know that a big contribution to people’s experience at work is your working environment and whilst we cannot promise 100% renovated areas to work in, we should all be able to expect (and demand) a safe working environment. We recently commissioned an independent assessment of a range of health and safety measures across the organisation and this report makes sober reading. The findings include examples where fire doors were propped open and other risks not appropriately assessed. Keeping yourselves and your colleagues safe is everyone’s business but not only that, it is the law. Sloppy practice in terms of health and safety should not and cannot be tolerated.  Please ensure you follow our health and safety protocols, seek help from our specialist team if you need advice and speak up if you see a safety concern.

Have a good weekend.

Richard

How to complete your NHS Staff Survey online

The NHS Staff Survey is one of the important ways for SWB to find out what is working well and what can be improved.

It is essential that SWB colleagues are able to complete the survey in a safe and confidential manner.

As you know the survey is administered by Quality Health, an independent external contractor to ensure that individual responses are not visible to the SWB.

Quality Health have provided a few tips to help you complete the online survey:

• Firstly – look for your email invitation to your work account from  insightandfeedback@iqvia.com
• In that email you will find a unique link that will take you to the online questionnaire. The link is unique only to you, please do not share it with anyone else.
• The link will take you to an online confidential portal where you can complete the survey

Find out more in this video below:

If you have any queries about the survey you can contact Quality Health Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm on 0800 783 1775 or helpline@quality-health.co.uk.

The survey will close on 25 November.

Sad passing of Barlees Morgan

It is with great sadness that one of our much loved colleagues, Barlees Morgan, Healthcare Assistant sadly passed away on Saturday 15 October.

Barlees was a healthcare assistant since 2004 working on both Lyndon 3 and Newton 3 wards at Sandwell.

Funeral arrangements: Barlees Morgan’s funeral procession will come past the front of Sandwell Hospital at 9.15am on Monday 31 October. The church service for Barlees will take place at 11am at Rood End Road Church, B68 8SH followed by her burial at 1.45pm at Thimble Mill Cemetery, B67 6LS.

Did you know you can book GP appointments on evenings and weekends?

You are now able to book an appointment with your GP practice on evenings and weekends.

Appointments are now available between 6.30pm – 8pm, Monday to Friday and between 9am – 5pm on Saturdays.

There will be a range of appointments available for different services, which will be delivered by a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals, to ensure you see the right person at the right time, more quickly. These will be a combination of face-to-face, video and telephone appointments.

To book an appointment during these hours, please contact your GP practice by phone or visit their practice website.

Local practices are working together to ensure these additional appointments are available for all patients. This means you may be offered an appointment at your GP surgery or another location nearby.

Note: you are unable to walk-in to these appointments, so if you need urgent medical advice after 6.30pm or at a weekend, please phone NHS 111 in the first instance.

If you have an appointment, you can’t make or you no longer need, please let your practice know as soon as possible so that we can offer it to someone else.

Your local pharmacy may be able to help

You may not always need to see a doctor or get a prescription. Local pharmacies offer many of the same services local GPs do.

Your local pharmacy can provide confidential, expert advice and treatment for a range of minor illnesses. They have private consultation rooms and you don’t need to make an appointment.

And, if symptoms suggest it’s something more serious, pharmacists have the right training to make sure patients get the help they need.

You can find your nearest pharmacy, including opening times, here.

For more information on how GP practice are working differently across the Black Country, please click here.

Discharge lounges now open at Sandwell and City

To support with patient flow and allow timely admissions for our patients in ED to the wards, discharge lounges are now open 7 days a week, 7am – 7pm at the following locations:

• Sandwell – Newton 1. To contact call ext. 2752 or ext. 2757
• City – within AMU 1 (old AMAA). To contact call ext. 4990 or 5131

The lounges are the ideal location for patients who no longer have criteria to reside in our acute bedbase. Patients can be stepped down to the lounge whilst awaiting TTOs, transport or transfer to MFFD beds.

Please include the discharge lounge in your patient discharge discussions so they are aware of the journey. The lounges have eight chair spaces and four bed spaces on each site to support our patients comfort whilst awaiting discharge/transfer.

If you have a patient to discuss or have any queries please email karenjit.birring@nhs.net or call 07976075498.

Note: Bank shifts for qualified staff nurses and healthcare support workers are now available to book.

Alcohol care team unavailable this weekend

The alcohol care team will be not available this weekend (Saturday 29 October and Sunday 30 October). If you require any urgent advice during this time then please contact the on call toxicology consultant via switchboard.

Note:  Referrals to the team can continue to be made through Unity and they will be picked up when the service resumes.

Trust vehicles up for sale – viewings available 1 November

There are a number of Trust vehicles up for sale and colleagues have an opportunity to buy them at a discounted price. Viewings are available on Tuesday 1 November from 9am until 4pm at the transport department at City Hospital. Appointments are not necessary.

For further details on the bidding and sales process including a full list of the vehicles, please see Sale of Trust vehicles information sheet 2022.

Note: All bids should be made by emailing theresa.hickey@nhs.net by Wednesday 2 November, 4pm.

Heartbeat: Getting back to the basics of care

Going back to basics may sound simple enough – but it is essential when it comes to the care we deliver to our patients.

This is what our Fundamentals of Care framework will address, as many colleagues heard at the official launch of the programme in September.

The day-long event at West Bromwich Albion FC, heard from patients, carers and staff about what mattered to them whilst receiving consistent care from either clinicians at our hospitals or in the community.

There were also workshops held where colleagues were able to talk about ways they could improve the delivery of consistent care.

Mel Roberts, Chief Nursing Officer, said: “I want to thank everyone who attended the launch event for Fundamentals of Care. I was delighted with the way everyone was fully committed and engaged with the approach.

“This really is the start of our journey together and there was amazing energy in the room throughout the day.

“We heard from many during the event – our patients, people and population – about why it’s so important to get the basics right.

“Now we need to turn that energy into action and work hard to provide high quality patient care.”

Striking a chord with many was partially sighted Graham Price’s story, who is part of an oral, nutrition and hydration patient focus group at the Trust.

He described how simple things like staff telling him where food is on his plate would help him along with more stable drinking cups or bottles.

Meanwhile carer Jaswinder Kaur Bedi talked about her daughter, now aged 20, who has autism and learning difficulties. She said: “When accessing healthcare I want people to listen to me. When my daughter was younger I noticed she had speech and language issues, but no one listened to me. It was an ongoing issue. She wasn’t diagnosed and healthcare workers didn’t understand our issues we had at home.

“Everything took a long time for us to get help.”

Feedback from colleagues who attended has been positive.

Marsha Jones, deputy director of governance, shared: “What a fantastic day at the Fundamentals of Care Launch. We’ve recognised there is much to do but we have set the vision so we are all heading in the same direction collectively.”

The Fundamentals of Care framework will improve essential standards of consistent care, patient’s outcome and experience and we want to ensure this approach is interdisciplinary, owned by all staff and applied consistently across all areas of care.

We are partnering with the International Learning Collaborative (ILC) who will support the organisation through their world -wide network based in Europe, Australia , New Zealand, North America and Canada.

And we are the first Trust in England to become ILC members and one of the first UK to develop a care delivery model that places the Fundamentals of Care at its heart. Going forward as part of this approach we will establish a service accreditation programme and a Fundamentals of Care steering committee.

Knowing me, knowing you… There is something we can do: Randomised coffee chat

Knowvember (1 – 30 November) is a chance to meet and chat for 20 minutes with another colleague about projects, new developments or sharing best practice. The chat can be virtual or in person, whichever you prefer.

Randomised coffee chats help us connect with colleagues, learn from and about each other. It’s free, easy and informal.

Register your interest by emailing swbh.welearnrandomisedcoffeechat@nhs.net by Sunday 6 November with your name, job title, department and location. You will have the month of November to have your conversation – we’ll tell you who you are paired with and then it is over to you.