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Monthly archives: February 2023

Heartbeat: Hello my name is… Lorraine Harper

 

Non-executive directors play an incredibly important strategic role in any organisation and ours is no different; they bring knowledge and skills to the boardroom alongside an open and independent perspective and a duty to uphold the highest standards and integrity in leading the organisation.

Non-executives are full members of the board of directors: they are appointed and expected to participate in committees, scrutinise the performance and objectives of the organisation, ensure the integrity of financial decisions and maintain oversight of clinical and quality standards.

Our most recent non-executive director is Lorraine Harper, who joined SWB in January 2023.

Lorraine brings with her a wealth of research experience to the Trust. Currently Professor of Nephrology at University of Birmingham, she has focussed on the management of patients with inflammatory kidney disease at University Hospitals Birmingham. She has helped support the development of a regional network of nephrologists and rheumatologists to support best practice in the management of vasculitis. Lorraine has published over 100 research papers in scientific journals as well as reviews and book chapters in the fields of inflammation and nephrology. She was recently appointed as Birmingham Health Partners Research and Health Innovation Director to help bring the benefits of research rapidly to patient.

She is a strong supporter of academic training and development, ensuring research is embedded as normal in healthcare and is the National Institute of Health and Social Care Research Academy Associate Dean responsible for academic training pathways. She is committed to increasing the diversity of individuals engaged with research and chaired the working group that developed the NIHR fellowships awards for research in local authority and changes to the awards for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals.

She is an enthusiastic communicator on the theme of translational renal research and regularly presents at both local and national level. She has been a member of several committees, including chair of the inaugural UK Kidney Research Consortium Glomerulonephritis Clinical Study Group. She was Honorary Secretary of the UK’S Renal Association.

Welcome to the Trust Lorraine!

Maternal medicine midwives study day: 31 March

 

West Midlands Maternal Medicine Network are hosting a training day aimed at midwives from 9.30am – 4pm at the Studio, Birmingham. Topics which will be covered at the event include neurology, epilepsy, liver disease, cardiology plus much more.

To find out more and register for this free event please click here. Note: The password to join this event is ‘WMMMN’

Modern slavery workshop: 28 March

 

The Sandwell anti-slavery partnership are working together to highlight the important
work around modern slavery. As part of their work, they will be hosting a workshop which will focus on sharing best practice on our approaches to cuckooing and general awareness around modern slavery on Tuesday 28 March, 10am – 12pm.

For further information please see modern slavery flyer.

If you wish to attend this digital event please email modern_slavery@sandwell.gov.uk.

National HIV testing week – stay safe and get tested

 

This week is National HIV testing week which seeks to aims to raise awareness about the importance of regular testing, to help reduce the number of people living with undiagnosed HIV and those diagnosed late.

Would you like a free and confidential HIV test?

We are offering free and confidential HIV testing at the Sandwell Sexual Health Clinic, Lyng Centre, Frank Fisher Way, West Bromwich B70 7AW, Monday – Friday, 9am – 7pm. Here you will have access to our highly skilled and qualified professionals.

If you wish to be tested please contact swbh.ishus@nhs.net or call 0121 612 2323.

Did you know you need photo ID to vote?

 

As you may be aware, elections are taking place across England on Thursday 4 May.

For the next election and going forward, you’ll need to bring photo ID to be eligible to vote at any polling station across the country.

To find out what forms of photo ID are accepted and to apply for free voter ID, please click here.

Invitation for internationally recruited nurses and midwives to share experiences

 

The NHS England Midlands nursing workforce team is planning an evaluation of the regional nursing and midwifery international recruitment programme. This is an exciting opportunity to hear experiences of internationally recruited nurses and midwives and to share and promote best practice. All internationally recruited nurses and midwives who began working in the NHS since 2020 are invited to share their experiences in a focus group.

The facilitator of the focus groups will be a nurse researcher who has experience of supporting NHS providers with best-practice guidance for recruiting international nurses and midwives. Note: Individual feedback will be anonymised.

If you wish to take part, please complete this expression of interest form by Friday 10 February.

Are you interested in a ‘greener’ NHS? We want your help to make a difference

 

The Black Country ICS organisations play a key part in the Greener NHS agenda across our area. The change has already started and we have lots to share with you on our progress to date. Now we are looking for your help and support – if more of us make small changes into our everyday routines at home and at work, the more we can make a difference for the better for our local environment. These changes lead to improvements in health for both us and our local populations.

Suppliers who are working with us on the green agenda will also be on site on the day to share their experiences and showcase their products and services. They include Vanguard, BBraun, Intersurgical and National Express.

Come along on Thursday 30 March and hear from the regional Greener NHS team, our executive lead Tom Jackson and our local workstream leads about what changes/suggestions you can help to make and how you can play your part at our day event.

Note: Places are limited and allocated per organisation

Click here to book your place.

Update: Homeworking policy

 

The Trust is pleased to announce the implementation of its homeworking policy, which was developed through successful joint working with our staff side colleagues/partners.

Home working is a key element of working flexibly and the policy sets out the key factors for managers and colleagues to consider for safe and successful implementation.

This policy describes the Trust’s approach to home working and the aim of the policy is to support managers and colleagues with arrangements of home working to ensure working obligations are met. The policy can be accessed here.

During the pandemic there was a requirement for many of our teams to become home workers overnight and rapidly had to get to grips with different ways of working; different work; lack of team connection, new technology and possible feelings of isolation. It is to be commended how all colleagues adapted to this.

As we move forward, many teams are already returning to onsite working or a combination of home and onsite working to balance the needs of individual team members and to meet service requirements. There is an expectation for these discussions to continue and for future working arrangements/model to be agreed and determined at departmental level, led by the service lead and the policy has been designed to support this.

It is not an expectation for those colleagues who have been working from home prior to the implementation of this policy to submit back dated applications for flexible working.

Please note that as with all flexible working requests homeworking does not need a ‘reason’ to be considered’ all colleagues whose work can be delivered remotely should be able to discuss this as an option for the way they work.

All flexible working applications are now made via ESR self service – for guidance on how to do this click here.

Also available on Connect are flexible working toolkits for both managers and colleagues.

welearn poster competition – voting closes Wednesday

 

The welearn poster competition aims to engage and empower colleagues to share their good practice, quality initiatives, innovation, research and partnership work that has resulted in an improvement for patients, relatives and colleagues.

Colleagues have been hard at work in their QIHDs producing posters highlighting their great work for this year’s welearn QIHD poster competition.

Teams and individuals who have entered this competition now have the opportunity to have their hard work celebrated and recognised and also stand a chance to win a £5,000 prize.

Voting for your favourite

You have the opportunity to vote online for your three favourite posters.

To review the posters and submit your votes, click on the link below and login to the voting form using your windows login details and pick your top three favourite posters.

View and vote for your posters by clicking here.

Voting closes on Wednesday 8 February.

Your votes will go towards supporting the teams you pick as the popular staff vote.

Enjoy viewing the posters and finding out about the great quality improvement initiatives taking place across our workplace, and encourage your colleagues to do so too.

Delegation of insulin administration in community nursing survey

 

Are you a community service providing nursing care to patients with diabetes? The University of Surrey want to find out how many services in England are delegating insulin administration. The University invite you to complete a survey. They will scope the uptake of this practice and inform resources to support implementation. This is important work commissioned by NHS England and we need your help.

To and complete the survey please click here.

For more information please email k.stenner@surrey.ac.uk.


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