Monthly archives: December 2023

Midland Met lunch and learn recap – December 2023

Did you miss our latest lunch and learn session? Don’t worry; we’ve got you covered if so!

Just because you couldn’t join us on the day, doesn’t mean you can’t get to grips with the topics we covered. Lunch and Learn sessions are a fantastic way to learn about work taking place across SWB as we get ready to move into Midland Met. These sessions let colleagues discover more about a topic or area as we get ready to open our doors in 2024.

Everyone is encouraged to attend regardless of their role or department. If you have a question you’d like to ask, you can do so on the day, or you can submit it in advance via    swbh.mmuh@nhs.net.

Dates for 2024 sessions will be available shortly. 

You can check out the slides here and be sure to watch the session to stay in the loop.

Join us to lunch and learn about Midland Met- Today at 12pm

A series of lunch and learn sessions focusing on key aspects of the Midland Met programme are coming up. The sessions will take place online and in person, so you can learn more about the work taking place as we get ready to open our new hospital.

These sessions will focus on a particular topic and provide you with the latest information as well as allowing you to ask any questions. This is a great opportunity to connect with colleagues and learn more about Midland Met in an informal setting over your lunch break. And, yes, you are welcome to enjoy your lunch while the sessions takes place.

Everyone is encouraged to attend regardless of their role or department. If you have a question you’d like to ask, you can do so on the day, or you can submit it in advance via swbh.mmuh@nhs.net.

Dates for your diary:

• Monday 4 December – 12pm – 1pm – virtual – Click here to join the meeting

Urgent Treatment Centres to extend opening hours to midnight

Our urgent treatment centres at both our Sandwell and City sites will be extending their opening hours from Tuesday 5 December. This means, both Urgent Treatment Centres will be open from 9am – midnight.

Note: Though we have initially planned to extend the opening hours until March 2024, depending on demand this date may change.

The urgent treatment offers GP-led services, but not emergency care, for ailments such as, abdominal pain and minor illnesses, seven days a week.

Are you aware of the new form of documentation of opioid substitution treatment?

As you may be aware, there is now a new form for documentation of opioid substitution treatment information so that it is accessible for all clinical colleagues to access. This has been approved by the change panel, clinical ward services pharmacy team as well as the toxicology team.

Please see OST form template for preview of how it will look in Unity.

IT migration scheduled for 4 December has been deferred

The IT migration works scheduled for Monday 4 December has been deferred.  Informatics are working closely with our support vendors BT and AWS to resolve this situation and the activity will be rescheduled in due course.

All affected services will now be fully available as normal on Monday 4 December, 10pm.

We apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Maintenance affecting One Health and Care Shared Care record: 6 December, 8am – 4pm

Colleagues are advised there is essential third-party maintenance taking place on Wednesday 6 December from 8am – 4pm affecting the One Health and Care Shared Care record.

This work is scheduled to begin at 8am and should be completed by 4pm on Wednesday 6 December.

During this time the One Health and Care Shared record link which is accessed via UNITY and SystmOne will be unavailable from 8am and will not return any patient data for up to eight hours.

Unity and SystmOne are not affected by this upgrade and will remain fully operational. The Longitudinal Record View, HIE, will also remain fully operational during this time to access patient GP records .

Should you have any further queries then please contact the IT service desk on ext. 4050 or by contact chat with the IT service desk.

Christmas Fayre- Saturday 2 December 2023

There is a Christmas Fayre that will be taking place tomorrow at the nursery at Sandwell General Hospital from 10am – 1pm.

This event will have a grotto where you can meet Father Christmas, cafe, face painting, henna tattoos, craft stall and Christmas crafts activities all staff are welcomed to this event.

For more information contact emma.collier@nhs.net.

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 1 December

As many of you will be aware, the NHS Act of 2022 mandated NHS Trusts to collaborate with other Trusts to ensure that benefits for patients were maximised in the future. Our Trust is part of the Black Country Provider Collaborative (BCPS), in which we work in partnership with The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, and Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, on matters in which patients and or colleagues will benefit and where we think that working together will ensure that we are greater than the sum of our parts.  Our Trust Chair, Sir David Nicholson, also chairs the collaborative.

Since 2021, the BCPC has developed a programme of clinical collaboration between specialities, as well as corporate collaboration in areas such as payroll, procurement, and human resources. The purpose of this work is to collaboratively tackle things like:

1.  Clinical service resilience issues – workforce resilience or lack of clinical critical mass
2. Efficiency/productivity best practice sharing on matters like Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) or on corporate support services
3. Delivery of elective/waiting time recovery through mutual aid
4. Workforce planning collaboration – recruitment, bank/agency protocols etc
5. Financial recovery delivery as a system

To help us to manage this work more effectively, the BCPC has asked for expressions of interest from executive directors across the four organisations, to become the lead subject matter experts for their respective fields and to help Trusts coordinate work between them.

I am delighted that we have three of our SWB executive directors who have been asked and agreed to take on these wider leadership roles within the BCPS. Chief Nursing Officer, Mel Roberts, Chief Governance Officer, Kam Dhami and Chief Finance Officer, Dinah McLannahan will lead the development in their respective roles, nursing/midwifery/AHPs, governance and finance.

It’s really pleasing to see our organisation so well represented at this level and I will of cause bring you regular updates on the progress of the BCPC.

Whilst Kam and Mel will take on these roles as an addition to their substantive position here at SWB, Dinah’s role is slightly different, she will be joining the BCPC on a fulltime basis as a 15-month secondment. This reflects the scale of the financial challenges we currently face as a system and changes to the ways we work across collaboratively that require careful financial planning.

I would like to thank Dinah for her leadership here at SWB over the last six years and wish her every success in this new role. Simon Sheppard, Director of Operational Finance at the Trust, will become our chief finance officer during this time to ensure continuity of service and leadership of finance and planning here at SWB.

Finally, thank you to everyone who have been involved in our Winter Ambition focus week which has been taking place at City Hospital. Our improvement team have been embedded into our emergency department and across our medical wards, looking at areas of good practice that we can share across the organisation and any areas in which they think we could improve our performance, which we know will positively both patients and colleagues. Next week their focus will be on Sandwell Hospital.

Have a good weekend.

Richard.

Sustrans Winter Walking and Wheeling Challenge

Anyone living in Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall or Wolverhampton record your stroll every day for the week and you will be entered into a prize draw for a chance to win a £50 shopping voucher.

The competition runs between 1 December 2023 to 7 January 2024. Complete
your walks during this time and send a picture of the filled-in walk tracker, or you
own version of a walking log to westmidlands@sustrans.org.uk You must also
include the first three digits of your postcode in the email

It doesn’t matter how long you have walked, all participants who complete the challenge will be entered.

The competition will close on Sunday 7 January 2024 one winner from each local authority will be
chosen at random and contacted via email before Sunday 14 January 2024.

Sandwell main reception Costa closure this weekend

The main reception Costa coffee at Sandwell will be closed on this weekend. If colleagues wish to purchase any beverages or food products over the weekend, please visit Hallam restaurant across the car park at Sandwell. Hallam restaurant will be open 7.30am – 6.30pm on both days.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.