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Monthly archives: April 2024

Experience of Care Week 2024: 29 April – 3 May

 

Every interaction and touch point with the healthcare system has an impact on an individual’s experience, from the moment a letter lands on the doorstep, to the point of discharge from care and beyond.

This year the NHSE Experience and Partnerships team are hosting a week of webinars around the theme ‘I am Experience of Care’; designed to share best practice, and provide opportunities for services to network and link, upscaling work and sharing lessons learned to impact patient experience.

To book your place, click on the corresponding link below.

Would you like to become a fire safety warden?

 

Would you like to be your area or departments fire safety warden and help support and promote fire safety in your area?

If so, please book onto one of our fire safety warden training sessions via ESR or by contacting the fire safety team by emailing swbh.fire-safety@nhs.net.

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 12 April

 

This week we continue the “soft activation” works at MMUH . These efforts are crucial in ensuring that all systems and processes are gradually implemented and tested before the full operational transition.  As we progress with the soft activation, our focus remains on maintaining the highest standards of quality and safety in preparation for the opening of MMUH in October.

Earlier in the week , the installation of our Milli-Q water filtration units was completed, a crucial step as it enables us to continue on to installing, commissioning and testing our analysers. These units are essential to ensuring our analysers have a steady stream of purified water, ensuring our tests are accurate.  The work needed on such testing is painstaking and intensive.  It just gives you a flavour in microcosm, of what is needed to make things safe before our big move.

Yesterday, we hosted an away day with our colleagues from the national New Hospital Programme (NHP) at the Department of Health, who are critical friends in helping us prepare, and support the move.  The importance of leveraging critical partners like NHP to support our preparedness efforts is vital. By engaging with partners like NHP, we can tap into their expertise, resources, and support networks to enhance our preparedness and address any challenges more effectively. Our MMUH programme team are getting plaudits from NHP about how we are managing this work and leaving little or nothing, to chance.

The session with NHP was about working collaboratively with them to prepare for what is called an IPA Gateway 4 readiness review, which is a review which focuses on our readiness for service – in other words “how ready we are, what are gaps and any mitigations we may need to take?”. I understand that NHP colleagues were impressed with work and preparedness to date and thank you to all of those involved.

Changing subjects briefly, but no less strategically important, the end of the financial year also saw an increase in our clinical research recruitment- not only have we successfully increased the number of patients participating in clinical research from previous years, but we are also the highest recruiting organisation within the Black Country.  Over 2700 of our patients have agreed to participate in clinical trials across the organisation. This provides our patients with the opportunity to gain access to new and novel treatments, diagnosis and services.  It is widely acknowledged and evidenced that those organisations that are research-active have lower mortality rates and better patient outcomes overall.  Given the ethnic diversity of the population we serve, the clinical research opportunities are significant because of the sheer breadth of clinical presentations and pathology our clinicians see.  We should celebrate that improvement and be ambitious to do even better – our core purpose, after all, is to improve the life chances and health outcomes of our population.  We don’t just treat the sick.

The Q1 Pulse Survey launched last week and has been well received, and we are already ahead of our response rate compared to the previous survey in January.  James Fleet, Interim Chief People Officer and I have been conducting staff drop-in sessions to encourage participation and address any questions or concerns. We’ve had relatively good attendance and engagement during these sessions and there has been some great quality (and sometimes fiery!) conversation. Your input is invaluable, and we aim to achieve a response rate of 45% with your help. Remember, the survey is anonymous and takes only 5 minutes to complete.

Have a good week.

Richard

Travelling sustainably to Midland Met

 

When Midland Met opens, sustainable ways of travelling to the site will be on the agenda to reduce our overall impact on the environment in line with our Green Strategic plan. 

The Trust will continue to offer support options for those who can cycle, take public transport, car share, walk or drive using low emission vehicles to work. 

Bike stores will also be located at Midland Met on the same floor as the car park. 

Meanwhile, bus routes around the area are being reviewed by Transport for West Midlands, and there will be two bus stops directly outside the main entrance.  

Those wishing to travel by train can head to Rolfe Street station which is within walking distance of the hospital.  

Shuttle buses will run between Sandwell, Midland Met and City, on a regular basis. Timetables are being worked on to ensure this works conveniently for those who need to travel between sites and do not either wish to drive or have access to a car. 

And the 1,200-space car park will include 30 electric vehicle charging points, with those who are based at Sandwell and City sites, able to access the multi-storey car parks.  

Here are some of the savings colleagues can make if they choose to travel sustainably: 

Latest edition of Heartbeat now available – MMUH special!

 

The latest edition of Heartbeat is now available to read! The Spring 2024 is all about Midland Met which will be opening in 2024 and includes your questions being answered, the Secretary of State visiting MMUH and our Midland Met Move Champions.

Be sure to check out the Spring 2024 issue by clicking here.

 

Are your patients aware of call for concern?

 

Our critical care outreach team have introduced a new patient safety initiative in response to the introduction of Martha’s rule.

Call for concern is a service for inpatients and their families which them to ask for immediate help and advice if they feel concerned about their own or their loved one’s changing condition.

Be sure to check out this short video to find out more.

Patients and/or their loved ones can call:

  • if there are on-going concerns after speaking with the ward nurse or doctor

or

  • if there is a noticeable change in a patient’s condition that the healthcare team hasn’t recognised.

Wards will be given a stock of leaflets which will be shared with patients, relatives or carers upon request. The leaflet explains the initiative and advises them how they can get in touch.

If they don’t have access to a mobile phone they may ask the ward team to bleep the critical care outreach team.

Direct numbers:

  • 07970993906 for Sandwell patients
  • 07811715041 for City patients

Bleep numbers:

  • City: 6000
  • Sandwell: 6234

The critical care outreach team will ask that all concerns are raised with the ward teams before contacting them.

When contacted, the team will respond quickly, assess the situation, and work with the medical team and other healthcare professionals as needed.

The service is not for patients in accident and emergency, paediatrics or neonates.

It’s important to remember that call for concern is for urgent matters. Patients or families with general issues related to things like the food, parking, or other non-medical matters, should liaise with a member of the ward team or the matron.

A patient leaflet has been created and be accessed here. A leaflet aimed at staff can also be accessed here. To request copies for your area please email sophieo’sullivan@nhs.net

Sickle cell and thalassaemia training programme

 

Are you interested in learning about sickle cell and thalassaemia? Do you look after patients who have these conditions? Are you interested in learning about the management of these patients? If so, come along to one of our sickle cell and thalassaemia training programme at the Postgraduate Centre at City.

Sessions for clinical staff – from 9.30am – 1pm:  

  • Tuesday 23  April
  • Tuesday 30 July

Informative sessions for all non-clinical staff interested in learning more about these conditions – from 9.30am – 11am:

  • Tuesday 28 May

For more information and to book your place, please call ext. 6040 or email rejoice.nhevera1@nhs.net

Community of practice research webinars now available

 

The research and development team are hosting ‘ community of practice research ‘ sessions through to May 2025.

These sessions will cover a range of topics:

  • Is My Project Research? – Tuesday 21 May, 10am – 12pm
  • Journal Club / CAT Groups – Tuesday 16 July, 10am – 12pm
  • Developing Research Ideas – Tuesday 17 September, 10am – 12pm
  • PPIE – Tuesday 19 November, 10am – 12pm
  • Writing for Publication and Dissemination – Tuesday 21 January, 10am – 12pm
  • Introduction to Statistics – Tuesday 18 March, 10am – 12pm
  • Developing Grant Applications – Tuesday 20 May (2025), 10am – 12pm

These sessions will include one hour of formal teaching and one hour of interactive ‘ ask the expert’ and sharing practices and experiences.

If you would like to attend a session, please register your interest by emailing swbh.randd.generic@nhs.net

For more information, please see the poster here.

Dermatology in-patient referral system migration to Unity

 

The dermatology in-patient referral system has migrated to Unity. The on-call team can be contacted by going onto Unity profile of the patient being referred, and searching for ‘referral to dermatology’ under the ‘requests’ tab on Unity.

Please ensure ‘medical photographs’ have been done for all patients being referred.

The on-call team does not need to be contacted via telephone unless you have suspected a case of toxic epidermal necrolysis syndrome (TENS) or Steven Johnsons syndrome (SJS). If this is the case, please call the on-call team as well as send a Unity referral). If there are any difficulties when completing this referral or concerns, please contact the on-call registrars.

We want your feedback: We would appreciate your feedback on the new referral system. You can complete the short feedback form by clicking here.

Eid Mubarak to all our Muslim colleagues

 

The Trust would like to wish all those celebrating a very Happy Eid Mubarak.

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