Monthly archives: May 2024

Help us improve urine sample rejections

Since we introduced new urine tubes across SWB since the change of red top boric acid container to Boric Acid Urine Monovette (green top), our urine sample rejection rate is extremely high. Most of urine samples are rejected because of the incorrect sample volume (please see the comment below).

It’s vital clinical colleagues get this right, because it can have an impact on increase length of stay, increase antibiotic consumption and exposure and selection of further antimicrobial resistance by giving incorrect antibiotics.

We must remind colleagues to send the correct container with the correct volume. Diagnostic stewardship is equally important for patient’s treatment. If the patient can’t produce 10mls for e.g. oliguric, in neonates or paediatrics, please send the sample in a white topped universal.

Note: Communications were regarding this were sent out February (new urine tubes introduced) (points to remember) should colleagues need further details about the changes.

Drug safety notice: Pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy (PERT)

There is currently a shortage of the following medications:

Problem:

• Creon 10,000 and 25,000 gastro-resistant capsules are in limited supply until 2 January 2026.
• Nutrizym 22 capsules are out of stock until 16 August 2024.
• Pancrex V capsules and powder remain available but are unable to support an increase in demand.
• PERT is indicated for the treatment of pancreatic exocrine insufficiency such as in cystic fibrosis, pancreatic cancer, and pancreatitis.
• There is no clinical alternative to PERT.
• Unlicensed imports of Creon® capsules and alternative brands of PERT may be sourced, lead times vary.

Advice/alternative:

Clinicians and prescribers should review all patients prescribed PERT and:

• Prescribe a maximum of one month’s supply at a time to help ensure there is sufficient stock for all patients.
• Prioritise Creon 10,000 for paediatric patients and patients unable to take Creon 25,000 e.g. patients with swallowing difficulties.

For more information and further advice visit Drug Safety Notice or visit the National Patient Safety Alert document here.

If you have any questions please contact the pharmacy department on ext. 5263/3783.

Job of the week: Senior Communications Officer, Band 5 (12 month fixed term/secondment)

The Black Country ICB are currently recruiting for a Senior Communications Officer, Band 5 (12 month fixed term/secondment).

Working within the ICB and as part of the wider Black Country Integrated Care System, you will have an excellent knowledge and understanding of delivering communication campaigns and will be able to develop and implement engaging content to communicate our successes, new initiatives, and strategic priorities.

The closing the date for applications is Wednesday 5 June with the interview date for successful candidates scheduled for Thursday 13 June.

For the full job description, person specification and to apply please click here.

For further details or an informal discussion, email charlotte.gee@nhs.net or call 07779 273942.

Good Morning, Mr President – HCR’s President and Founder visits City

Healthcare Relocations (HCR) representatives, Joe Hartnett and Cameron Goes are confirmed to return to the Trust in June to continue the move planning process ahead of the fast-approaching move into Midland Met. Prior to this, Founder and President of HCR, Patrick (Pat) Moriarty, joined us at City Hospital for a patient working group, an essential part of move planning.

As Pat’s attendance at the meeting highlighted the magnitude and importance of the project, many colleagues attended and contributed to the valuable discussions.

Pat commented: “I was very happy to discuss the planning of the patient move protocol teams. The logistics around the move between City and Midland Met has progressed nicely.”

We look forward to the full-time return of HCR ahead of the October moving dates as well as the continued progress in our move planning process.

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 31 May

Recently it was shocking to read of the huge disparity of Birmingham men’s life expectancy which can plummet by a decade between train stops on the same line. Dr Justin Varney, Director of Public Health for Birmingham quoted the figures in a report to city council cabinet members where he explored the changes between the 2011 and 2021 census. The average life expectancy of men living near Chester Road railway station, close to Walmley and Sutton Coldfield is 83, whilst their neighbours only a two-minute stop away near Erdington is ten years less at 73 – also significantly lower than the England average of around 79 for men. He revealed that Birmingham’s life expectancy was “dropping faster” than the rest of the country.

Which is why it is one of our founding principles that the Midland Met development is #MoreThanAHospital, it is so much more. It will improve the life chances of our population. Through the build process we have ensured local people have benefited through employment opportunities and will continue to benefit through retail and educational opportunities in our new Learning Campus when it opens early in 2026. Already we have employed almost 150 local people in full time roles, and we are still recruiting. Our calculations demonstrate that through financial improvement in their work lives our local community will benefit from 74,000 extra years of life due to the process of building, opening and running Midland Met. This is something to be proud of. In developing our new estate, we are actively contributing significantly to the wellbeing of the population we serve.

Last week we heard that we are having an early general election – on 4 July just over five weeks away. This is good news for us as we remove the prospect of opening Midland Met amidst the pre-election restrictions on publicity, that we are subject to as a public sector body. And it is also good news for the country as we can all move on once the votes are counted. I have no doubt that there will be changes ahead regardless of the outcome of the election, so we will adjust and ensure we face the winter with our values leading our service. In terms of the election timetable, we are already into the pre-election period. Many of you are aware of the constraints of this but for those who are new to the process our communications team will be issuing guidance to remind all colleagues of specific restrictions. The timetable is as follows:

1. 25 May pre-election period began
2. 18 June Voter registration deadline
3. 4 July Election takes place
4. 5 July Election results announced and government formed

The ‘pre-election period’ is used across central and local government to describe the period of time immediately before elections or a referendum when specific restrictions on the activity of civil servants and officials, where appropriate, are in place. These restrictions prevent announcements from, and activities by, public bodies which could influence or be seen to influence the election. The term ‘purdah’ is also sometimes used to describe this period.

As you are aware we are working to a challenging financial improvement plan in order to achieve our targets this year.  We have now started to move into the key phase of ideas generation, and development through the numerous workstreams having commenced or about to start, to build deliverable plans for implementation during the year. With some workstreams already in delivery, we have delivered the first two months of cost improvement, and despite a significant challenge, we are confident that with the support of the wider organisation in helping us to identify and deliver the opportunities, we will be successful.

To that end we have launching two trust wide workshops (one at each site) on the 7^th and 14^th June respectively to which staff will be invited to help us think through the things we can do to deliver our financial improvement. We will be emailing everybody and preparing the session with numerous ideas that we have seen successfully delivered elsewhere, as well as using our own intelligence from within the Trust to help us through this process.

In other news, it is always welcome to hear how our colleagues are inspiring positive change across the UK, and in this case – the world – as we were delighted to receive a visitor from down under – Professor Manjit Pawar – an Acute/Internal Medicine and ICU Consultant who was trained by Chief Medical Officer Dr Mark Anderson and alongside Dr Sarb Clare at City and Sandwell, before moving to Singapore then Australia. Currently focused on educating students and post grads, he is looking to establish Acute Medicine and Rapid Access Servies in Regional Queensland with a primary focus on hospital avoidance, A&E avoidance and increased patient flow/satisfaction with care using the mantra of right person, right place, right time. Being aware of the rapid advances we are making in these areas he was hosted by Dr Sharjeel Kiani – EPICENTRE lead consultant – and was treated to a tour of our service in the aim of establishing a base line for back home and relationships to support the development of the same service in Queensland.

And finally, I was delighted to see Sarb take on the mantle of first female president of the West Midlands Physicians Association. She is a shining example to colleagues and represents the very best of us and what we stand for in terms of our ARC values. On the back of this honour, she has been invited to make the keynote speech at a Birmingham Women in Leadership Wealth and Health event later next month, where she will be joined by our Chief Nursing Officer Mel Roberts to represent the Trust in portraying our values going into such a pivotal year of the advent of our new hospital. You’ll be able to read more about this on Connect.

Thank you to colleagues who worked the bank holiday this week, the wider executive team and I are greatly appreciative of the hours you put in to look after the health needs of our communities, especially over the weekends and bank holidays.

Richard

Follow the leader – Sharon’s induction lead story

As our Midland Met staff inductions are approaching this July, we’re continuing with our series of interviews with our induction leads. Following our previous piece with Induction lead, Claire Jones, the second in our series is with Professional Development Sister for Critical Care, Sharon Clarke.

Based at City Hospital, Sharon has enjoyed a career in critical care for over 20 years. She began as a critical care nurse, progressing to Professional Development Sister in 2017.

Recently, Sharon became an Induction lead for the Midland Met project. Sharon comments, “Essentially, my induction role is to be the education lead and training champion for the critical care team. As there are over 150 colleagues who will need training across the team, I’m working closely with our critical care move champions to ensure we have a smooth transition.”

Sharon expresses her enthusiasm for helping her team through the induction process. “We began preparing for the inductions several months ago and communicating it through several channels. We have our noticeboards on each unit containing posters with the information, our local Connect page with videos and photos, and generally we love to get out-and-about to talk to staff and increase engagement around the move, across the unit.”

Thinking ahead, Sharon shares what she is excited for in the next stages of the induction process. “In June, we’re launching our critical care monthly Teams meeting. Presented in a Q&A style, this is a fantastic opportunity for staff to ask questions and find out more information from myself, the move champions and anyone else who is able to contribute. This will hopefully help to relieve any anxieties among our colleagues. Although typically mundane, the e-learning will also be exciting as it’s a great opportunity to learn all about the fantastic facilities in the new hospital.

“Naturally, it’s the move itself that I’m most excited about, but the site tours will be brilliant too. It will give our colleagues a chance to see the hospital in the flesh and drives home that this is real and it’s happening soon! We’re encouraging all eligible staff, to have a site tour to familarise themselves with the new unit as well as the wider hospital.”

Keep an eye out for more information in the coming weeks, as we move closer to the staff inductions this July.

Radiology equipment installed at Midland Met

Ever wondered what it takes to transform a vision into reality? Take a peek behind the scenes with us and see one of our partners, Siemens, bring cutting-edge radiology equipment to life at Midland Met.

During our soft activation phase we’ve worked with countless suppliers to start safely equipping our new hospital. Moments like this are about more than installing machinery; they’re about bringing our vision to life and making our new hospital ready to welcome our first patients in October 2024.

Dr Sharobeem shares vision for Admitted Care at Midland Met

Following a recent site visit with the clinical team, Group Director of Medicine and Emergency – Dr Chetan Varma, commented on the exciting opportunities that Midland Met offers for acute care.

Another senior team member had positive things to say about Midland Met. Dr Kamel Sharobeem – Clinical Director of Admitted Care A, described what he thinks are the strengths of Midland Met.

Dr Sharobeem remarked: “It’s clear to see the patients here will receive the best diagnostics, care and management plans. Our team at the Trust is already fantastic but the new state-of-the-art hospital offers ample potential for fantastic synergy between colleagues and the facilities needed to provide seamless care.”

Corporate Parenting Awareness Week – 10 – 14 June

To celebrate Corporate Parenting Awareness Week the Black Country Integrated Care Board and the Trust will be partnering to raise awareness of the health needs of children and young people in care.

The team will be hosting an information stand outside the Paediatric unit, Sandwell on Wednesday 12 June from 10am – 2pm.

If you would like to know more about corporate parenting and local Fostering services, then please pop on down or email Jane O’Reilly for any information – jane.o’reilly@nhs.net 

iPM maintenance: 4 June, 7am – 8pm

Please be aware an essential iPM maintenance will be taking place on Tuesday 4 June by our support vendor to ensure the Trust’s system remains stable. The work is scheduled to begin at 7am for approximately 13 hours and should be completed by 8pm.

During this time iPM will be available, however colleagues may experience brief blips to service and may be forcibly logged off the system but will be able to log straight back in and iPM should be used as normal.

In the event issues or unexpected prolonged downtime then the following services will be affected:

• Brand new patients to the trust should be allocated a prenumbered RXK label and iPM updated as per ED BC plans for new patients not already on iPM. The allocated RXK number will become the patients actual RXK number and can be used immediately for ordering any diagnostic investigations via the BCP processes.
• Patients new to the Trust will not be visible in Medisoft – full BCP required.
• Orders placed in Unity will not go to Radiology/Pathology during this time but will be sent once the systems come back up – BCP required.
• New results will not be visible in Unity during this time but will be sent once the systems come back up.
• Inpatients admitted from ED will not show up in iPM until the systems are back up.
• Inpatients transferred between Wards will show on Capman and Unity but not on iPM until the systems are back up.
• Inpatients discharged during this time will not show as discharged in iPM until the systems are back up.
• Any new baby registrations will not be able to be completed until the systems are back up – BCP required

Colleagues will need to ensure they revert to BCPs for Blood Tests and Imaging requests during this time. Other Unity functionality such as documentation and Meds Admin will not be affected by this activity. Desktop alerts will be issued if prolonged iPM downtime occurs.

The activity will be closely monitored by our support vendor and IT support teams.

As always, should you have any further queries please do contact the IT Service Desk on ext. 4050 or 0121 507 4050 or via Chat with the IT Service Desk.