Monthly archives: July 2024

Changes to death legislation taking affect – 9 September

From Monday 9 September there will be changes to the Death legislation in England and Wales.

Every death will need to be scrutinised by a Medical Examiner before a doctor can complete the medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD).

Please see the attached guidelines.

If you have any questions regarding the changes please contact Claire Jones via email or ext 3099

Omnicell super user training starts next Monday

Latest technology benefits – order by 1 September

Make the most of your work perks and check out your home and technology benefit. The catalogue is always expanding, with new additions arriving every month. Spread the cost on exciting and useful products that can help enhance your lifestyle, living space, outdoor area and beyond.

Benefits include:

• No credit checks, upfront costs or deposits
• Spread the cost – a convenient reduction to your salary over a set period of time
• Extended warranties or insurance included with some items
• You own the products from day one
• Access the latest technology and home products from top brands
• National Insurance savings of up to 10  per cent (based on a basic rate taxpayer)
• No additional payments required at the end of the agreement
• Delivery directly to your home

Visit your Home and Technology Benefit today through: www.swbhbenefits.co.uk to browse the catalogue and find out more.

Note: The order window will be open until Sunday 1 September.

View the full range of products at www.swbhbenefits.co.uk

Remember to opt in to receive notifications, so we can let you know when your next order window is open and when new products are added.

For further details please call 0330 2000 230 or email justask@lets-connect.com.

Change to weekly pay date – August Bank Holiday period

There will be a change to the weekly pay date covering the August Bank Holiday period.

This impacts the work week ending Sunday 25 August where the normal pay date will be changed from Sunday 25 August to Monday 2 September.

For further details please click here.

Unity maintenance scheduled for 25 July has been postponed

Due to a delay to the Trust with the handover of the MMUH network, the Unity maintenance which was scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday 25 July) has been deferred. The works will be rescheduled in due course.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

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.

Email address change for maternity safeguarding

The maternity safeguarding email address (swbh.maternitysafeguarding@nhs.net) will be changing to swbh.safeguardingchildren@nhs.net from Monday 29 July.

Any emails received after this date will get an automated response with details of the new email address. The old email address will be deactivated a few weeks after Monday 29 July.

For more information call 0121 507 2844.

Operational Readiness: Where are we at?

Our current progress for our operational readiness checklist is now at 46.6% – against a target of 49.4% – it’s going in the right direction, so thank you for all the hard work you are doing on this.

We must continue to prioritise the completion of the operational readiness checklists.

Key things to be completed by the end of July include:

• Continue to finalise job plans and consultant rotas for Midland Met and upload them onto E-Allocate 

• Continue to work with IT to validate devices – this is to ensure that the equipment you are issued with, based on what you have in your current location is correct. If you need any assistance, please contact Imran Ravat (i.ravat@nhs.net) or Zurvad Hussain (zurvad.hussain@nhs.net)
• Unity ward build confirmations to be sent to business change managers with any changes or updates  

On site this week: 

Dates for your diary:

• 24 July – Clinical and Operational Readiness Away Day 
• 25 July – Group reviews – Stocktake on Operational Readiness 
• August – Get Set for Midland Met walkabouts begin 
• 6 August – Omnicell roll out starts on Sandwell wards 

Critical Patient Flow Scenario Testing

We have now commenced testing the critical patient flows that have been developed over the last two months with the MMUH safety group. Collaborating with specialty teams has been important to gain clarity and confirmation of the changes and procedural steps and to mitigate potential issues, risks, or hazards within these critical patient flows, including other key dependencies and interdependencies such as: policies, clinical guidelines, NICE, SOPs, IT, and necessary job planning/training.

Three sessions have already taken place, with excellent engagement and discussions. The sessions are vital components of the MMUH safety case, demonstrating that our transition to MMUH is proceeding safely and effectively. Upcoming sessions in July include:

Critical Patient Flow: 25 July

8am – 9am – Upper GI Bleed
9am – 10am – Lower GI Bleed
10am – 11am – Emergency Laparotomy
11am – 12noon – Acute Abdomen

Critical Patient Flow: 26 July

12noon – 1pm – Maternity
Delivery Non-Maternity Area/BBA

Major Obstetric Haemorrhage (APH)

Major Obstetric Haemorrhage ( PPH)

Maternal Collapse (Out of area patient)

Maternal Collapse in patient areas

4pm – 5pm
Obstetric Emergencies

Another milestone reached! – Phase 3 base change consultation has ended 

Our management of change is an essential part of us all preparing to move – thank you to everyone involved for engaging so well with the process.

This month marks a significant moment in our MOC process – the end of our phase 3 base change consultation. This phase was designed for staff moving into MMUH and the changes will be implemented from October, based on the move plan.  

In total, 5,434 colleagues have now completed their consultations – no mean feat!  

At present, 1198 colleagues are involved in a live consultation with the majority set to be completed by the end of August.  

Our Future Estate consultation ended on 20 July – so by the end of the month – you will all know where your service will be located.  

Financial Improvement Programme: Recognising the Importance of coding

The Financial Improvement Programme is committed to improvement across all facets of Trust operations.

2024/25 plans: With a target of £44.1m this year, cost reduction is the key focus of the improvement programme. However, this week we are excited to share a significant opportunity to optimise clinical income via coding improvements.

What is clinical coding? When a patient attends a hospital appointment, we may undertake procedures such as an ECG, take blood, or perform other diagnostic tests for which the Trust is paid.

As part of the Income/Tariff/C workstream, several opportunities have been identified to optimise our income from clinical coding. The Performance and Insight team and the Finance team have estimated the Trust may benefit from an additional £6m of income. The teams have undertaken various reviews and benchmarking as part of the workstream scope.

The two main reviews are:

1. Secondary Uses Service (SUS) review
2. Clinical equipment review of outpatient procedures (OPPROCS).

SUS is the single, comprehensive repository for healthcare data through NHS Digital, enabling a vast range of reporting and analyses. The Performance and Insight team have created a national average of OPPROC income by directorate. This benchmark has enabled analysis of SWB performance against the national average. Analysis of SWB activity at the specialty level has identified unwarranted variations—this has formed the basis of the opportunity for coding improvement.

The clinical equipment review, on the other hand, has helped identify potentially missed coding for outpatient procedures (OPPROCS). Procedures carried out within an outpatient attendance generate income based on a tariff associated with the clinical code for the procedure. (Note: While systems are in place to ensure income for the most common equipment, some directorates such as dermatology and ophthalmology use specific equipment that is not already within the EPR environment).

We need your support: A clinical coding auditor is on site this month to audit the identified coding potential and embed relevant protocols at each service point. We ask all colleagues to engage with the auditor, as this will help maximize the benefit from the coding improvement exercise.

For more information, please email Berenice.Lufton@nhs.net or call 07969 609842.

eConsent to be implemented in 2024

As you may be aware, the Trust will be introducing eConsent later this year.

The traditional paper-based consent process is no longer fit for purpose as it leads to risk, system inefficiencies, and doesn’t support shared decision making. Click here to find out more about eConsent including the benefits.

What is my role in creating eConsent?

There are two roles for staff in the consent workflow:

1. Medics and clinical staff with delegated authority, who create or edit consent forms.
2. Clinical staff who are part of the consent workflow and have responsibility for checking procedure and patient details.  This includes clerical and nursing staff on wards, units, and theatres.

How will I be trained?

Staff with create or edit responsibility will be able to self-guide using the training videos and QRGs, and can obtain additional support from the Trusts digital training team. This group of staff will have Concentric accounts and login using Single Sign On through Unity.

Staff who only require read only access to consent forms will be able to do via Unity; the pdf of the completed eConsent forms will be in Unity Powerchart Documentation.

Both groups will be supported with ‘Floor walker’ support in clinical areas during go live period.

Further information is available here:

• Sharing information with patients | Concentric Health
• Resources | Concentric Health

eConsent at SWB

As you may be aware, the Trust will be introducing eConsent later this year. The traditional paper-based consent process is no longer fit for purpose as it leads to risk, system inefficiencies, and doesn’t support shared decision making.

SWB are legally required to demonstrate informed consent based on shared decision-making with patients.

Benefits of eConsent:  

• Supports consent conversations
• Complies with legal obligations, specifically Montgomery principles
• Fewer procedures cancelled on the day
• Strong record keeping, protects staff if disputes arise
• Maximises potential to defend legal claims (for alleged failures to obtain informed consent)
• Extractable audit trail of exchanges of information, risks and benefits shared with patient (including links to evidence-based information online)
• Process will assist clinicians with ensuring nothing is missed

For a demo of the Concentric eConsent system please click here and to access resources on Concentric’s website please click here.

For further details and everything eConsent, please email agcsu.transformation@nhs.net.