Monthly archives: August 2024

The next exec walkabouts

Following our confirmed move date on 6 October, our executives and senior leader are continuing to engage in walkarounds across the Trust. Please make use of time with them to ask any questions and learn as much as possible as we Get Set for Midland Met.

The next dates are below:

• 3 September – City – Johanne Newens – theatres inc. BTC ASU, 3.30pm – 5pm
• 4 September – Rowley and Harvest View – Richard Beeken – all wards and services, 9am
• 6 September – City – Dave Baker – D12, Chemo unit, Sickle Cell, 2pm – 3.30pm
• 9 September – City – Imaging inc. nuclear med & breast screening, 2:30pm – 4pm
• 9 September – City – James Fleet – D2, D5, D7, 3pm – 5pm
• 18 September – Maternity services, 4pm – 6pm

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 30 August

Dear Colleagues,

This week, I want to focus on the important issue of productivity in elective care.

As recently as 2019/20, Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust had a deserved reputation for achieving some of the highest theatre and outpatient throughput per session, anywhere in the country.  The benefits of this, beyond recognition of this excellence within the wider NHS, were some of the lowest elective and cancer waiting times in the West Midlands and a healthy income, which supported a strong financial position.

We have now slipped considerably from that high point of a few years ago.  We have seen the utilisation rates of theatres and outpatients in some specialities, slip alarmingly.  This is not good for our patients, for our reputation, or for our financial position.  We must tackle this earnestly and professionally, as nobody wants to be occupying a brand new, state of the art hospital with poor theatre utilisation.

You may have previously heard that the Trust’s elective theatre and productivity workstream commenced in February 2024.  This programme was designed to look at the surgical pathway of elective care.  Starting in earnest in July 2024, the programme commenced to increase activity and throughput through our theatres. As we are all aware, the patient pathway is a multidisciplinary approach.  This starts from the point a surgeon and patient agree on a surgical approach to correct an underlying condition.  This can be removal of a tumour, either benign of cancerous, a joint replacement or a cataract removal and lens insertion to improve vision, or to correct a deformity or to prevent a condition from deterioration.

Agreeing to proceed with surgery can be either undertaken virtually or face to face in an outpatient clinic.  The collective decision to undergo surgery is often referred to as a decision to treat (DTT).  An eDTA form is raised and a patient is added to a waiting list. The theatre and productivity workstream has built upon current Trust processes and aims to transform the patient pathway from the point at which an eDTA is completed and a waiting list entry has been made.

The programme is reviewing and making suggested improvements to the patient tracking list (PTL) to ensure it has the right content and adding patients ‘flags’ for pre-assessment and hip and knee “clubs”.  These will be expanded as the programme develops.

The scope of work will review and make changes to the pre-assessment process, ensuring that patients are fit to proceed.  There are some patients however that may not be fit to proceed with surgery, where this is the case, we will ensure those patients are treated or managed conservatively. There are some cohorts of patients which will require optimisation prior to surgery to ensure they achieve the required outcome or benefit from undergoing surgery.  Optimisation of patients will aid their recovery and reduce their length of stay in hospital.

The majority of Trust theatre sessions form part of our core capacity and are funded sessions.  This means the sessions are allocated to specialities for them to undertake surgical activity to meet the demand of the service. The theatre programme has recently updated the Trust’s existing 642 policy, enabling theatre sessions to be maximised: permitting correct scheduling of patients and clinical teams to avoid wasted or reduced opportunities.

The programme plans to introduce the use of scheduling tools.  The scheduling tools which have been developed will allow booking and scheduling teams to engage with clinical colleagues to fully utilise the available time in each session for each speciality.  This will increase the number of patients per theatre session, thus increasing the patient activity and therefore leading to financial benefit which will be captured as part of the financial recovery programme.

Identifying unused theatre sessions in advance will allow other specialities to bid for and use those sessions to help reduce waiting times for our patients, whilst increasing elective activity.  A review and reduction of the theatre start times, early list finishes and a reduction in overruns all contribute to the efficiency of operating sessions whilst also improve the working conditions and wellbeing of theatre staff and users.

To conclude the programme will increase productivity in theatres by increasing booking and scheduling. This in turn will effectively utilise theatre sessions and reduce overruns. Thereby improving finishing on time.  Additionally, the programme will improve pre-assessment processes allowing patients to be pre-assessed in a timely manner, allowing correct scheduling and a reduction in on the day cancellations.

Such initiatives will lead to an increased throughput, reduced waiting times, improved patient experience, cost avoidance and income generation.  The success of this work is very much in your hands, as a wider organisational team.

Please engage with it and demonstrate our Trust Value of “Ambition” in everything that we do in surgical specialities.

Have a good week.

Midland Met ward map now available

As you know, one of the many benefits of our new hospital is that it will become the central hub for our acute care, bringing together expert colleagues from both City and Sandwell Hospitals, under one roof.

This useful map shows you the makeup of the new wards at Midland Met and which wards will be coming together.

It also shows you what level each of the wards will be on – which is useful to help you orientate yourself around the building.

The ward map can be found, here.

Access to Midland Met

Although we now own Midland Met, access to the site is still restricted for safety reasons because there is ongoing construction (snagging) and technical commissioning activity taking place.

With only 38 days to go until we open the doors to our first patients on 6 October, there is lots of work to be done, with lots of contractors still on site and many deliveries arriving each day.

The site is not open to everyone, and there is still a strict access protocol in place.

Even if you have done your induction, you can’t just walk onto site.

Over the next few days, we will be putting into place a strategy to manage the work that needs to happen, but also a way of ensuring you have the access you need, for essential activities prior to Sandwell patient move day on 6 October – we will communicate this as soon as it is ready.

Thank you for your understanding on this.

The latest TeamTalk briefing

TeamTalk is our monthly Trust-wide team briefing, it’s an opportunity for colleagues to hear about what’s happening in our organisation as well as putting their own questions forward.

Watch the latest session below or view the slides.

Everyone is encouraged to join in with TeamTalk sessions, they’re not simply for managers. Sessions take place once a month and are hosted online – so colleagues who are ward based, working from home or simply want to stay up to date can join in.

If you wish to pre-submit questions for this session of TeamTalk (whether that be anonymous or not), please email you question to emily.smith46@nhs.net.

The next TeamTalk is on Wednesday 25 September, 1pm – 2pm. Click here to join the meeting.

Induction instructions – Complete your online induction today

Get Set for Midland Met, today!

With our move just around the corner, it’s crucial that all colleagues complete their online induction. Over 1,000 of you have already done so – thank you!

Who needs to do it? All clinical and non-clinical staff moving to or working at Midland Met.

What’s in it? Essential info about our new hospital to help you get ready.

How to access it? The induction is on Centric Cortex. If you’re new, you can easily sign up.

Important: Before watching videos, click “enroll” to mark sections complete.

This helpful video will guide you on how to access the system and complete your induction. Should you have any questions, please contact swbh.mmuhinduction@nhs.net

Prioritise your online induction

With patient moves just around the corner, it is crucial that all colleagues complete their general online Midland Met induction.

Thank you to over 1,000 colleagues who have already taken this important step to complete their online induction.

Who needs to complete it?

All colleagues, both clinical and non-clinical, will work at Midland Met.

What does it include?

The general online induction shares essential information about our new hospital, designed to help you get up to speed quickly.

How to access it?

The general online induction is delivered via Centric Cortex. If you are new to Centric Cortex, you can easily self-register for an account.

Before watching the videos, please make sure to click the “enrol” button. This will allow you to mark each section as complete upon completion.

This helpful video will guide you on how to access the system and complete your induction. Should you have any questions, please contact swbh.mmuhinduction@nhs.net.

Unity printing maintenance: 19 September, 10pm – 11pm

Please be aware essential Unity maintenance will be taking place on Thursday 19 September to ensure the supporting infrastructure remains secure and security compliant. The work is scheduled to begin at 10pm for approximately one hour and should be completed by 11pm.

During this time Unity will remain fully available; however from 10pm until 11pm on Thursday 19 September Unity printing will be unavailable for up to one hour at the following site locations:

• Sandwell – all areas
• City – all areas
• BMEC – all areas
• BTC – all areas

o This will affect specimen label, requisition, and pharmacy printing.

o Any print jobs submitted during this time will be held and printed once the print servers come back online.

If clinical staff are due to collect a sample between time above, we would advise them to wait until specimen labelling functionality returns. If staff have a very urgent specimen to collect that cannot wait to collect and send to pathology, then a manual pathology request form will need to be completed and sent with the sample. It is envisaged that this requirement will be rare and unlikely at those times.

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

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

One Health and Care system downtime: 29 August, 1pm – 4pm

Please be advised the One Health and Care system will be undergoing essential maintenance on Thursday 29 August between the hours of 1pm to 4pm.

During this time the One Health and Care link in Unity will not return any data, this will have no impact on any other Trust system and the rest of Unity will continue work as expected. The Health Information Exchange (HIE) will also continue to work as expected during this time allowing access to West Birmingham and Sandwell GP records.

Colleagues should not use the system during the maintenance window as data may only be partially complete.

IT maintenance: 9 September, 2am – 6am and 10 September, 10pm – 6am

Please be aware an essential IT maintenance will be taking place on Monday 9 September from 2am to 6am and from 10pm overnight to Tuesday 10 September 6am to carry out security patching and reboots to ensure the Trust’s systems remains compliant.

On Monday 9 September from 2am to 6am and again from 10pm overnight to Tuesday 10 September 6am Unity will remain fully available;

• Equitrac Printing services – Ricoh MFD (multi-functional device) printers and scan to email functionality. All other printing such as labels, pathology specimen and desktop printing will remain available as normal.
• Wristband printing  

Colleagues will need to ensure they revert to local business continuity plans during this time.

This timeslot has been chosen as a quieter time operationally and the activity will be closely monitored by our IT Support teams.

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