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Monthly archives: October 2024

An important message from Richard

 

An important message from Richard Beeken, Chief Executive

“Colleagues,

This week, you are bombarded with two Friday Messages – one from Lesley, our Deputy Chair and one from me.  I insisted on keeping my slot this week because I want to talk about one thing and one thing only this week.  That thing is the single biggest factor on urgent care patient safety in our Trust – the issue of service responsiveness to our emergency departments, enshrined in our new set of “Quality Standards”.

I had a positive visit this week to MMUH ED and met the leadership team as well as other staff, for example the nurse in charge for that shift.  Our main topic of conversation was their concern that when it comes to “housing” clinical risk in the Trust, this still, all to often, feels like that risk is expected to be held in ED and ED alone.  They are concerned that we have transferred our old habits to managing this risk, into a new building and little has changed.  The knock-on effect of “warehousing” in ED, acutely unwell patients requiring acute assessment by an admitting speciality, or a direct admission, is to overcrowd the ED and this leads to poor response times for offloading ambulances and at worst, significantly enhances the risk of causing harm to patients because no cubicles are available for assessment.  Many of these patients will have been referred by GPs, for the attention of medical or surgical specialities, and do not require ED clinician input.

To tackle this issue, we have launched a set of “quality standards”, which are standards for responsiveness by admitting specialities to ED, standards for “pulling” patients up who have been referred to an admitting speciality and standards on clarity of speciality responsibility for such referred patients.  These standards have been developed over a long period of time, are consistent with good practice in other organisations and critically, will not be reinterpreted, watered down, or forgotten about.  These standards set out how we expect every service to take responsibility for urgent care patients and they play a huge part in ensuring that we start at MMUH as we mean to go on – dropping the approaches of the past which palpably do not work for acutely unwell patients.

Please can you read and familiarise yourself with these standards and socialise them in your teams?  I expect a consistent response from everyone to them and I want to see a downward trend in some of the incidents we have had, in which admitting specialities refuse to take ownership of patients and acutely unwell service users end up in a tug of war between services.  This is unacceptable – we are here to serve our patients, and we can collectively take better action to improve the experience of patients in our urgent care pathways.

Thanks, in advance, for your cooperation.

Have a good week.

Richard”

The National Education and Training survey

 

The National Education and Training survey is open until Tuesday 26 November for student learners and educators to complete.

This is your chance to share your experiences, voice your opinions, and help shape the future of healthcare education and training.

Historically, the SWB return in responses has been low – so please take the time to complete this survey if you are a student learner or educator.

Please see the link here to complete.

Aston University seeking volunteers for ear wax removal

 

Do you, your partner or your relatives have troublesome ear wax build up? If so, volunteers are needed to help complete the training of audiology clinicians from 1.30pm to 3.30pm (30-minute intervals) on the listed dates below:

Monday 11 November Microsuction
Monday 18 November Microsuction
Thursday 21 November Water Irrigation
Friday 22 November Microsuction
Tuesday 3 December Microsuction
Friday 13 December Microsuction

The qualified audiologists/registered hearing aid dispensers will be under the close supervision of experienced ENT nurse practitioners.

The method of removal used will be using a small vacuum known as microsuction (unless specified). The audiologist will choose the most appropriate method based on the anatomy of your ear, the amount and consistency of the wax and any other medical considerations.

Note: If you have experienced any of the following you will not be able to volunteer:

  • Current blood, discharge or pain in the ear (or within last 90 days)
  • Current or recent troublesome vertigo (within last 3-6 months)
  • Current or recent perforations of the eardrum (within last 3-6 months)
  • Any recent, existing or suspected ear infection (within last 3-6 months)
  • History of any operations on the ear/s or cleft palate (repaired or not)

If you want to volunteer or find out more please email m.whitehouse@aston.ac.uk.

Farewell to City: Join us this Friday to say goodbye

 

The doors to parts of City Hospital are about to close for the final time. On 6/10 November, our maternity, neonatal, and emergency departments, as well as our inpatient wards will move to Midland Met.

For so many, City Hospital has felt like a second home. Generations of memories have been made here, and saying goodbye is filled with emotions.

To honour our past, we’re hosting a farewell gathering this Friday 1 November from 11.30am – 3.30pm in the dining room at the Postgraduate Centre. This will be a chance to explore some memorabilia and historic items we’ve collected over the years. It’s the perfect opportunity to reconnect with our past before we step into the future at Midland Met.

We’d love to hear from colleagues who’ve been part of the City Hospital family over the years. If you have any old photos, memorabilia, or uniforms, please bring them along to share your stories with us.

We look forward to seeing you on Friday and sharing memories together.

Hoist training – MMUH

 

The Moving and Handling team are providing more training on the ceiling track hoist for MMUH.

This training will take place on C7 at MMUH, on the following dates and times. Even if you have had the training already, pop along so support can be provided with any issues you may have encountered.

  • Thursday 31 October – 9am – 12pm
  • Tuesday 5 November – 1pm – 4pm
  • Thursday 7 November – 10am – 2pm

There is no need to book although attendance will be monitored to ensure compliance.

Fire safety training

 

Fire safety is an important part of onboarding into Midland Met. Currently, we have trained around 200 staff members face to face, and we are now working with neonatal and maternity colleagues to train them prior to moving into MMUH next week.

We are engaging with department managers to coordinate and arrange face to face fire training within the departments at Midland Met. Engagement so far has been positive and well received.

We are also in the process of setting up classroom sessions for staff to book onto here at MMUH. We hope our classroom sessions will go live on ESR next week for staff to book onto. This can be done through the usual booking method on ESR, once it has gone live. However, we would prefer for staff to complete their training within their departments if possible. This is so we are able to walk them through their bespoke evacuation procedures for their areas.

We encourage managers who have not yet been in contact with us to book in departmental training sessions by emailing us on swbh.fire-safety@nhs.net

How to apply for your parking permit

 

The car parking barriers at Midland Met are now open. If you have a parking pass, that works at City and Sandwell, it will also work at Midland Met. If you don’t, it’s important to sign up for a parking permit pass as soon as possible.

You can complete an application for a Q-Park parking permit to ensure continued access to the parking facilities, by clicking here.

Please see Q Park application process for permits for detailed instructions of how to apply for your parking permit.

For more information, visit our Connect page, here.

Free Yoga classes at Sandwell

 

Join us for free Yoga sessions every Monday from 4.45pm – 5.45pm at Sandwell, Berridge Suite.

Classes are for all levels and beginners are welcome. Mats will also be provided.

What to bring:

  • Comfortable clothing
  • Water bottle
  • Open mind and positive energy

Note: There will be a winter break for yoga classes meaning there will be no Yoga classes between from Monday 9 December – Sunday 12 January. Yoga will resume on Monday 13 January.

For more information and to register your interest in Yoga, please call 0121 507 4022 or email Phoebe.leadbeater@nhs.net.

IT patching affecting multiple web portals: 12 November, 10pm – 2am, 13 November

 

Please be aware essential IT Patching will be taking place on Tuesday 12 November to ensure the Trust’s Web server remains stable. The work is being carried out by IT and is scheduled to begin at 10pm for approximately four hours and should be completed by 2am on Wednesday 13 November.

During this time, the following web portals will be unavailable for up to 30 minutes affecting the following services:

  • 18wwAudits
  • ActiveServers
  • A&E Datacapture – this is the business continuity for FirstNet
  • BMEC Advice Line
  • ClinicalAuditAdmin
  • Default Web Site
  • DoctorsLeave
  • eBMStest
  • www_EDMonitor
  • equipAM
  • FTSU
  • HisCustServRota
  • icmmonitoring
  • ioshelp
  • ITWeb
  • Medical Examiners
  • PathResults
  • Pharmtrack
  • proxy
  • ReportsPortal
  • Rotawatch
  • SSNAP
  • Switchboard Emergency call log
  • TPRS
  • VIDS known as Discharge to Access – D2A

We would recommend that affected areas have their local business continuity plans in place during the above time.

Note: This timeslot has been chosen as a quieter time operationally to minimise impact.

The activity will be closely monitored by our 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

Midland Met resource list

 

We’ve put together a comprehensive list of resources to help you settle into Midland Met. Simply click on each link to access important information about our new hospital.

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