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Monthly archives: January 2025

Schwartz Round: 16 January

 

A Schwartz Round will be taking place on Thursday 16 January as a chance for clinical and non-clinical staff to come together once a month, for one hour meetings in which staff talk about the emotional and social challenges of caring for patients.

  • Thursday 16 January
  • Sandwell Education Centre, Room 10
  • 12am– Light snacks and networking
  • 10.30-11.30am– Schwartz round

Schwartz rounds will alternate between Sandwell, City and Rowley Regis sites.

The facilitators will be Rebecca Kershaw and Ruth Spencer – please register with  swbh.library@nhs.net

Blood Gas Analysers: important update

 

There have been reports of multiple blood gas analyser records being submitted into the system.

Please ensure you follow the process below:

  1. When submitting a blood gas sample, please press the orange button with the white arrow ( bottom right of the screen) to log off the analyser.
  2. Do not press ‘Send’ as the results are automatically sent to UNITY.

If you have any questions or queries, please contact Anne McTiernan via 0121 507 5352

Job of the week: Band 3 Theatres Scan4Safety Operative

 

A brand new opportunity has come available for a Band 3 in the Theatres Scan4Safety Operative.

The Theatres Scan4Safety Operative will work across Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust theatres on a planned basis supporting the work of the Theatres Scan4Safety Coordinator.

They will be responsible for communicating with other departments & companies to ensure that sterile supplies, stores and any other equipment required for theatre are ordered and received into the theatre department and thus assist in the smooth running of operating lists, in liaison with the Theatres Scan4Safety Coordinator.

The Theatres Scan4Safety Operative will be responsible for data input. They will also undertake general office work.

They will also be supporting and assisting with the provision of the Scan for Safety (S4S) program with responsibilities related to the deployment, administration and support of the Trusts’ elected Electronic Inventory Management (IM) and Point of Care (POC) system.

This job role is cross site working with the potential of 7 day working. Both full-time and part-time positions are available.

The job application will close on Tuesday 14 January. Please click here to read the job specification.

If you would like to know more information about the job, please contact Aimee Richards via email aimee.richards1@nhs.net

Preparing for retirement seminar

 

Are you thinking about retiring?  This seminar guides you through the financial complexities of retirement in a clear presentation. The purpose of this seminar is to help you maximise your income in retirement and protect your wealth for your loved ones. We aim the course at people who are within 10 years of retirement or 45+ year of age:

This seminar covers:

  • State pensions
  • NHS pensions
  • Saving and investing
  • Taxation
  • Credit history
  • Mortgage/remortgages
  • Wills and inheritance tax

This seminar is available for all staff and there will be opportunities for Q&A’s after the seminar.

Dates:

  • Tuesday 18 February 2025 – MS Teams
  • Thursday 5 June 2025 – MS Teams
  • Wednesday 22 October 2025 – MS Teams

Time: 9am – 12pm

Please contact Phoebe Leadbeater on ext.4022 or email phoebe.leadbeater@nhs.net to register and the link to the seminar will be sent two weeks prior.

Work experience offer now available

 

Our Work Experience team are now planning for our Work Experience offer in June and July. If you have the capacity and are able to support a work-experience student in your department, the team would be extremely grateful.

Please e-mail swb-tr.SWBH-GM-WorkExperienceEnquiries@nhs.net if you have availability and would like to help inspire our young people and their career choices.

The weeks on offer are:

  • w/c Monday 2 June
  • w/c Monday 9 June
  • w/c Monday 16 June
  • w/c Monday 23 June
  • w/c Monday 30 June
  • w/c Monday 7 July
  • w/c Monday 14 July
  • w/c Monday 21 July

An update from Lesley Writtle – Deputy Chair

 

As we begin 2025, I’d like to wish you and your families a very Happy New Year and thank you for your efforts and hard work in what has been a significant 2024 for the Trust.

There have been many a milestone met, including the three-phase move to the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital which has seen more than 300 patients successfully transferred from City and Sandwell Hospitals in a meticulously planned operation carried out in October and November.

This was a combined effort from not only the acute sector, but from those working within the wider organisation. It couldn’t have been done without the contributions from our community, operational, support and admin colleagues. Each and every person was essential to the success of the move.

It is indeed you – our colleagues – which have made the Midland Met #morethanahospital.

The hard work will continue into 2025 and beyond. Last year saw real success within the delivery of our community services. Our award-winning Paediatric Virtual Ward has seen more than 4,000 bed days saved by treating our youngest patients at home who would otherwise have been cared for in our hospitals.

Meanwhile, as NHS England this week released figures showing early-stage cancer detection was at its highest level on record, it’s important to recognise the various screening programmes delivered by the Trust, such as the Targeted Lung Health Checks and Bowel Cancer Screening service. These have played an integral part in detecting the disease at an early stage over the past year.

Throughout the year, and indeed my time here, I’ve seen colleagues demonstrating on our values – Ambition, Compassion and Respect – through their actions on a daily basis and I look forward to seeing how we will continue to deliver the best healthcare to our population over the coming year. Whether that is in our acute setting at the Midland Met, via our satellite sites in the community or within the patient’s home. It has been an honour to sit as Deputy Chair at SWB in 2024.

And I’m sure our incoming interim Chief Executive Diane Wake will also find it a real privilege to lead such a dedicated and compassionate workforce from Monday 6 January.

ACT NOW Webinar – sickle cell crisis, 30 January

 

The ACT NOW approach is to effectively identify patients in a crisis, and provide rapid pain relief and treatment to prevent complications such as organ failure, which can be fatal. Developed for busy staff, students and trainees of all grades working across England including those working in emergency departments (ED), ED bypass units, acute ward settings and ambulance services, this approach was referenced in the Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s best practice guidance. This webinar is an opportunity for staff to find out more about the approach and have their questions answered.

To join the webinar and book your place click here

Friday 3 January – Message from Jo Newens, Chief Operating Officer

 

Dear colleagues,

 

Happy New Year. I hope you managed to take the opportunity over the last two weeks to enjoy some downtime with your family and friends.

2024 will be a year that long stays in my memory and one that I look back on full of pride and I hope that you all will too.

Not only did we successfully open a brand-new, state of the art healthcare facility, we developed a new clinical model, with community at its heart and we have re-configured our services and teams to make the most of our estate. Over the next few weeks, you will hear more about the development of our City and Sandwell Health Campuses and more on our community services – this will help you to have a better understanding of the vital work being done in the community to keep people out of acute beds and in the comfort of their own home where possible – keep your eye on our comms channels for this.

 

Whether you work in our acute services at Midland Met, within the community or health campuses or in a corporate or support service – we wouldn’t have achieved what we did during 2024 (and indeed the years leading up to this) without everyone playing their part. Let’s continue to work together and set our sights high in 2025.

 

We have lots to shout about and celebrate, and what better way to do that than the Star Awards. Our annual awards ceremony will take place a little bit earlier this year (14 March) and the nominations are now open and are already proving popular, with over 200 submitted already. Please have a think about those colleagues or teams you work with, who have really gone the extra mile this last year – there are seven of our usual categories and seven which are dedicated to the enabling of Midland Met – including categories for change and transformation, which everyone has played a part in.

You can submit your nomination here – they will close on 31 January.

Winter is always a challenging period for the NHS, and this year is no different and we are now starting to see the impact of a rise in respiratory infections in the community, with an increase in patients being admitted with flu in particular.

 

NHS England are predicting that we will hit the peak of flu by the end of next week. Midland Met gives us an added advantage in our fight against infection – having 50% side rooms means that we can isolate suspected and confirmed cases and limit the spread of viruses to other patients, visitors, and staff much more effectively than we could at City or Sandwell. The key to this being successful is early detection of symptoms and then taking steps to isolate the patient and take a swab. It is really important that the patient is isolated as soon as you suspect they have an infection, you should not wait for the result before taking action. For our patients in the community we have excellent urgent community response teams and virtual ward teams adding an extra layer of access to care to maintain people safely in their homes. On this point the Board will make “Community First”  a priority for this coming year.

 

You are still able to get your flu vaccination if you haven’t done so already – not only will it protect you against flu, but it will also help to protect your loved ones and the patients you care for. The details of how to get your vaccination are here.

Please also remember the importance of regularly washing your hands with soap and water to help stop the spread of infection – hand sanitiser alone isn’t effective against some viruses, including Norovirus.

On Monday 6 November, we will be introducing the new 45-minute ambulance handover, which has previously been piloted by London Ambulance Service and has now been mandated across all integrated care systems by NHS England on a phased basis.

This change is a critical step in improving patient care and ensuring that ambulances can return to the community promptly, ready to respond to emergencies.

This initiative is designed to:

  • Enhance patient safety: By reducing delays, patients will receive timely care in the most appropriate setting equipped for their needs.
  • Improve emergency response times: Ambulance crews will spend less time waiting outside hospitals, enabling them to respond more quickly to other patients in the community.

To support the implementation of this standard, we are putting the following measures in place:

  • Streamlined Handover Processes: Introducing clear protocols to ensure smooth transitions, including enhanced communication between ambulance services and hospital staff.
  • Capacity Management: Increasing focus on discharge planning and patient flow to create space for incoming patients.

Crews will handover patients at 45 minutes and then leave site. This obviously will put our ED teams under significant pressure when all of the cubicles are full and be detrimental to patient experience and quality of care if we cannot accommodate patients in a cubicle.

We understand that this will be challenging, but I want to stress that making this successful is not solely the responsibility of those working within ED. It is vitally important that we are all playing our part  to improve the experience and outcome for our patients. Specialties need to actively pull their patients from ED into Same Day Emergency Care Units and assesment areas. Planning for and delivering effective and efficient discharges with a reduced length of stay is crucial.

If you have any questions about this, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

Finally, our new Interim Chief Executive, Diane Wake will join the Trust on Monday 6 January. I know she is looking forward to getting started and meeting many of you. Please be sure to offer her a warm welcome. Diane is active on X and if you would like to follow her, her username is @DudleyGroupCEO – which I am sure will be updated to incorporate SWB very soon.

 

Have a good weekend.

Kind regards
Jo Newens
Chief Operating Officer

A walk through the wards – A6 Gynaecology

 

To help you find your way around Midland Met, we’ve created simple ward videos to guide you to departments and wards.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw5fqhPUXC8[/embedyt]

 

Take a look at the route to A6 Gynaecology, here.

Star Awards 2025: Midland Met Induction Champion of Champions

 

Do you know an individual, who has gone above and beyond to support their team, department and colleagues to land a successful induction to Midland Met?

Why not nominate them for the Midland Met Induction Champion of Champions at the upcoming Star Awards!

Please complete the nomination form by clicking here with as much detail as possible about your nominee. The closing date for all nominations is Friday 31 January, 5pm.

If you have any questions regarding the Star Awards, please contact the communications team on 0121 507 5303 or email swbh.comms@nhs.net.

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