Monthly archives: January 2025
Registered Nurse Degree Apprenticeship – Top Up Programme
The Nursing and Midwifery Education Team would like to invite all Nursing Associates to apply for the Registered Nurse Degree Apprenticeship (RNDA) – Top Up Programme.
An exciting opportunity to become a Registered Nurse within SWB, starting May at Birmingham City University.
Application Criteria
- Evidence of achieving Registered Nursing Associate Foundation Degree.
- Manager approval letter to be completed by your line manager. This will be sent to your line manager who will confirm support and send it directly back to the Nursing and Midwifery Clinical Education Team.
- You must be contracted to work a minimum of 30 hours per week and be available to work a variety of shifts over a 24 hour period.
- You must be prepared to travel to university and placement areas across Sandwell and West Birmingham Trust sites/community.
How to Apply
Email swbh.nurse-education@nhs.net to request an application pack.
Closing date for applications, Friday 7 March
Have you had your say in January’s Pulse Survey?
Have you had your say in January’s Pulse Survey!
Get enroled to MFA and prevent delays in accessing your accounts
We would like to thank all colleagues who have enroled Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Enrolment will allow us to help prevent cyberattacks on electronic health records and other systems which pose a risk to patient privacy.
What next for those that have not enabled it?
As previously communicated, those users who have not yet enabled MFA either by self-enrolling or through their Local Administrator (LA) will have had a change in their access to NHSmail. This means staff will need to complete further steps to access their account.
How has the access changed?
Staff who have not taken any action have been moved into a specific group that has a stronger sign in policy, changing their login experience requiring:
- An enhanced password policy including having to reset your password on Monday 2 September and requiring a minimum of 20 characters
- Having to reauthenticate every time your browser is closed and reopened
- Having to reauthenticate every eight hours
- Password expiring every 90 days
There is also a step-by-step user guide available here for members of staff to follow.
For more information please chat with the IT Service Desk.
GoodShape maintenance: 8 February
GoodShape will be undergoing maintenance work on Saturday 8 February, 10am – 2pm.
During this time GoodShapeCentral and the GoodShape App will not be accessible. The App will open, but if you try to log in there will be an error message, instructing the employee to call into the call centre.
Staff will still be able to log absences via the call centre. Call handlers will record absence details offline, and then add them to the system after 2pm.
Missed the previous GoodShape manager training? You can access a recording of one of the sessions below:
You can also access a list to all the questions and answers from all the sessions by clicking here (Excel).
Have any additional queries? You can also reach out to our dedicated MS Teams GoodShape chat by messaging Goodshape.AssistanceHub@nhs.net.
Do you have some spectacular shots of the Trust?
The Engagement team are inviting colleagues from across the Trust to submit your best work-related photos of the iconic building shots, landscapes and scenes from across SWB for a chance to feature in the #SWBFamily 2026 calendar sponsored by Your City and Metropolitan Hospitals Charity.
A panel of judges will choose one photo each month to feature in the calendar.
Submit your monthly photos to swbh.engagement@nhs.net by the last day of each month.
Your entries must include your name, email, contact number, date, time, location, subject, and a short caption.
Note: One entry per month, with no unaltered pictures and no images of people.
Black Country ICS Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Events
As Co-Chairs of the Black Country ICS Staff Equality Network we are delighted to present a series of collaborative learning and development opportunities as part of Race Equality Week 3-7 February 2025 and LGBTQ+ History Month. These events are open to all staff from our partner organisations in the Black Country. All events are free to attend.
The ICS Staff Network collaborates with staff equality networks across the ICS,
sharing good practice and collaborating on equality, diversity and inclusion action
as a direct outcome of our ICS EDI Strategy Pledge 6: Improving
Communication and Engagement with staff.
To join in the sessions please see the links to join the sessions. All sessions will take place virtually via MS Teams or Zoom.
Events:
- Kickstart to Race Equality Week with Race Equality Matters – Monday 3 February, 10am – 10.45am. Click here to join.
- Positive Reflections on Race Equality: Lived experiences of Ethnic Minority staff – Tuesday 4 February, 10am – 11.30am. Click here to join.
- In Conversation’ with Shajeda Ahmed: Chief People Officer from the Black Country
ICB, explores what makes a good Race Ally? – Wednesday 5 February, 10am – 12pm. Click here to join. - Anti-racism training – Thursday 6 February, 10am – 1pm OR 1pm – 4pm. Click here to join the first session or click here to join the second session. Please note – You are not required to attend both sessions. Please choose either the morning or afternoon
session. - ‘A Talk’ with Shokat Lal: Chief Executive Officer of Sandwell Council – Friday 7 February 10am – 11am. Click here to join.
For more information please email d.mighty@nhs.net.
NICE Technology Appraisal for Tirzepatide for managing overweight and obesity
The National Institute for Health and Care and Excellence (NICE) has published a Technology Appraisal for Tirzepatide for managing overweight and obesity (TA1026).
As well as being prescribable by Specialist Weight Management Services, it will also be prescribable in Primary Care. Timescales for implementation have been set.
We understand clinicians are receiving a lot of enquiries from patients requesting this medication, which is no doubt adding to pressures at an already busy time of year. Tirzepatide (Mounjaro) for weight loss is categorised as a grey drug on the Black Country Formulary (Positive NICE TA and /or awaiting local clarification on place in therapy), which will be reviewed as an output of the publication of TA1026.
It will remain this way while we work across the system to develop models for our system, and whilst we await further direction from NHS England on their recommended models of care and any associated funding packages. Unfortunately, this information does not align with the NICE TA release.
We kindly request that clinicians do not prescribe Mounjaro for weight management until we have the pathways in place to enable patients to access the wrap around support required, which will increase their chances of making sustainable change, and the various checkpoints to ensure that patients remain on Mounjaro for an appropriate amount of time. We also request that requests are not made to GPs for Mounjaro prescribing at this time.
Wagestream maintenance: 5 February
The Wagestream platform will be temporarily unavailable on Wednesday 5 February, 6am – 8am for scheduled maintenance.
What is Wagestream? Wagestream is a secure financial wellbeing app that gives you access to a toolkit of simple-to-use, financial products and services that can help you to feel more in control of your finances.
Personal expenses and pay cycles don’t always align, so having control over your pay at a time you need it can help to foster financial wellbeing. Wagestream offers the ability to access up to 50 per cent of the wages you have earned so far in-month, for a small transaction fee of £1.95, helping to avoid the need for loans and high interest rates. The app also allows you to track your earnings, save for a rainy day and access a range of financial wellbeing resources.
Maintenance affecting Trust Reports service: 3 February from 8pm
Please be aware that an essential maintenance will be taking place on Monday 3 February from 8pm to 10pm to the supporting infrastructure for the SWB Trust reports system. This will help continue to ensure the reporting system remains security compliant and should take around two hours.
During the maintenance, SWB Trust Reports service will be unavailable for approximately 15 minutes from around 8.10pm. The maintenance has been scheduled at this time to try to minimise impact and the overall works should be completed by 10pm.
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.
IT maintenance: 10 February, 2am – 6am and 11 February, 10pm – 6am
Please be aware an essential IT maintenance will be taking place on Monday 10 February from 2am to 6am and from 10pm overnight to Tuesday 11 February, 6am to carry out security patching and reboots to ensure the Trust’s systems remain compliant.
On Monday 10 February from 2am to 6am and again from 10pm overnight to 11 February 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.
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