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Monthly archives: January 2025

Star Awards 2025: Midland Met Move Champion of Champions

 

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

If you do, why not nominate them for the Midland Met Move Champion of Champions Award 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.

Star Awards 2025: Clinical Team of the Year  

 

Do you know a team that has provided consistent, high-quality care whilst meeting financial and operational targets, demonstrating best practice or driving forward improvements in patient care or has pulled together through particularly difficult circumstances?

If you do, nominate them for the Midland Met Move Champion of Champions Award 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.

 

Community of Practice Research Events – January – May

 

The Research and Development team are hosting virtual sessions that will cover a range of topics. The sessions will consistent of one hour ‘formal teaching’ and the second hour interactive ask the expert and sharing of practice/experiences.

The next events are:

  • PPIE and Writing for Publication and Dissemination – Tuesday 21 January
  • Introduction to Statistics – Tuesday 18 March
  • Developing Grant Applications – Tuesday 20 May

You can attend any or all of the sessions. If you have an interest in research, then please consider attending.

To book a session please email swbh.randd.generic@nhs.net to be sent the calendar invite.

Lift core B update

 

Please be aware that lift core B is currently out of service between levels 5 and 9.

Lift cores A and C are available so please use them to get to where you need to go.

Apologies for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience while we work to resolve this.

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 10 January

 

Dear colleagues,

Firstly, thank you for the warm welcome that I have received during my first week as chief executive here at Sandwell and West Birmingham. It’s been an insightful and inspiring week, and I am very pleased to have the opportunity to lead this organisation. As you know, I will continue in my position as CEO with The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, and whilst it is exciting to be creating this collaboration between the two organisations, I remain clear that both Trusts have unique identities, challenges, and opportunities – and I will talk to you more about what I believe these to be and how I think we will address and achieve them together in a future Friday message.

Throughout the week, I have had the opportunity to meet a range of colleagues, and I am looking forward to meeting many more of you in the forthcoming weeks. What has struck me so far is what a friendly organisation this is, and I have already seen the Trust values in action, which is wonderful to see.

I have had a busy first week, including my first executive group meeting and the public and private Trust Board meetings which took place on Wednesday. It’s clear from what I heard during Board, that 2024 was a successful year for the Trust, both in terms of our urgent and emergency care (quite clearly with the opening of Midland Met), but also within our planned and community services too. It is right that we have celebrate these successes (which we will do at the forthcoming Star Awards in March – more on that later), but we now need to ensure that we focus on 2025 – there is lots of work still to be done to really embed some of the changes that happened during the last year.

I discussed yesterday that I am keen to increase the presence of my executive colleagues and our non-executive directors across all our sites, so they can get more of a sense of how it feels on the shop floor. So, if you see us about, please do make conversation, ask questions, feedback and let us know how it feels to be part of SWB. Another important way that you can provide this information is by completing the Pulse Survey, which is open until the end of January.

I have always been incredibly passionate about just how important the staff surveys are. They play an important role in helping us to understand your experiences at work, your concerns and identifies areas that we need to focus on improving. Historically, the response rate at Sandwell and West Birmingham has been lower than the regional average – however I do know that this improved during 2024, as has the staff engagement score, which is calculated by what you say in both the Quarterly Pulse Survey and the annual National NHS Staff Survey.

Please do take the time to complete it, it will only take five minutes of your time – but the content is invaluable to me and the Trust leadership team, and I can assure you that we will act and make changes because of your feedback.

The link to complete the survey is below:

https://picker.fra1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_b8cMes96Xg3Nk1g?&Trust%20Code=RXK

As you may have seen in the media, urgent and emergency care services are across the NHS are currently under severe pressure. The first week of January is always incredibly busy, due to things such as the spread of infections like covid and flu following Christmas and New Year gatherings, children returning to school, the cold weather we have been experiencing and the peak of the flu season.

I am incredibly proud of how colleagues working throughout the trust including our urgent and emergency care services have been coping with this level of pressure, particularly at the same time as implementing the new 45-minute ambulance handover, which started on Monday. So far, we have seen good days and some more challenging days. We have work to do to properly implement the correct push and pull methods from our emergency department into the right specialty pathway, but if we continue with the teamwork I have heard about this week, I know will be moving in the right direction. Please remember that this is a Trust wide initiative – we all play a part – not only those working within ED.

We are also managing flu and other respiratory infections well – and this is due to you identifying symptoms early and taking steps to isolate patients in side rooms and isolation areas as quickly as possible. I heard yesterday that had we had this amount of flu cases at City Hospital, we would have had to close wards – another early benefit we are seeing of Midland Met. Please continue to exercise excellent infection control standards – and if you haven’t yet had your winter vaccines – I would encourage you to get these as soon as possible.

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, the Star Awards will take place on Friday 14 March – I had the pleasure of attending the awards in 2023 as a guest and I thought it was an incredible event – and I know this year promises to be even better. There are people and teams across this whole organisation who have really gone above and beyond and who consistently live our Trust values through everything they do – so if this sounds like someone you work with, or someone you line manager, do put them forward to a Star Award.

The nomination process is simple, and the communications team can assist you if required – you can contact them on swbh.comms@nhs.net

The link to submit your nominations is below – they will close on 31 January.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SA-25

I wish you all a wonderful weekend and look forward to meeting many more of you soon.

Kind regards,

Diane

Drug Safety Notice – Zanamivir (Dectova®)

 

Problem

  • There is a shortage of Zanamivir (Dectova®) 200mg/20ml solution for infusion.
  • This is expected to continue until at least February.

Action

  • Adhere to the Trust Policy for the prevention and control of influenza which includes
    national treatment algorithms from UKHSA Guidance on use of antiviral agents for the
    treatment and prophylaxis of seasonal influenza.
  • Other treatments for influenza remain available. IV Zanamivir is seldom first line.
  • Discuss any proposed use of IV Zanamivir with Microbiology before initiating.
  • Where IV Zanamivir is required contact pharmacy who can advise on availability.

For alternatives, supporting information and key resources – click here

Safeguard: Downtime 14 January, 10am-1pm

 

Safeguard System (incident reporting) will be inaccessible for all users on Tuesday 14 January from 10am -1pm

For any questions regarding the downtime, please contact swbh.safeguard-support@nhs.net

 

IT patching affecting printing services at Sandwell: 26 January, 2am – 6am

 

Please be aware essential IT Patching will be taking place on Sunday 26 January to ensure the Trust’s printing server remains stable. The work is being carried out by IT and is scheduled to begin at 2am for approximately four hours and should be completed by 6am.

During this time, the following service will be unavailable for up to 30 minutes during the above time:

  • Equitrac printing services at Sandwell – 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.

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.

 

Essential maintenance affecting the Pathology service – Tuesday 21 January from 6am to 8am

 

Please be aware that an essential IT maintenance is taking place on Tuesday 21 January from 6am to 8am by our external Pathology vendor which will affect the Pathology service at MMUH, Sandwell and City.

During the maintenance, Unity will remain fully available; however, from 6am to 8am all Pathology orders placed in Unity will queue for up to 2 hours until service is restored. Colleagues will need to revert to requesting all Pathology requests on paper forms as well as on Unity during the maintenance.

As soon as the maintenance is complete, orders will be booked in electronically and reported through to message centre ready for endorsement. Colleagues can continue to make ICE requests during the downtime but there will be a delay receiving results. 

The laboratory will prioritise the most urgent requests from ED, ITU/CCS, AMU, Coronary Care and Paediatrics/Neonates during this period. Urgent results will continue to be phoned to the requestor during the downtime.

The activity will be closely monitored, and desk top alerts will be issued from 4am advising colleagues of the need to revert to BCP for requesting all Pathology requests during the maintenance.

Should you have any further queries then please do call the Pathology Team on 0121 507 6600 or email on swbh.pathology-it@nhs.net

Do you know someone who would like to join Youth Space?

 

Do you know anyone aged between 13-21 who is interested in health and would like to know more about our hospitals and community services?

Why not invite them to Youth Space?

Youth Space is a forum to give young people a voice to work with us and tell us about the good stuff that happens in our hospitals and how we can make things better. It provides young people with the opportunity to help shape future services and meets other like-minded individuals.

Last year saw Youth Space attendees take part in fun activities alongside their work, including Go-Karting, Ice-Skating, bowling and many more.

The sessions will run every last Tuesday of the month at Sandwell Education Centre, Hallam Street, West Bromwich.

  • Tuesday 21 January
  • Tuesday 25 Feburary
  • Tuesday 25 March
  • Tuesday 29 April
  • Tuesday 27 May
  • Tuesday 24 June
  • Tuesday 29 July
  • Tuesday 26 August
  • Tuesday 30 September
  • Tuesday 28 October
  • Tuesday 25 November
  • Tuesday 16 December

Doors open at 5.30pm, meeting will commence at 6.15pm through to 8pm. Food and drinks are provided from 5.45pm.

For more information and to book your place please contact the Engagement team via email swbh.engagement@nhs.net or call 0121 507 2671

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