Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 25 September
September 25, 2020
Our flu campaign kicks off in earnest on Monday now we have received of our first batch of vaccinations. Over 1500 vaccinations are available for frontline clinicians with the remaining stock to cover all staff expected in coming days. Peer vaccinators in our wards and services are collecting the vaccines and will be making sure that their colleagues are getting the jab. Our next order of vaccines will be here soon. Make sure you know who your peer vaccinator is and make arrangements to see them to get your jab. The flu jab will come to your area but you need to make sure you are aware of when you will be able to get it.
I don’t need to tell you how important the flu vaccination is this year. It is a professional responsibility for clinical staff to protect your patients and not put them at risk. This includes not putting them at risk of catching flu whilst receiving care and treatment at our Trust. And of course, it is important for your own health and wellbeing and to protect your families. With covid not going away, reducing flu transmission in the community and within our own services is a vital part of our winter and covid surge preparation. The flu vaccine does not give you flu and if you have concerns about the impact on your own health please talk to me or any of our clinicians about that so we can put your mind at rest.
Protecting ourselves and others from risk of infection is something we have been talking about relentlessly throughout the different stages of the coronavirus pandemic. I make no apologies for taking a very firm line on this matter. As an employee of the Trust it is essential that you follow our infection prevention and control (IPC) guidelines and also essential that you follow the national and local restrictions on social contact. I want to urge every one of you to check your own practise and make sure that you: wear a FRSM provided for you on entry to our clinical buildings, practise social distancing at work and out of work, wear the right PPE for the area you work in and your individual role / risk assessment, wash your hands regularly for at least 20s with soap and water, and use hand sanitiser. Over coming days we will become increasingly intolerant of colleagues who don’t follow this rules. Covid outbreaks at work are not inevitable, they can be prevented if we all comply with the guidance. As well as checking your own practise, please check what others are do and challenge them. Some years ago, our Trust ran an “ok to ask” campaign to encourage challenge on handwashing and being bare below the elbows in a clinical setting. It is the spirit of this campaign that I want you all to take on – it is ok to ask someone to wear a mask, it is ok to ask someone to keep their distance, it is ok to check that someone has washed their hands. And, if we ourselves are challenged, we should welcome it, because that is how we make our Trust a safe place to work.
I’m delighted that the building for the two new, much-needed, multi-storey car parks has begun and, yes, I have heard from many of you the parking difficulties that people are now experiencing due to the lack of spaces while the development continues. I am sorry for this added disruption and we are looking urgently at what additional capacity we can create for people to park elsewhere. You can already have a permit for the New Square car park that means free parking at New Square (a 10 minute walk) yet retains access to the other site car parks. Contact Diane Alford if you want to take this up. Next week a further 220 non-clinical staff will be notified of the intention to change their parking passes from the Sandwell site car park to New Square. Over 100 staff already use the New Square parking facility and it is now a necessity to increase this usage to ease congestion and allow patient care to continue without disruption. I know this is not a popular move, but it is one we need to take while the new car parks take shape. Those of you who live within a mile of our sites are already travelling to work using alternative means so thank you for your cooperation with that. I know it can be an inconvenience. At City there will soon be more capacity as the transport vehicles move and there remain spaces on our sites which are perhaps not so well-known (on your right hand side as you enter from Western Road). We will publicise these areas more over the coming days. Both new multi-storey car parks will be open next summer (2021).
Other estates developments continue to progress well including the new GP practice building on the Sandwell site, and of course, the new Midland Metropolitan University Hospital. We have excellent partnerships in place to progress that build with Balfour Beatty and their suppliers, as well as Engie. It is fantastic that the construction programme is able to report only minimal delays as a result of covid and the work that the Trust team are doing, along with our construction colleagues, is enabling work to continue safely. Getting ready for the move to Midland Met is a “now” priority and engagement activities are taking place across the Trust with clinical teams to understand the pathways that need to be developed. Pictured above are members of our critical care team on a site visit and many other teams will have the opportunity to do this in coming weeks.
The new hospital is an essential part of how we deliver health and care across Sandwell and West Birmingham and the success of it relies on strong partnerships with social care, primary care and the voluntary sector. The two Integrated Care Partnerships in our area have agreed priorities to improve health outcomes and delivering on these outcomes, rather than every possible outcome, will make a long-term difference to our population’s health. But our partnerships of course do not end at the Sandwell and West Birmingham boundaries. We see integrated care as being the key to overcoming organisational and geographical boundaries and ensuring that care is centred around the patient. We have strong clinical collaborations in place with neighbouring acute Trusts both in Birmingham and the Black Country and we are committed to building on those where this is a clear case to improve clinical care and outcomes. We know that acute providers are being urged to work more closely together, in part to support covid recovery and we will continue to participate in joint working, rather than organisational change, particularly considering the transformational work needed to deliver Midland Met.
The national NHS staff survey is due out to every colleague next week. Some people will receive paper copies but the majority of us will receive an email asking us to complete online. We did really well last year with one of our highest ever response rates so we are determined to do even better in 2020. This survey provides us with really useful information about how you feel about your job and working for the Trust. Importantly it helps us to benchmark against other, similar organisations. It will be the first mass NHS survey since the start of the pandemic so this year’s results will be particularly interesting. Your responses are totally anonymous. The survey is administered by an independent company so no-one from the Trust will be able to identify your response.
The “star of the week” scheme came out of comments from staff about improving recognition for great work by employees – which is just one example of how we have acted on staff feedback. This week’s award goes to Karen Mowatt-Shirley, HCA on Lyndon 5 for her fast response in coming to the aid of a patient in crisis. Her ward team are proud of her actions and resilience – well done, Karen!