Friday Message from Rachel Barlow – Friday 13 December

December 16, 2024

Dear colleagues,

We have reached the end of another busy week – time always seems to go quicker in the run up to Christmas doesn’t it?  It’s wonderful seeing our sites in all their festive glory – thank you for ensuring that your decorations are in line with our IPC and fire safety policies.  Today marks the start of our 12 days of Christmas celebrations – from hot chocolates in the Winter Garden, to Christmas dinners being served in our catering outlets – it really is the most wonderful time of the year – find out more about what’s happening here.

My week began with working a ‘back to the floor’ shift with the critical care team – thank you to colleagues for making me feel so welcome and giving me a fascinating insight into your working day.

Some of you will probably know that I started my NHS career as a nurse, which included working in critical care, so it was special for me to be able to take a trip down memory lane and experience both technical innovations and experience the design and new spaces in Midland Met. Being shown how the electronic patient record interfaces with all the technical equipment was fascinating, particularly when I compare back to the old days of paper charts and coloured pens!  The standardised care plans gave me a flashback to my first days at St Thomas’s ICU, where every morning we would hand write a personalised care plan for our patient.

I spoke to colleagues who told me how much they loved their jobs, particularly working as one big team in a beautiful new environment and I also spoke to relatives who had nothing but praise for our staff. I was particularly pleased to hear their feedback about the on-site relatives’ accommodation, something which we didn’t have previously at Sandwell and City. Facilities like this make a difficult family experience just that little bit easier to deal with and is part of what makes Midland Met #MoreThanAHospital.

Crucial to Midland Met being successful, is our ‘community first’ ethos. Our community teams deliver additional services to care for more people within their own homes, which allowed us to fit into the bed base within Midland Met.  This drive and flexibility will continue this winter, with both existing services enhanced, and additional services developed. For example, community colleagues have not only opened additional winter beds at Rowley Regis Hospital as part of our Winter Plan, they are also working with the Dudley Group to open stroke rehab beds on site at Rowley, which will improve the rehabilitation care patients receive and also enable faster acute hospital discharges.

Our new Urgent Treatment Centre model at Sandwell Health Campus and Urgent Primary Care Service at Midland Met are now seeing 22 per cent more patients than this time last year – ensuring patients receive the right care in the right place and helping reduce the number of people within our Emergency Department.

In addition, our health and care partners in Sandwell and West Birmingham continue to work with us to support the ‘community first’ ethos. In Sandwell, the winter Acute Respiratory Illness (ARI) service is now open, with hubs operating from several locations across the borough. Patients will be able to access the services via their GP and it is operating 7 days a week, again helping to reduce the need to attend ED or a UTC.

Our community teams are an essential part of our SWB Family, and we will be focusing our communications our community services and Sandwell and City Health Campuses in the New Year.

On Wednesday, I was proud to join a range of colleagues at a very special celebration. We were honoured to be awarded the Freedom of the Borough by Sandwell Council. This has been given to the Trust in recognition of the work we have done to serve and care for our local community, including our response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the opening of Midland Met.

It is the highest honour that a council can bestow on a local people and is for every member of staff.  In the New Year we will tour the Freedom of the Borough Award and Certificate across our sites, in recognition of your brilliant work, dedication and resilience. You all make such a positive impact on improving the lives of our local community – this award is for all our staff and is thoroughly deserved.

Thank you for everything you do – I am so proud of this organisation, and everything we have achieved, and I hope you are too.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Rachel.