How the portering team are preparing for Unity

July 8, 2019

Unity will be a brand new way of working. We’re moving away from verbal requests and using traditional bleep systems, fax machines, two-way radios and mobile phones. Once we go-live, requests for the portering team will be made through Unity.

We have faced many challenges with individuals lacking IT experience and not having the necessary equipment to be able to log on to ESR to check training, or log on to the Trust network to complete their individual training requirements. Therefore we have set up a separate PC for the porters to be able to access their personal ESR in readiness for Unity.

Personally I’m fairly new to the organisation so I have had to learn how the porters are currently doing their duties and how the work is distributed. I’ve also have had to learn how we as a team will be moving forward with Unity. This has been challenging at times but we can see real progress being made.

There have been some important developments recently, with training sessions booked for the whole team, including digital champions and super users.

We have also arranged additional dress rehearsals so the portering team can run through some test scenarios. These sessions will help us to gain valuable experience, iron out any foreseeable issues and become more familiar with the system. As a result we now feel more comfortable with the progress being made by the team.

It was great to see the teams at each site gelling together during the full dress rehearsal back in February and there are some key aspects being addressed in the upcoming sessions, such as:

• Log ins – ensuring as many porters as possible can log on to Unity
• Test patients
• Multi scenarios – multi requests from areas such as medical gas cylinders
• Imaging
• Access to the Play System
• Review reports

The overall impression of moving to Unity is that it will enable a smoother patient experience, which will, in turn, improve the services provided by the Trust. We would like to thank our portering team and team leaders for showing an eagerness and interest in moving forward with Unity. It’s something we’re all excited to get on board with.

#Hellomynameis Zaheer and I’m the Trust’s Portering Manager

#Unityiscoming