Issuu

January 2022

Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust

The pulse of community health, Leasowes, Rowley Regis, City Hospital, Sandwell General and the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital

Issue 149

Our commitment to help shape a greener NHS Pages 8-9

As a Trust, we have been doing our bit to support the delivery of sustainable healthcare. Pictured: Andy Brierley is cycling for better health, the Trust has a new fleet of electric vehicles, the alcohol team won the Green Award at the 2021 Star Awards and solar panels have been installed on the roof of some of our buildings.

Mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for NHS staff

Treating high risk COVID-19 patients

Our six-step journey to Midland Met

Looking after your wellbeing

Page 3

Page 4

Pages 16-17

Page 18

FROM THE CHAIR HELLO Welcome to the first edition of Heartbeat of the year. In this edition we kick start 2022 by highlighting how we can make positive changes to our planet and to ourselves this year. We share our Trust priorities for doing our bit to help shape a greener NHS and also some top tips on how you can improve your physical and mental wellbeing. We also highlight deadlines for the mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for colleagues in scope of the new legislation, and we share the six-step plan to Midland Met. Enjoy 

 Ext 5303  swbh.comms@nhs.net  C ommunications Department Ground Floor, Trinity House Sandwell Hospital

Published by Communications Team Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust

Submit an idea If you’d like to submit an idea for an article, contact the communications team

Sir David talks about…Continuing to shape our Trust’s strategy During the first Board meeting of the year, the Board members spent some time with group leaders and the Trust executive team considering the Trust’s developing strategy for the next five years. Strategies can sometimes be documents that are written in isolation and then sit on a virtual shelf gathering dust or whatever the digital equivalent of that is these days. This Trust strategy is certainly not that. I know that over the past few months there have been lots of opportunities for all staff to learn about the strategy and contribute ideas and suggestions. That work is continuing as we build the values and behaviour framework that will make us stand out. What I really like about this strategy is that the strategic objectives are easy for all of us to remember. They set a clear direction for us in considering how we make decisions and prioritise the many tasks, activities and targets that we are required to deliver. The “three Ps” are a simple summary of the strategy: •

Patients – to be good or outstanding at everything we do

•

People – to cultivate and sustain happy, productive and engaged staff

•

Population – to work seamlessly with our partners to improve lives

Meeting these objectives will mean we are able to improve life chances and health outcomes.

focused on supporting all colleagues to be empowered to make those changes and be better at learning from each other. We also need to make sure we are actively listening to you. The Trust Board looks at the information from the Pulse surveys and will shortly review the results from the national staff survey. This helps us to understand how colleagues are feeling about your job, your team and this organisation. We will also make sure that the opportunities for you to speak up, meet with Trust leaders and share your ideas continue to grow. I am pleased that we have appointed a new group of associate non-executive directors to join our Trust Board who bring with them a wealth of experience. They, like me, are looking forward to meeting as many staff as possible as they come on board. I hope that you can see how your role fits within our new strategy. The work you do is truly remarkable. What better vocation could there be than being able, through your daily work, to make a difference to people life chances and health? We have much to be proud of at this Trust and through delivery of this strategy I am confident that our patients and population will be ever more proud of the work you do and the standard of healthcare that they can expect to receive. Sir David Nicholson, Trust Chair

The strategy puts you, our staff, right at the centre. This is important because we know that we are nothing without a strong, committed workforce who are determined to do their best for patients, families and colleagues. We need to give you the tools to provide the best care you can and enable you to make improvements in your areas of work, without the need for too much red tape. I know that Richard, our Chief Executive, is

 Ext 5303  swbh.comms@nhs.net Stay updated We send out a Communications Bulletin via email every day and you can now read Heartbeat articles throughout the month on Connect. Don't forget you can follow us on: Sir David Nicholson KCB CBE, Chair

Mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for healthcare staff You will know by now there is a legal requirement for all NHS colleagues who may be in contact with patients to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by 1 April 2022. This means all colleagues in scope of the mandatory legislation don’t have long to get vaccinated. You must have had your first vaccination by 3 February 2022 and your second vaccination by 31 March. As well as front-line workers who deliver care directly to patients, the legal changes also apply to certain non-clinical workers who, whilst not directly involved in patient care, may have incidental, face-to-face contact with patients in areas where care is provided.

means anyone who may come into contact with patients. If you are unsure if this applies to your role, email: swbh.hr-advice-forcovid-19@nhs.net

This applies to all individuals who are carrying out work within our organisation, including volunteers, bank/agency staff and contractors.

Where redeployment is not possible, unfortunately your employment will be terminated due to a failure to meet this statutory requirement in the course of your employment.

In January, senior clinicians held question and answer sessions for unvaccinated colleagues to ask questions or express concerns about the vaccinations in a safe space. Here are some questions addressed by the panel: Does the mandatory vaccination requirement apply to my role? The regulations apply to all CQC regulated activities in any NHS organisation. This

If I don’t get vaccinated, will I get redeployed? Whilst we will make every effort to help you look to identify alternative roles, but in view of the proposed remit of the legislation we anticipate the opportunities will be limited. Please be aware that pay protection will not apply. In addition, clinically exempt colleagues will take priority over any potential roles available. What will happen on 1 April 2022 if I am not fully vaccinated and don’t have a medical excemption?

The Trust is here to support all colleagues with this new legislation. There are a range of ways you can access more information and support: • Talk to your line manager who will be able to direct you to more information and advice. • Contact occupational health at swbh. occyhealthcovidvaccine@nhs.net if you are concerned about your own health condition and vaccination.

COVID-19 •

Contact your trade union representative who will be able to offer advice on the legislation and what it means for you and your role. Trade Unions have also shared updated guidance for colleagues on the new Vaccine as a Condition of Deployment legislation. Colleagues can access this on Connect.

• Join the national webinars that cover common questions about vaccination. • Read the information, guidance and FAQs on Connect.

IMPORTANT DATES! 3 February 2022 First dose deadline 31 March 2022 Second dose deadline 1 April 2022 Vaccination regulations for staff come into effect

Treating high risk COVID-19 patients within our community COVID-19 As we saw cases of COVID-19 soar once again throughout the latter part of 2021 and into the beginning of the New Year, our Trust opened the COVID Medicine Delivery Unit (CMDU) on 20 December. The unit offers treatment for individuals who test positive for COVID-19 and are identified as high risk of deterioration. These include those who are immunosuppressed, or those who have other health conditions including sickle cell disease, transplant patients, those with liver issues and all other health conditions that can affect immune response. The CMDU is based at City hospital on D47 for adults and Lyndon 1 at Sandwell for children. The treatments include a neutralising monoclonal antibody therapy (nMAbs) which is effective against Omicron, called Sotrivumab (Xevudy). This treatment is given intravenously and is specifically for high-risk priority patients who are within five days of a positive COVID-19 PCR test in the community, are aged 12 and above and weigh more than 40kg. This treatment prevents progression and worsening of their COVID-19 symptoms and reduces the rate of hospitalisation and even death. The service has been made possible by nurses from the medical infusion suite with support and contribution from many colleagues across the Trust including the rheumatology team,

The COVID medicine delivery unit are treating high risk COVID positive patients paediatric, pharmacy, patient access team and PCCT operational team. The CMDU has already treated over 80 adults and 3 children. So, how does it work? Within the community the patient access team review the national database to identify relevant individuals, they are then passed over to the clinical team who ring these individuals to see if they fit into the high-risk category. For those who do and are within five days of a positive PCR test, they are invited to receive this treatment. Patients can also be referred to the service by their clinical teams or by their GP. Naila Ahmed, Nurse told Heartbeat: "Working in CMDU has been life changing for patients. It provides them with the opportunity to receive treatment that has the potential to prevent them from being admitted. I am extremely grateful to have had an active role in this and look forward to seeing how future

development of medication will help those with COVID-19." A grateful patient receiving the treatment said: "Thank you for all the hard work you are all doing, putting your lives at risk to help us. I am extremely grateful and appreciate what you are doing for me." If you are aware of any eligible patients who are not hospitalised, please ask them to call 111 or contact their GP. They will be referred to the newly formed CDMU. It is also important for the emergency department to refer patients to the CMDU who do not require hospital admission but are priority risk of deterioration from COVID-19 by sending their details by email to swb-tr.SWBH-Team-Referrals-City@nhs. net.

COVID-19 Public Inquiry Document Preservation: STOP Notice In Spring this year, a statutory nationwide Public Inquiry into the pandemic will begin. In order to ensure that the process truly learns from what has gone right and what has gone wrong, we need to preserve our records and our knowledge. A national “stop notice” asking all NHS employees to retain all information relating to COVID-19, including documents, texts, WhatsApp messages and emails has been

published on Connect. This will help us to marshal our learning and support the Trust to contribute to the Inquiry. This notice may seem daunting or worrying. Please be assured that it is simply an encouragement to store information.

need to do, and how we can all help. Until then, colleagues are urged to hang onto everything - you must not destroy any information. Let’s work together to make sure that we can reflect on what has happened with strong records and good information.

Kam Dhami, Director of Governance/ If you do have any immediate Information Risk Owner is leading the internal queries, please be in touch via inquiry team on behalf of the Board and will be Swbh.data.controller@nhs.net in touch again later in the year about what you

Neutralising Monoclonal Antibodies – Treating the most vulnerable For most people vaccination remains the best way to protect yourself against COVID-19. The immune response it develops means your body is able to fight the virus and give you a good chance of recovery as well as reducing the impact it has on your body – but what do you do if you have a compromised immune system? As the international effort to roll out COVID-19 vaccines and to achieve herd immunity continues, scientists have continued to develop treatments for patients who need additional support – those whose immune systems need a helping hand, and for that cohort of patients we now have neutralising monoclonal antibodies otherwise known as nMABs. So how do they work? The body’s immune system generates antibodies as a defence mechanism against unfamiliar molecules. Molecules from bacteria and viruses can act as antigen and prompt the production of antibodies. In patients who have a suppressed or compromised immune system, the immune response is much weaker – however we now have a means to produce these antibodies in a lab. Monoclonal antibodies are identical copies of antibodies that target a specific antigen

COVID-19

Dr Chizo Agwu, Deputy Medical Director – in this case SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). Once prepared can be infused in to blood and begin their treatment. Sharing her thoughts on the innovative new treatment, Deputy Medical Director, Chizo Agwu said: “It’s great to see the newly opened Covid Medicine Delivery Unit (CMDU) spring to life over in the Sheldon building, it’s finally a turning point in the treatment of COVID-19 in those patients who are immunosuppressed and need the added support that nMABs can provide. “nMABs themselves are not new, they’ve been used successfully for many years in the treatment of other viral infections such as HIV and Ebola, but we finally have an effective way to treat and support immunosuppressed patients who at COVID-19 positive.

“The high-risk groups this treatment is focussed at include patients with downs syndrome, sickle cell disease, solid cancer, haematological malignancy, severe renal and liver disease, decompensated liver disease, those on significant immunosuppression, primary immune deficiencies.” Eligibility criteria for nMABs treatment • PCR positive COVID test result received within last 72 hours. • AND onset of symptoms within last 7 days. • AND a member of a highest risk group • aged >12 years and >40kg Eligible patients will be contacted directly by the newly formed COVID Medicine Delivery Unit (CMDU) triage nurse and receive their treatment in the new unit in the Sheldon Building at City Hospital. If you come across suitable patients who you feel may benefit from nMabs treatment, please ask them to contact 111 or phone their GP.

Have you got a story?

MEDICINE AND EMERGENCY CARE

We’d love to hear from you if you have… • An event or special occasion in your department • If you work with an inspirational colleague • Does your department do something that makes a real difference to our patients? Please get in touch if you’d like to be featured in an upcoming edition of Heartbeat! Email swbh.comms@nhs.net to submit your story idea. 5

Recovery and restoration: When IT updates don’t go to plan CORPORATE AND GENERAL NEWS IT – it’s one of those services that we all rely on. We switch on our computers and get on with our jobs, paying little or no attention to what is keeping our data safe and secure – but what happens when things don’t go to plan? Recently, our IT systems suffered a serious outage which affected over 20 of our IT systems. Many of the systems were recovered within a week and those that required additional testing were recovered the following week. However, some systems are not yet fully recovered including Medisoft, which is the clinical system used in ophthalmology, and the network file shares. Work continues to recover this information and teams affected have had to work incredibly hard, and in different ways, to continue to provide safe patient care. The Trust’s business continuity

plans were enacted quickly as soon as the IT systems became affected. These plans are in place to make sure that we are able to carry on providing the required services, in the event of a serious incident, such as loss of IT systems. Sharing his insight into the incident, Chief Informatics Officer, Martin Sadler said: “This was an incredibly unfortunate incident, one that should never have happened and was triggered by one of our suppliers pushing out an urgent security update which they then retracted. This action led to a large number of servers becoming unresponsive when we followed their advice and removed the update. “As a Trust, we have put a lot of time and effort in to building a new infrastructure of scalable and flexible virtual servers. This means instead of separate computers for each server, we have high performance virtual servers that are able to share their resources and allow us to manage our data safely. This outage effectively took one of our virtual servers out of action and affected a range of services. “Thankfully departments were quickly able to institute their business continuity processes as our IT teams got to work resolving the issue.

Working round the clock and with the support of an international data recovery team we were able to quickly bring many of the affected systems back online. “Unfortunately, some systems such as the electronic patient record in BMEC were significantly affected and work continues to recover these. “I would like to take this opportunity to thank colleagues across the Trust who were affected by this outage and who have had to work through business continuity processes on top of the COVID-19 surge to continue to care for patients. “We are currently conducting an internal review of the impact and response to this outage in a bid to improve our processes. We will also be working with external partners to complete an independent review into the cause of the outage and to review our processes to ensure it never happens again.” If you have ongoing issues following the recent service outage, please ensure you report these to the IT service desk on 0121 507 4050.

Don’t forget about flu We have seen the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and have been front and centre of the vaccination campaign with the launch of the first and second dose vaccinations and more recently the booster. There’s no denying the COVID-19 vaccination programme, the biggest in NHS history, has been at the forefront of our minds, the focus for public health professionals and the spotlight in the media. But it’s important to not forget there is another deadly virus out there. It’s very real, extremely transmissible, and just like COVID-19, has serious consequences for many who contract it – we are talking about flu.

Last year saw a significant drop in flu cases which is likely to be a result of the many steps people took to reduce the spread of COVID-19. We were all a part of it – wearing masks, social distancing, limiting travel and staying at home. But what happens in the following months when restrictions could be eased again, face coverings are no longer mandated, and we take another step forward to resuming ‘normal’ life? The risks of flu once again will rise, the spread will be quicker and easier and the danger of flu may become severe. Dr Masood Aga, Clinical Director for Occupational Medicine reminds us of the dangers of flu and the importance of getting your annual flu jab: “Flu is a major cause of seasonal increase in mortality and is responsible for 10 – 25 thousand deaths a year in England and Wales. Besides, it also causes terrible symptoms and complications in those who are severely affected. Although much focus has been on COVID-19 over the past two years, a severe flu season remains a big worry, not least due to decreased immunity levels in the community. Vaccination against flu remains

a very safe and effective way to protect ourselves, our families and our patients”. Our Trust are still offering flu jabs for all colleagues. You can get your jab at one of the walk-in vaccination centres at City, Sandwell or Tipton – check the daily bulletin Connect for the latest opening hours. So don’t take the risk – get your annual flu jab today.

Dr Masood Aga, Clinical Director for Occupational Medicine

Where to get your jabs 6

Get your vaccinations at Sheldon block vaccination hub or keep an eye out for the daily communications bulletin for pop-up clinics around the Trust.

Motorcycle man is all heart after raising cash for NHS heroes A keen motorcyclist has raised more than £500 for the cardiac rehabilitation service to say thanks for the care he received following heart surgery. Peter Upton, 66, wanted to acknowledge the support from the team after he underwent an operation to fit five stents at City Hospital. Following the surgery in August he was referred to the cardiac rehab service, who run twice weekly virtual exercise classes to help heart patients with their recovery. Peter runs The Ibex Trials Motorcycle Club with his wife Georgina, so decided to hold an event with nearly 60 competitors on New Years’ Day to raise the cash. The event, organised with other members Nigel and Luke Hewitt, involved bikes riding up difficult terrain without the riders feet touching the ground. He donated a portion of the entry money towards the service’s Your Trust Charity fundraising pot. Dad-of-two Peter, from Tamworth, said: “The exercise physiologists and the rest of the team have been excellent since the day I was referred to them. They have followed up with my care and checked on me continuously making sure I have been able to carry out the exercises. “I wanted to give something back and

thought that this event would be the perfect way. I’ve now started getting back into motorcycle trials.” Peter said the exercise sessions have helped him to become active again and have made a difference to his health. “I hadn’t been doing anything during lockdown and we had to also suspend club events due to the pandemic,” he added. “These sessions have got me moving again and definitely helped me in my recovery.” Jake O’Brien, Exercise Physiologist, received the cheque for £535 from Peter on behalf of the service. He said: “The cardiac rehabilitation team is overwhelmed with Peter’s generosity – this donation will help to pay for new equipment such as dumbbells, heart rate monitors and additional software which will further improve patient care and their experience within our service. “We currently offer virtual and face-to-face exercise classes as well as home exercise guides and the heart manual. Peter has been completing his cardiac rehabilitation virtually and it’s great to know that our patients are not only benefitting from, but also enjoying the exercise classes. It’s important to provide our patients with the best care possible, whether we are seeing patients in the nurse-

CORPORATE AND GENERAL NEWS led clinics or when we are instructing exercise classes. “Cardiac rehab is proven to reduce hospital re-admissions and this amazing donation will help our service to look at innovative ways in engaging more patients with different delivery methods. The physical, psycho-social and mental wellbeing of all of our patients is paramount as they have been through quite a life changing experience when it comes to their health. We’d like to thank Peter and those who took part in the event for this fantastic donation.” Amanda Winwood, Fundraising Manager for Your Trust Charity, the registered charity for SWB NHS Trust, said: “It’s been quite a challenging two years for all of colleagues and so it is always welcome when our communities recognise the dedication of our teams. Many of our services have a fundraising pot which goes towards enhancing the experiences of our patients, their families and staff. We’d like to thank Peter and the club for their support.”

The cardiac rehabilitation service run virtual exercise classes to help heart patients with their recovery

SWB on the road to net zero carbon NHS England is committed to becoming the world’s first ‘Net Zero Carbon’ health service to mitigate the impact of climate change and its profound threat to the health of the nation. It is estimated that the nation’s health and care system is responsible for 4-5 per cent of the country’s carbon footprint and the public health impacts associated with poor air quality are borne by the NHS through the increased support it must provide citizens living in affected areas. Our Trust has always been rooted in the community; offering more than just clinical services. We have developed the Green Strategic Plan to take a coordinated, strategic and action-oriented approach

to sustainability, delivering sustainable healthcare to ensure services remain fit for purpose today, and for the future. The Green Strategic Plan addresses impact through asset management, medicines, travel and logistics, climate adaption, capital projects, green spaces, sustainable care models, our people, sustainable use of resources including local procurement and management of carbon omissions. The plan reaches beyond the walls of our hospital and community buildings and aims to affect our people and local population. Working with strategic partners our influence allows us to further contribute to local regeneration through improved health, wealth and environmental improvements.

We aim: 1. To deliver high quality care without exhausting resources or causing environmental damage to preserve resources for future generations. 2.

To embed sustainability into the heart of our organisation and lead on driving working practice towards using resources, like energy and water, more efficiently to reduce wastage. We believe that investing in infrastructure to improve energy and water efficiency will bring about positive environmental impacts and cost savings.

3. To engage and inspire our people, patients and our population to take actions that will collectively make a big impact. Reducing energy and water wastage, generating less waste, and travelling actively and sustainably will benefit the environment and improve physical and mental wellbeing. 4. To be an anchor institute, leading and influencing key partners in sustainable development. This includes partnering to create master plans for regeneration of the local area and optimisation of sustainability plans through the scale achieved in partnership working.

Medicines ü

Engaged with respiratory consultants, the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), GP surgeries, and pharmaceutical companies to discuss the environmental impact of inhalers. We are working closely with these stakeholders to shift prescribing from Meter Dose Inhalers (MDIs) (high carbon impact) to Dry Powder Inhalers (DPIs) (low carbon impact). We are also exploring waste reduction and environmentally responsible disposal methods for inhalers at the end of life.

ü Engaging with the anaesthetics department with the aim of reducing high carbon (desflurane) anaesthetic gas usage and exploring switching to low carbon alternatives where possible. ü Reduce prescribing of medicines and transition to social prescribing so that people are in control of their health. ü Working to reduce medicines waste and improve stock efficiency.

Our achievements Here’s just a snippet of what we have achieved so far.

Travel and transport ü

The Trust has six electric vehicle (EV) charging points at present across three sites. We will be introducing two new multi-storey car parks at City and Sandwell Hospitals. Within these new car parks, 100 additional EV charging points will be installed.

ü Five of the Trust’s general transport services leased vehicles are low/ ultra-low vehicles.

Some of the Trust's new electric fleet vehicles

Electric vehicle charging points at City Hospital

People ü ‘Green Impact’ launched in 2018 – an environmental behaviour change programme aimed at getting staff to work together in teams to achieve set actions. ü The Trust’s Sustainability and Environment Policy outlines individual staff responsibilities to ensure that everyone has a part to play - taking small actions that collectively make a big difference.

Estates and facilities ü Solar panels on the roof of our Birmingham Midland Eye Centre at City Hospital and at Rowley Regis Hospital. ü LED lighting programme has been rolled out across the Trust to replace less efficient lighting.

Solar panels on the roof of the Birmingham Midland Eye Centre at City Hospital To read the Green Strategic Plan in full please go to xxxx We are passionate about engaging staff and wider stakeholders – this is vital if we are to lead on providing excellent health care that doesn’t cost the Earth. We believe that everyone’s actions, no matter how small will collectively make a big difference. If you would like to get involved in our Green Impact staff engagement programme or find out more about how we are working to be more ‘green’, please contact Fran Silcocks, Head of Sustainability on francesca.silcocks@nhs.net. To read the full Green Strategic plan, go to: https://bit.ly/3rYrqt0

Shout out has been a regular feature in Heartbeat and it is fantastic to see colleagues regularly taking the time to give positive feedback to each other. We regularly receive positive feedback from our patients too, and this month we wanted to share some of those heart-warming messages which have been sent via our website and social media platforms.

CORPORATE AND GENERAL NEWS To – Natalie Reeves

To – Michelle Holt

To – Chris Rickards

Natalie has coordinated wellbeing events for the whole of the palliative care team. These events have really contributed to improved staff morale and wellbeing. Natalie has engaged with the team to ensure that all resources to support wellbeing are available across the whole of the palliative care team.

For supporting her own staff on D5/7 regardless of the situation getting stuck in with hands on care, as well as managing a busy cardiology ward.

Words cannot express how grateful I am for your kindness and generosity towards others. Your positivity and kindness have made an unbearable time for someone a little bit better. Great to see that you haven’t lost your enthusiasm for helping those in need.

From – Jennifer Anderson-Fortune

From – Anser Khan

From – Sue Law To – Claire Obiakor

To – The Stroke Therapy Team They have received excellent feedback from our students concerning their positive team working, impressive knowledge and skills, their awesome teaching provision and all round excellent student support.

Claire has been a fantastic support over the last few months! Gone above and beyond to help where possible. Very grateful for her hard work, and apologies for being such a nuisance and causing lots of extra work. From – Stacey Walker

From – Clair Finnemore

To – Bethany O'Connor Beth shared a case study in a QIHD meeting which was quite a challenging case. However, she handled this case very professionally and went the extra mile to ensure the child was safe and supported. Well done Beth, an example of a great nurse. From – Samantha Evans

To – Garcia Foster-Welter To – Amanda Howell Massive thank you for helping us sort out some properties left in McCarthy and Leasowes. We didn't even ask you, you just offered to help! We are lucky to have you here in Rowley.

Lovely food representation whilst dishing up lunch on D7, food was very appealing to the eye. Garcia was very efficient, well done Garcia. From – Jennifer Anderson-Fortune

From – Lady Ann Ordona To – Rachel Tennant

To – Brenda Lee Thank you Brenda for showing such kindness to a lady in ANC at City and going the extra mile. Brenda noticed that a lady waiting in ANC looked pale and tired and went out of her way to fetch her a sandwich and a drink, despite the clinic being short staffed. The little things we do can make a big difference to women's care. From – Angela Arnold

Thank you for all your support and help with BCG prescriptions whilst awaiting PGD sign off. You are one in a million! From – Vanessa Neimke

To – Isobel Dayus Providing advice and support for a new service launching within the Trust, enabling us to work more effectively and gain new skills/knowledge along the way! From – NCOT Service

From – Emma Chamberlain

I would like to give a shout out to Margaret for her years of dedication to the district nursing team. She will be dearly missed by all, especially her patients and her colleagues. From – Hannah Charlton

To – Zoe Crookes Zoe is always happy to help and support the team, she always has a calm manner and is just amazing to work with. She's a great asset to the ED team. Thank you for all you do for us. From – Sanna Yafai

To – CNPs and Duty Managers

A huge thank you to Mark Blake for sorting out IGPR on my desktop at short notice. He was so helpful and talked me through the whole process.

Thank you to all the CNPs and duty managers for their tireless work over the past weekend as well as the last few weeks where they have dealt admirably with increasing numbers of patients, supporting ward areas to have safe staffing and ensuring our hospitals work well out of hours. You are all stars and continue to work excellently to keep patients safe and support all colleagues. Thank you.

From – Natalie Green

From – Mel Roberts

To – Chris Rippard When we were short staffed for booking office, due to sick leave, HCA Chris Rippard stepped in to book in patients. It was a great help as a busy morning and we had to organise staff from Hallam building to come over. He always offers to help and has a great team focus. Thanks Chris keep it up.

To – Margaret Stephenson (Community HCA)

To – Mark Blake - IT

Celebrating our stars of the week

CORPORATE AND GENERAL NEWS

Star of the Week

Mobeen Nawaz, Lead Pharmacist Ophthalmology

Jamil Johnson, Senior Charge Nurse

Mobeen has specifically been recognised for making great strides in supporting the management and compliance of request for high-cost drugs from a pharmacy perspective and working with the consultant team to make this happen. Using his positivity, Mobeen has played a fantastic role in encouraging consultant teams and others to get on board.

The palliative care team are in the midst of a large QI project aimed at improving the quality of end-of-life care across the Trust. We have needed dedicated colleagues from the hospital wards to be involved in the project, to support it, champion it and contribute ideas to take the work forward. Jamil has been involved from early on in the QI process and from the start has stood out as enthusiastic, engaged, and passionate about delivering and improving

end of life care on the ward he works in as well as in the wider Trust. He is always keen to share his ideas and contribute, attending meetings when asked and able to give honest critical feedback from his knowledge of the ward environment. On his ward, D27 he has embraced the use of the new palliative care dashboard that been developed through the QI process and used it through safety huddles that run on the ward. Piloting its use for improving quality in end-of-life care has seen very positive results. Using this he has managed to identify areas for improvement such as the percentage of people who die who have a supportive care plan in place, a marker of early recognition and good care for someone approaching the end of life. He has been able to use the dashboard, along with his personal enthusiasm and commitment, to encourage, focus and motivate his team to make improvements. Jamil and his team on D27 are making great progress to becoming exemplars of end-of-life care delivery for the Trust.

Do you know someone in your team that has gone above and beyond the call of duty? Why not put them forward for Star of the Week by visiting Connect.

Clock is ticking on the move to cloud computing Over the last few months colleagues from across our Trust have been taking the opportunity to change their working practices, move to cloud computing and reap the benefits of Office 365. However, the time has come now to begin restricting access to our old ways of working – namely restricting access to network shares. From March, colleagues will find that the shared drives they have historically used to store their data on will become read only, this means that colleagues will no longer be able to store any new data on these areas and each department should have established its own SharePoint as well as moving their data to the new cloud storage system. The move to Office 365 is being carried out gradually, with departments organising their migration dates, informing their staff and working with colleagues in informatics to ensure that all of their current computers are compatible with the new system.

But if you are unsure of how the move should be organised, here are some pointers: How does a migration to Office 365 work? 1. Wards, teams and departments are responsible for planning their migration date - with migrations planned to be completed by the end of February. 2. Departments to organise a nominated lead to prepare their data for migration. This lead should get in touch with informatics and agree which networks shares they will be responsible for. 3. Nominated lead to discuss their requirements with informatics including discussing any issues they feel might affect their ability to operate their department. This should include testing to ensure that all of their working practices and systems continue to work on SharePoint and Office 365.

4. All colleagues to ensure they have working NHS mail logins and are able to access Office 365 online at https://www.office.com 5. Nominated lead (with support from IT where requested) to migrate their data to SharePoint and to communicate with their team when they need to stop storing and accessing files on network shares and begin using SharePoint. 6. Once migration is complete, network shares will be disabled. Please take the time to plan, discuss and begin carrying out your migrations as soon as possible. Further information can be found on Connect, and support can be sought from colleagues in informatics by contacting ext. 4050 or by emailing: swbh.sharepoint.migration@nhs.net.

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Optimise: enhance processes, streamline operations, and improve patient experience Expand: add new capabilities and scale up existing ones to transform care delivery while maintaining quality and financial sustainability Advance: elevate the quality and precision of care delivery by advancing the level of innovation in your organisation Value Partnerships optimise care delivery to create more value for you. siemens-healthineers.co.uk/value-partnerships

Managing end of life patients in critical care By Dr Jon Hulme, Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine There are moments when as clinicians we need to have difficult conversations with our patients and their loved ones about planning for end of life. This can be very challenging for the patient, their family and us as healthcare professionals.

comfortable as they can be. Sometimes, they are able to be discharged home or move to a hospice from critical care if that is their wish. Planning end of life is not easy. Everyone involved in the patient’s journey needs to have these conversations including the GP, admitting teams and those providing longer term care in hospital. Ultimately, it is about talking with people on a human level and understanding what their understanding, expectation and wishes are. When we take time to ask, we may be very surprised at how different this is from what we think is best for the patient.

How do we have such conversations when the feeling can often be that our purpose is to do everything we can to save our patients? As professionals we might be very aware when our treatment plans are simply not working for our patients and however difficult it may be, we need to instigate those conversations early and appropriately. Sometimes, this will be when a patient is able to communicate and understand; other times this will be with someone representing them because they cannot do so themselves. This is usually a close family member. On intensive care, palliative care most often means stopping treatment that has been keeping a patient alive and making them as comfortable as possible at the end of life. We very much aim that we stop such life sustaining treatment, or do not increase the amount of life support to these levels, with the agreement of the patient and family members. It becomes complicated when the patient is incapacitated. Very often, the possibility of end of life would have not been discussed prior to the patient getting ill, leaving family members in a difficult position as to what to do. Ultimately it is about explaining to families that life sustaining interventions

CORPORATE AND GENERAL NEWS

have failed and they need to prepare for end of their loved one's life. Sometimes families will seek a second opinion, which we are happy to accommodate. In very rare occasions we have to seek a judgement from the Court of Protection in cases when the healthcare multidisciplinary team believes that continued life sustaining treatment is not in the best interests of the patient. Thankfully, this is an extremely rare occurrence. Such conversations, explaining and discussing treatment escalation plans and end of life considerations, have been made even more difficult during the pandemic when we have to had to speak to family members on the phone or a video call – naturally we would prefer to do this face to face. When end of life is planned well, it is a more dignified process for the patient. We (including the patient and family) are able to plan for the event and ensure the patient is as

Training for medics to have these conversations is now much improved. Trainee doctors are now trained and assessed by taking part in various scenarios. But for those of us who qualified years ago, this is did not happen. Many have learnt by experience and, just like after passing your driving test, bad habits and techniques can creep in. Even for those who do it well and frequently, some situations can be still very challenging. If I had a piece of advice to give, I would encourage you to talk to your patient about what they want. And ask them, don't tell them. Ask yourself: is there a point when life would become unacceptable because you cannot do those things you hold most dear to you? And that is the core of what we ought to know about our patients' wishes.

Further information Recommended viewing on BBC iPlayer. Dr Atul Gawande has a four part series titled Why Do Doctors Fail? In this he explores the nature of fallibility and suggests that preventing avoidable mistakes is a key challenge for the future of medicine. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04bsgvm https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04sv1s5 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04tjdlj https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04v380z

Essential reading Dr Atul Gawande has written a book, Being Mortal Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End which is available on Amazon. He writes that modern medicine can extend the limit of our mortality, but there is a finite boundary to that limit. This book is emotionally difficult because the reader and Dr.Gawande confront painful topics that one is loath to consider: aging, frailty and death. Yet, these are essential stages of life and there are essential decisions that one must make at each stage.

How Place Based Partnerships will ensure seamless community care CORPORATE AND GENERAL NEWS

Trust to agree key priorities. It continues to develop, with the appointment of Daren Fradgley, Interim Director of Integration, specifically to provide executive leadership and drive forward change at pace. Here we catch up with Daren and Tammy Davies, Group Director for Primary Care, Community and Therapies, on what the partnership is aiming to achieve. Has the partnership defined what it wants to achieve for the population of Sandwell? The partnership is committed to improve the lives and outcomes for Sandwell residents.

Daren Fradgley, Interim Director of Integration

There will be a focus on supporting local people to have better mental and physical health through a holistic approach including social support and improving wider determinants of health. Following extensive consultation with stakeholders and local people, there have been a number of priorities set to enable success: • The creation of resilient communities • Transformation of out of hospital care •

Excellence in acute care

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Develop an integrated workforce.

The partnership will also ensure that Sandwell is a key part of the wider Black Country Integrated Care System and aim to reduce inequalities in health and access to services. It is imperative that local people are integral to designing and evaluating services. How have those intentions developed?

Tammy Davies, Group Director for Primary Care, Community and Therapies Hosted by our organisation, Sandwell’s Place Based Partnership (PBP) will ensure a much more seamless and joined up approach to care delivery, aimed at reducing health inequalities and improving health outcomes. The PBP brings together primary care networks with partners including Healthwatch, the voluntary sector, Sandwell Council, the Trust and Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation

All partner organisations have collaborated alongside local people, community groups and GPs to create a vision and set priorities. The director of integration role will provide executive leadership and drive forward change at pace. Key development areas such as governance and leadership structures to enable delivery of the commitments for Sandwell are evolving. What are the priority areas that the partnerships will focus on? The initial priorities are focused on ensuring that there is appropriate infrastructure in place to enable partners to work in unity and ultimately achieve the desired outcomes for Sandwell. The PBP has agreed the following key areas for transformation: •

Develop a successful Discharge to Assess model where community nurses, therapists and adult social care

providers can support people to be safely discharged from hospital as soon as acute medical care is completed. •

Development of the Knowle Integrated health and social care centre which will create 80 step up and step down beds for Sandwell.

• Deployment of the End of Life transformation programme. • Create a multi-functioning, multi agency care coordination centre to navigate patients, carers and professionals to ensure people have appropriate, timely access to the right hospital, community and care services. This will include the current hospital single point of access but with additional links to other services and providers such as social prescribers and mental health practitioners. •

Development of the dedicated neighbourhood teams within each Sandwell town, included co-located services within community hubs.

How will you measure its successes? The PBP board has agreed a number of key metrics to measure success. There will be both short and longer measures including stretch targets to ultimately improve the health and wellbeing of the population. What are the key challenges working in this new way, that we will need to overcome? The cultural transformation required by all organisations to work as an integrated partnership will require trust and transparency and the ability to put the population at the centre of all decisions. This is a very different way of working and will require individuals to build relationships where respectful challenge and compromise are encouraged. Organisations will require combined governance and mechanisms for sharing and contributing to financial arrangements so that the ‘Sandwell pound’ is used appropriately. The use of technology and sharing of data with suitable IT solutions is likely to be challenging but essential to enable integration and efficiency. In the current climate, health and care resources are more stretched than ever. The partnership will need to develop innovative ways of working to deliver success with a backdrop of staff shortages and a population with deteriorating physical and mental health.

Are you a cleaning champion? The Cleaning for Confidence campaign, led by the Midlands’ Nursing and Workforce team, helps to stop the spread of COVID-19 by encouraging colleagues to become cleaning champions with a 20-minute e-learning programme, furthering knowledge of good cleaning practice. Keeping NHS premises safe and clean for our patients is a key and shared commitment, and this has never been more important. A clean workplace is our first and best defence in stopping the spread of COVID-19 and other infections. Tackling nosocomial infections is vital to ensure that the NHS remains safe and efficient. Every person within the NHS family has a part to play in maintaining that commitment to keeping people safe. You can access the Cleaning for Confidence e-learning programme here: https:// www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/cleaning-forconfidence/. It has been developed by NHS England and NHS Improvement’s Midlands Region team,

CORPORATE AND GENERAL NEWS

Julie Booth, Director of Infection Prevention and Control drawing on staff experiences and supported by Health Education England. This 20-minute programme promotes further knowledge of good cleaning practice and the personal precautions needed to ensure the risk of environmental transmission both for patients and colleagues is reduced. This aims to help stop the spread of COVID-19 and, as always, reinforcing other behaviours that can help minimise the outbreak of other infections. The e-learning package is for staff working in a range of roles, including cleaners, housekeeping staff, doctors, nurses, carers and senior managers as well as office staff.

Siobhan Heafield, NHS England and NHS Improvement’s Regional Chief Nurse for the Midlands, said: “Keeping NHS premises safe and clean for patients is a commitment that all NHS colleagues share – and it is something that has never been more important than right now, as all the available evidence suggests that doing simple things well to keep sites clean can help to significantly reduce the spread of infection. “Every single person within the NHS family has a part to play in maintaining that commitment to keeping our colleagues, patients and visitors safe and we know that hardworking NHS staff are continuing to go above-and-beyond to keep sites clean. “We know that it is the simple actions taken by staff that really do make all the difference in helping to protect patients and their families.”

Our values, our culture, our future – you hold the key The best organisations have a clear, defined set of values – the guiding principles and beliefs that underpin the organisation and its employees. Values should be firmly embedded into everything we do. Our Trust has lived by our nine Care Promises for over a decade. As we have developed our new strategy, with a focus on our People, our Patients and our Population, the time is right to consider a new set of values that will be the foundations of our Trust’s culture. Our values will need to be accompanied by behaviours that we should all live up to in our daily working lives. Values should be recognisable and should help us in our decision making, and in our interactions with colleagues, patients and the public.

In order to build our own, new set of values, we will be asking every colleague to tell us how you feel about working here. What instantly comes to mind when you think about our organisation? What do we do really well? What could be better? Over the next few months you will be approached to tell us what you think. We want to know the sort of values that should be at the heart of everything we do. So if you get an email, get invited to an event or see a quirky poster, please take the time to reflect and give us your feedback. We’d all like to work somewhere where we feel motivated and supported to make a difference to our colleagues, our patients, and our communities – you can help us achieve this and more. We have set out on a journey to deliver a long-term strategy centred around ‘The Three Ps’: our People, our Patients and our Population. For the first time ever, you are at the heart of our strategy. We want the best outcomes for our patients, our population and our people.

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For our patients, we want to be good or outstanding in everything we do.

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For our population, the communities we serve, we’ll work seamlessly with our partners to improve lives.

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For our people, we want to make our Trust a better place to work. A place of safety, a place where people are treated fairly and with respect. A place where our people are listened to, where our people have choice. A place where we feel what we do makes a difference.

To help us do this, we’ll need to agree a set of behaviours to accompany our new values that will become a framework to guide how we all behave with each other, our patients and their families. This will be at the heart of our organisation. It’s simple, we need your help. After all this is your workplace - our values will be shared values. We’ll keep you up to date with how things are progressing through our various communications channels.

Our journey to Midlan 1

TRANSFORMATION PLANNING A period of controlled change and planning

Welcome to the Future

TESTING AND GETTING READY Putting our plans into action

Opportunity knocks at Midland Met The opening of Midland Met is highly anticipated, and rightly so.

funding to develop with partners a learning campus that will train our future workforce.

It's fair to say our move to Midland Met is a journey and one we’re all on together. Over the past year, we have planned, prepped, and worked tirelessly to ensure that we provide safe and high-quality services when we open.

But in reality, it is so much more than that. For colleagues who'll be working onsite, it means the opportunity to work on a brand-new campus with a much-improved working environment. And our other sites will be reconfigured to make the most of our estate. For example, we will create additional meeting rooms at Sandwell and City Hospitals.

Midland Met brings a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a healthcare facility that will significantly enhance the care we provide. It means we can transform services across our estate at SWB and in our communities. We will have dedicated consultant-led acute care teams seven days a week, a clinical model focused on keeping patients mobile, and a children’s emergency department and assessment unit, to name but a few things we will benefit from when Midland Met opens. Plus, we have secured

To ensure that we stay united on our journey to Midland Met, we’re introducing a new way of tracking our progress as an organisation. The six-step change programme will be adapted across all services to ensure consistency. It will mean that we are checking off certain critical activities and tasks as we take steady steps towards opening our new hospital.

READY TO M CHECKPOI

nd Met

Our new six-step programme consists of: 1. Transformation planning A period of controlled change and planning 2.

Testing and getting ready – Putting our plans into action

All aboard – colleague orientation and induction

Ready to move checkpoint

Our first 100 days

6. Optimising for continued success. Ruth Wilkin, Director of Communications, remarked: “We are adopting this new approach as we have reached a point in our programme where we must all be joined up. Everyone needs to be aware of what is happening as we implement our plans to open Midland Met.

“2021 saw a lot of change and progress, and now we’re building on that with a consistent communications approach. It

means that everyone will recognise where we are on our journey and, importantly, what we need to do in each phase before we move on to the next. “Currently, we are in the transformation planning phase. As you’d expect, we have ongoing building work with lots of work going into our clinical pathways. We cannot move forward until we have checked off all these points. Next, we will move onto the testing and getting ready phase, a period of readiness and testing. There is so much to test, and we’ll continue to do this across all areas, refining processes as we go until we’re ready to open our doors.” Ruth added: “We hope that this will help colleagues recognise and respond to the upcoming content over the coming months. In 2022 we’ll share news of our staff induction process, community engagement, and technical commissioning will begin. “A lot of hard work has got us to this point, and I thank everyone for their professionalism and continued support.”

ALL ABOARD Colleague orientation and induction

OPTIMISING FOR CONTINUED SUCCESS

MOVE INT

OUR FIRST 100 DAYS

Want to know more about our move to Midland Met? • Visit our Midland Met pages on Connect connect2.swbh.nhs.uk/mmuh • Email any questions to swbh.mmuh@nhs.net • Contact your clinical/operational leads for more information.

Pull this out and pop it up in your areas to remind your team of the six stages to Midland Met.

Wellbeing 2022 - A chance to look after your physical and mental wellbeing Did you know a healthier lifestyle supports a healthier mind-set? Here are 12 simple NHS approaches to a better you in 2022: 1. Do not skip breakfast 2. Eat regular meals 3. Eat plenty of fruit and veg 4. Get more active 5. Drink plenty of water 6. Eat high fibre foods 7. Read food labels 8. Use a smaller plate 9. Do not ban foods 10. Do not stock junk food 11. Cut down alcohol 12. Plan your meals

For further tips and advice just follow the link below, it couldn’t be easier https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthyweight/managing-your-weight/12-tipsto-help-you-lose-weight/

Weight Management Losing weight has many health benefits. Making small, simple changes to what and how much you are eating and drinking can really help you lose the pounds. Join in with ‘Better health – a better you’ to find tips on how to improve your health and wellbeing https://www.nhs.uk/betterhealth/lose-weight/

Get Active Join in with Couch to 5K. Listen to a weekly podcast and join in with weekly runs to take you from sitting on your couch to comfortably running 5k. https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/ exercise/couch-to-5k-week-byweek/

Improve your health and fitness in just 12 weeks Fancy a focussed fitness plan that spans 12 weeks with detailed exercise guides and tips? See more in the link below: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/ exercise/12-week-fitness-plan/

Try Dry this January January, a month that many people use to make positive lifestyle changes. It represents a chance to start over and move towards achieving your goals, whether they are financial, healthrelated, or finally setting off on that trip you’ve always wanted to take.

CORPORATE AND GENERAL NEWS a paintball voucher for ten people, plus a signed wall decoration from West Bromwich Albion and lots more besides that too.

Dry January is a challenge that countless people across the UK participate in each year. It encourages people to give up alcohol for the whole of January. In 2021 alone, 6.5 million took up the challenge and enjoyed an alcohol-free month beginning their journey toward improved health. Our alcohol care team are on hand to offer support to anyone that may wish to gain some guidance. Or perhaps you have a family member or friend you are concerned about and would like some advice. Dedicated meetings took place every Friday throughout January via Microsoft Teams and, more information can be found on Connect or by emailing matthew.hinton1@ nhs.net. All meetings are anonymous, and no personal details will be shared. Cheryl Jones, Alcohol Specialist Nurse, told us: “The alcohol care team took part in Dry January. Plus, we were pleased to see many

Cheryl Jones with some of the Dry January goodies up for grabs colleagues chose to do the same. It’s a positive way to jumpstart 2022, and we’ve got lots going on to help promote one of the most significant events on our calendar as a team. “We set up a raffle as part of our Dry January celebrations with some fantastic prizes up for grabs. We have four adult tickets to West Midlands Safari Park, two Glee Club tickets,

“If anyone would like to purchase a ticket, they should check out our Facebook and Twitter channels, SWBH alcohol care team. Alternatively, you can purchase a ticket via https://app.galabid. com/alcoholfreejanuary. The draw will take place online at the end of this month. Keep an out for the daily bulletin to find out more.” Cheryl added: “Dry January is all about raising awareness of the impact of alcohol on people’s physical health, finances, relationships and mental health. Trying dry might be the kickstart to 2022 you or someone you know needs, and we’re here to help every step of the way.” For more information or support, please email cheryl.jones9@nhs.net.

Andy Brierley – cycling for better health The Better Health campaign from Public Health England and the NHS has returned in 2022 and Andy Brierley, Contracts Manager has embraced the campaign in taking up cycling.

Andy is already noticing the benefits of regular exercise as he feeling fitter in himself and has lost weight. In addition to this, has even saved a few pennies as he is using his car less for regular journeys.

This campaign aims to motivate and support colleagues to achieve a healthy weight by eating more healthily and increasing levels of physical activity, which is exactly what Andy has done since he took up cycling last year.

When asked if he if would recommend cycling, Andy said: “Cycling is great exercise and helps you to be environmentally greener. I’ve found that with the e-bike, I’m more likely to use it on days when it would be easy to find an excuse not to ride as I can just increase the resistance slightly and still get a workout, just with a bit of help.”

“After winning an Orbea e-bike as part of the Your Trust Charity annual raffle draw courtesy of E-Bike Brum, I have made the conscious effort to take advantage of this great prize by cycling as much as I realistically can,” said Andy. “I’m currently commuting using the bike 3-4 times a week which is a 14-mile round trip commute, but I’m topping this up to 20 miles a day, as well as going out on weekends wherever I can. I have found the e-bike specifically is a great commute bike as you can easily adjust the levels of pedal assistance depending on your needs and energy levels.”

Andy Brierley has been making the most of his new e-bike

It's vital we all do regular exercise despite our busy lives as according to research from the NHS, regular moderate exercise can reduce your risk of major illnesses, such as coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and cancer and lower your risk of early death by up to 30 per cent.

He added: “Tips for anyone thinking of taking up cycling in 2022 would be to start off with routes and distances that you are comfortable with. Make sure you have the correct protective gear and if initially you can ride with someone it does help, especially if you aren’t confident or need a little extra motivation to cycle on a consistent basis. The cycle to work scheme run by the Trust is also a great way to buy your bike and kit at a reduced cost.”

Out with the old, in with the new Looking forward to the opening of the new car parks, Sarah said: “I’m grateful to have the opportunity to park my car at work. I have tried public transport in the past but the route for me was too long and would require multiple modes of transport. I have tried car sharing and cycling too which is an option for some, but for me it’s great we have the option to park on site.”

CORPORATE AND GENERAL NEWS Since 1989 Sarah Cooke, Senior Business Relationship Manager has worked at the Trust, and has seen it grow from West Birmingham Health Authority to City Hospital NHS Trust and then to the Trust we know today, Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust. That’s just over 32 years of parking up at our Trust sites to start her working day. For all these years Sarah has kept hold of her original parking pass, looking a little worse for wear, brown and weathered, it’s seen better days but today Sarah trades the old for new as the time has come to upgrade to the new Q-Park parking permit.

Old permits will be deactivated on Monday 28 February and will no longer give you access to Trust parking facilities. For those who have applied online, please ensure you collect your new parking permit as soon as possible.

Sarah Cooke, Senior Business Relationship Manager trades old parking pass for new

The long anticipated new Trust car parks at City and Sandwell are due to open very soon. The new multi-storey carparks will include 550 new spaces at City and 400 at Sandwell. But how has Sarah managed to keep hold of her original parking pass for all this time? We were intrigued too, she told us: “I can’t remember when the car park pass system was first put in place

at City but it must have been at least 20 years ago. I have to confess, it’s actually my second parking pass, I punched a hole in the original to attach it to my lanyard, this broke the internal proximity reader, and so within just one day, I was already on my second pass, and this is the pass in the photo. I looked after it since then and remember at the time being told that if I broke this one, I'd have to pay £5 for a replacement!”

COLLECT YOUR NEW PERMIT Parking permits can be collected from a variety of sites across the Trust. See Connect for the full breakdown of permit collection points and collection times. www.bit.ly/3qnzT9w

Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust

Join our crane

ZIP WIRE CHALLENGE and raise money for Your Trust Charity’s We Are Metropolitan campaign. Email trustcharity@nhs.net to register. Fundraising target – £250

Kerry wins Shiela Lorimer award Kerry Winter, Practice Development Nurse in acute medicine has been recognised for her nursing clinical excellence by winning the 2021 Shiela Lorimer award. The prestigious award was launched to commemorate Shiela Lorimer, who was an acute medicine nurse practitioner and worked for the Trust for over two decades. Shiela was a pioneer in her field as she was the first nurse to successfully implement nurse led discharge. This led to advanced nurses discharging patients out of hours on all medical wards which resulted in a vastly improved patient journey and experience. The awards ceremony was hosted our ambulatory medical assessment area at City Hospital at the back end of 2021 and congratulating Kerry on her award, Claire Obiakor, Senior Sister on AMU 1 said: “Kerry joins an illustrious group of winners back dating to over six years including Claire Chambers, Socorro Rosaupan, Keeley Hopcraft, Tracy Ranford, Odeena Gregory and Cheryl Shepard. “She is truly deserving of this special award and I’m certain everybody across SWB will

MEDICINE AND EMERGENCY CARE and most importantly has a positive impact on all of our patients experience and outcomes.”

Kerry Winter celebrates winning the 2021 Shiela Lorimer award on AMU at City

agree with me on this.” Dr Sarbjit Clare, Deputy Medical Director and Consultant Physician in Acute Medicine echoes these thoughts and said: “Kerry’s resilience throughout the pandemic has been unwavering and she always continues to provide the best quality care despite the challenges she faces. “Kerry is a great role model for her colleagues and has become one of the most respected members of the nursing leadership team. She is approachable, knowledgeable and supportive

She added: “Shiela would have been extremely proud of Kerry receiving this award in her honour. Like Shiela, Kerry prides herself on always putting her patients first as well as putting teaching, education and upskilling as a prime to improve quality of care.” Kerry was delighted when she heard she had won this year’s Shiela Lorimer award. She said: “It was a shock initially as I never expected anything like this, but I am honoured to receive the award. She was an exceptional nurse and a great role model. “I've been a nurse for many years now and I love my job and enjoy what I do. I just try to work as hard for my patients and be as supportive, approachable and available for my colleagues as I can.”

Mouth care still matters at SWB! Here at the Trust, we are passionate about doing what we can to provide a great service for our patients. Part of that includes focusing on delivering improved clinical outcomes. Through embedding ‘mouth care matters’ in our hospital and community settings, this is just one way we are doing this.

colleagues were aware of the significance of mouth care for our patients. Jody is a real advocate for mouth care and said: “It’s vital we get the basics right when caring for our patients and mouth care plays a key part of that. “Mouth care contributes to how we eat as if you have a sore mouth you are not going to eat and if patients are not getting the nutrition they need due to lack of food, this can have a massive impact on their health and recovery when admitted to hospital.”

The mouth care matters initiative aims to highlight increased awareness around good oral care in hospital and community healthcare settings. Oral health is an important part of general health and wellbeing and often lacks in hospital settings, particularly for patients who are not able to carry out their own personal care. Representatives from Stryker, a world leading medical technology company, were recently invited to the Trust to help us support with training in the use of our new products to support good oral hygiene and mouth care. “Mouth care matters is a crucial part of our fundamental care work and essential to aid good nutrition and prevent hospital acquired pneumonia,” said Julie Thompson, Group Director of Nursing – Medicine and Emergency Care. “Just take a moment to think about what it feels like when you wake up first thing in the

Jody believes the training week at City was a great success in helping raise awareness of mouth care.

Jody Stubbs, Matron is an advocate for mouth care

morning and your mouth is dry and the first thing you want to do is get that morning drink. Imagine feeling like that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This is what it can feel like if you you’re not getting the correct mouth care.” Facilitated by Jody Stubbs, Matron, Stryker visited all our wards across City Hospital throughout December to ensure clinical

She added: “Having spoken with many of the nurses on the wards, after completing their training they now understand the importance of oral health as it enables patients to eat, speak and socialise without discomfort or embarrassment.” As part of the Trust’s continued efforts for improving mouth care for our patients, SWB is planning to offer the same training to all Sandwell very soon. For more information around mouth care, please email jody.stubbs@nhs.net.

Clinic is life-changing for survivors of cruel act or treatment after undergoing this procedure.

MEDICINE AND EMERGENCY CARE For female genital mutilation (FGM) survivor Basma Medhat, accessing help at the Midland’s only clinic for nonpregnant women was a life-changing experience. The student, originally from Egypt, had struggled to find a service to help her in her homeland. But that changed when she moved to the UK and was put in touch with specialist FGM Midwife Alison Byrne, who works for the Trust. Alison heads up two clinics – one for nonpregnant woman based at Summerfield Primary Care Centre in Heath Street, Winson Green, whilst the other is for pregnant woman who are referred by their community midwife and is based at City Hospital. Basma was able to self-refer to the non-pregnant clinic for treatment. Speaking ahead of International Day of Zero Tolerance Against FGM on February 6, she explained: “I had no experience before coming in the UK with seeking help and support for FGM. I always felt stigmatised and services were not available. Once I moved to the UK, I was so motivated to start helping myself after learning that FGM was affecting my periods which is something I always suffered from.

“Figures recording the number of women who have had FGM are high. But there are many more out there who haven’t come forward or do not realise that they are a survivor of FGM, as it is the norm within their culture. “We want to really push out the message that this clinic is there for them to access and can be done so discreetly and in the strictest of confidence.” FGM survivor Basma Medhat who received treatment from Alison Byrne, Lead Specialist Midwife

“Finding the clinic in Birmingham and arranging an appointment with Alison to get her advice was life changing for me. Since starting to explore and understand FGM more, I became more accepting of my body and stopped feeling guilty about something I’ve never chosen for myself. “Now I’m doing a MA in women and child abuse at London Metropolitan University and I hope to be able to help and support other women in the future to use these services and share their experiences.” Speaking of the service Alison added: “It’s important that women who may be survivors of this practice know how they can seek help. “The Trust offers the only Midland-based clinic for non-pregnant women. It is in the heart of the community and will help many women who sometimes are unsure about how to access care

The clinic is one of eight across the UK, as previously announced by NHS England as part of its long-term plan. Anyone can refer to the clinic, be it the survivor, their GP, or other clinicians. “If someone comes across a person they think needs help, they are able to refer as it’s important the woman does receive help and support,” Alison continued. “The Trust also offers a clinic for pregnant women, and referrals for this come through their community midwife. “Some women don’t realise they have undergone FGM until they become pregnant. They are then treated accordingly for this whilst they are pregnant.” To refer to the clinic for non-pregnant women email swbh.summerfieldfgm@nhs.net. Basma’s story was featured on Midlands Today earlier this month.

Simulating the present to inspire the future Sandwell and West Birmingham has long made efforts to assist any way it can in the education process of the next generation of clinicians at all levels. It is with such endeavours that we can all help maintain and raise the level of healthcare the NHS provides in the future. A legacy our children and children's children can enjoy. It's not just big projects such as the proposed education centre at the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital that are ways the Trust is looking to make that impact, it's also educating and supporting those who have just begun to have dreams of a career in healthcare. On 15 December 2021, SWB welcomed local sixth form students to City Hospital as part of a new pilot programme 'Aspiring Doctors'. This initiative was developed by Dr Beth Peterknecht, Dr Anne Barrowman, Dr Emma Livesey and Dr Chieun Han, in

Local students took part in simulation based activities at City hospital

association with Nikki Smith and the Widening Participation team. The students attended D20 and took part in a half-day of simulationbased activities to promote and support their applications to medical school. The day was a great success and the team are looking forward to future sessions in June 2022. "From the widening participation side I was asked to reach out to local school contacts to

seek interest," Nikki explained to Heartbeat. "We had many students interested and we scoped from age 14 plus but the age range that attended the first session were mainly sixth form students looking to apply to University, particularly medical school. We hope to run another session in June 2022 and it would be great if we could look at developing the session further to include other disciplines."

Supporting new parents in the community is key to Starting Well Working as a partnership within our Sandwell and West Birmingham community continues to be one of the focuses for our various services.

WOMEN AND CHILD HEALTH services that are there for them and their baby.

The Trust’s maternity team is certainly no stranger to building links with those around us and are working closely with a charity which has launched a new initiative aiming to give extra maternity support to expectant mums and their babies as well as when they enter into parenthood. Starting Well is a new partnership project which focuses on parents living within Sandwell and West Birmingham. It has arranged a number of helpful sessions at various locations across the area and has employed maternity navigators who will support new parents and mums-to-be. Each maternity navigator has been recruited from a partner organisation, which includes the Yemeni Community Association, The West Bromwich AfroCaribbean Centre and Bangladeshi Women’s Association. These navigators will be there in the early stages of pregnancy to help signpost women to maternity services, ensuring they get the best start possible as

“Most recently a mother who only spoke Arabic needed the help of the Infant Feeding team as she struggled to breastfeed. Afrah Muflihi (centre) who is the equality, diversity and inclusion lead midwife and is working to raise awareness of maternity services amongst diverse communities they embark on their journey. They are also able to support postnatally. Afrah Muflihi, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead Midwife, has been leading on the Trust’s involvement with the initiative. She said: “This partnership working is extremely important when we are reaching out to parents across the area. “We know that we have a very diverse community, so this is about making sure our hard-to-reach communities know about the

“They called upon the help of Arwa Ahmed, a maternity navigator from the Yemeni Community Association, who was able to assist.” Arwa added: “This new mum was quite isolated as she was unable to speak English. Communication was a key issue and I was able to see her and offer support in a way that she was able to understand.” Ragih Muflihi, CEO of the Yemeni Community Association, said: “This is a perfect example of how this partnership works well. It’s about ensuring the right care and help is given to parents when they need it and we are proud to be involved.”

Tackling communication difficulties with symbols Over 10 per cent of children within the UK have speech, language and communication needs. In areas of social deprivation, this figure can rise to over 50 per cent. The ability to communicate is one of the most important skills we ever learn. Essential to our everyday lives it is key to expressing our thoughts and feelings, understanding and learning. Our speech and language therapists play a vital part in identifying and supporting these children within our community, and without the right support this can lead to long-term implications. The paediatric speech and language therapy team have redesigned their service so they can offer more direct intensive support for children who need augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) to aid or replace speech. AAC can include using gestures, symbols, pictures or objects to help aid communication. The team have visited local mainstream primary schools and homes of children who may see great improvements through using symbols in a social context and to support their spoken language.

express to her peers that she needed space. The best outcome was the control it gave to this little girl who had never had this before.”

The paediatric speech and language therapy team Beth Boroughs, Senior Speech and Language Therapist tells us of one of first instances of successful implementation of AAC within the team, she said: “A 10-year-old child who had struggled for years with communication come onto the pathway and our therapy assistant Pushy Kaur started seeing her in school. This child was not motivated to communicate with others and the traditional methods of intervention weren’t having much impact. A new communication book using symbols during chats in a more social context was introduced, and after just one week, this child was able to ask for help and ‘stop’ when things were too much. This was especially important as it gave this child an outlet to

Following on from the success, the Trust has seen great, positive outcomes as a result of introducing the new ways of supporting communication and are continuing to find ways to further extend this pathway. The outcomes continued to excel, and the child was soon able to communicate a range of communicative functions such as hurry up, help, stop and more. This opened up a new world of communication to this child and she was able to express her emotions to familiar adults and peers. Beth continued: “We are seeing more and more positive outcomes for so many children now that specialist and intensive therapy for these systems is now in place. Not only is this a fantastic experience for these children, but it also improves the wellbeing of those children and their families.” A small step for our AAC team – but a huge step for these children.

Neonates are latest team to launch safety huddles WOMEN AND CHILD HEALTH November saw the neonates team get on board the safety huddles train. Running seven a days a week straight after the board round, the huddles are led by the dedicated shift lead who ensures the huddles run effectively. The safety huddles are attended by representatives from the multidisciplinary team which includes doctors, nurses, advanced neonatal nurse practitioners, pharmacists, ward clerks and ward services officers. Ward Manager Chinazam (Chichi) Anyaebosim explained the importance of implementing safety huddles on the unit. She said: “The neonatal unit provides a wide range of services by different teams and involving many external agencies. It is incredibly important for us to be able to provide the latest update to the carers of our babies with great consistency, from the front door to after discharge.”

huddles give me an opportunity to support my team members, babies and their families further, to provide a good service in a forever changing period of time via great team efforts.” Dr Penny Broggio, Consultant Paediatrician, Clinical Lead for Neonates said: “Safety huddles have helped improve communications hugely, enabling the team to identify risks and to initiate mitigation more proactively. Safety huddles are a fantastic platform for us to enhance our collaboration and cohesiveness. Our patient flow has improved since the launch of the huddles.” Rasekhuta Phil Velempini, Matron Neonates further explained: “Safety huddles have initiated a changing mind-set to the team leading to a more cohesive and supportive working environment. Colleagues are feeling

Chichi told us that the safety huddles have been very well received. “Plenty of the benefits have been realised immediately. Safety huddles strengthen the communication among individual teams continuously. Everybody brings in something useful at every huddle. For example, all medical and clinical teams ensure the latest update regarding the care of our babies are fully communicated to Kath Laise our ward clerk, so that she can have a very clear overview across the whole unit enabling her to disseminate this critical information to carers, other departments within the trust as well as the external agencies. “The increased pressure from COVID-19 leads to plenty of last-minute changes and staffing issues from various teams. Safety huddles have been a great platform for us to ensure that everyone on duty is on the same page,” Chichi added. Kath couldn’t agree more. She said: “Due to the complexity of the services our unit provides, it has always been challenging to update everyone with the latest state of all the babies under our care. Safety huddles have been a great platform for me to gain an overview of the whole unit effectively. “The past two years have been beyond challenging to many of us. The safety

The neonates team

more comfortable in making suggestions/ asking questions to improve patient care.” The membership of the neonatal safety huddles is growing with the new Neonatal Community Outreach Team (NCOT) already agreeing to join the daily huddles. The NCOT team leader and Chichi have even agreed the specific NCOT elements to be part of the neonatal safety huddles checklist. Occupational therapy is joining the huddles soon too. Neonates has started looking into the introduction of the long-term quality improvement projects to enhance patient safety as well as utilising the electronic screens to promote the ‘single source of information’ across the unit with great transparency and timeliness.

Staff satisfaction takes the spotlight at surgical services LIA Surgical services took to the virtual stage earlier this month as colleagues from across the group came together to review and discuss the results of the latest staff survey in a Listening in to Action (LiA) event. After two years of trials and tribulations where departments across the Trust have been pushed to their limits it was the ideal opportunity to pause and reflect on the results of the most recent national staff survey, understand how colleagues working in surgical services felt working for our Trust and plan for the future. Launching the session, Richard Beeken Chief Executive said: “We need to have an open and frank conversation about the results of the staff survey and plan what we are going to do differently going forward so we can achieve the objective of having happy, healthy, and engaged colleagues that are properly professionally developed.” Reviewing the results and opening the discussions, Surgical Services Group Director of Nursing Amber Markham said: “Its great

to see the staff survey results echoing what we have always promoted as a senior leadership, colleagues in our group believe our patients are our priority and would be happy with the standard of care provided by the organisation if a friend or a relative needed treatment, we are safe and healthy and work flexibly. These are all good strong positives for us. “But there were some negatives. We do not feel recognised or rewarded, that came through quite strongly in our comments section and became a theme. There were comments such as and I'm listened to, but I don't feel heard. “We aspire to be a group triumvirate that listens to our people and takes our solutions from our teams, we're not a senior team that dictates everything. We want to understand why people don't want to go to work, and what can we do about making work a happier place, because actually you spend a lot of your life going to work. And we want it to be an enjoyable experience. “We want you to be part of the solutions and we want you to feel like you're having a really

SURGICAL SERVICES positive effect on the way that we deliver our services. And we want to understand what you would like that we could do better for you to feel recognised or rewarded.” Copies of the survey results and discussion at the surgical services LiA event can be found on Connect.

Look out for further listening events Women and Child Health Thursday 3 March 9am – 10.30am PCCT Thursday 24 March

4pm – 5pm

Medicine Tuesday 15 March

2pm – 3pm

Imaging Monday 14 March

1pm – 2pm

Showcasing community nursing on the preceptorship programme The transition from student to practitioner calls for celebration of a great accomplishment and excitement for the journey ahead. However the leap from learner to professional doesn’t come without its challenges. For newly qualified healthcare professionals, access to the right support at this early stage is crucial. Preceptorship programmes help greatly with this and provide vital support and guidance for those at the beginning of their professional career. The practice education team for district nursing has recently supported the nursing and midwifery clinical education team (NMCET) on the preceptorship programme. Practice education leads Claire Stanier and Andrea Austin have recently undertaken a community teaching session as part of the programme which aims to deliver support and guidance for newly qualified nurses within the first 12 months of qualifying. The community session offers an insight into the world of district nursing, skills required, referral processes, the wider iCares service and the importance of the Queen’s Nursing Institute within community nursing.

PRIMARY CARE, COMMUNITIES AND THERAPIES

Student district nurses Claire Stanier told us more, she said: “I am currently working towards a Post Graduate Certificate of Higher Education (PGCE) and utilised the session to complete a research project for my course. The session aimed to be more inclusive, looking at learner’s needs and their different learning styles. It was designed to be more interactive with aims to increase engagement, encourage shared learning and problem based learning and vital skills in effective nursing care.” The session involved various workstations showcasing skills and equipment used in community settings, talking through patient scenario’s and quizzes, alongside a presentation. Alongside Claire and Andrea, four district

nursing student’s currently completing the Specialist Practitioner Qualification also helped out and were a valuable resource to preceptee’s. Claire continues: “We received excellent feedback on the session and all attendees enjoyed the various activities and discussions. “It was a really enjoyable and informative session and brilliant to showcase the district nursing service and wider community services and our passion for district nursing. I have recently been awarded the title of Queen’s Nurse and the session was a great opportunity to inform colleagues about the Queen’s Nursing Institute and dedication to improving nursing care in the community setting.” The practice education team is looking forward to supporting next year’s sessions and for overseas nurses. The preceptorship programme offers valuable support to newly qualified nurse’s in aiding the transition process into the Trust.

Nuclear medicine welcomes new starters IMAGING Nuclear medicine is a specialist area within our imaging department. Procedures within nuclear medicine help to diagnose and treat certain illnesses, such as thyroid cancer. As the pandemic continues to evolve, the imaging team have welcomed several new starters to meet demand. This month we say hello to two new starters, Hibaa Aldubai, Technologist and Asifa Javed, Senior Technologist. Speaking of her decision to pursue a career in nuclear medicine, Hibaa explained: “Post A-Levels, I started a nuclear medicine degree apprenticeship at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. I spent four days at work and one day a week completing my studies online. I completed my course last summer and started my role as a nuclear medicine technologist at City Hospital in September 2021.” Hibaa continued: “I came across the apprenticeship vacancy online while searching for something physics-related.

I didn't know much about what nuclear medicine was at the time, but I was attracted to a role that involved both patient care and science. Towards the end of my studies, I saw a vacancy for a technologist at City Hospital and was successful in my application.” Only a few months into her new role, we asked Hibaa what she was enjoying the most. “I am still settling in and getting signed off to perform administrations and scans unsupervised. I am enjoying the patient interactions and the different challenges and scenarios we face every day. No two days are the same and, I look forward to coming into work every day.” Asifa joins the imaging team from overseas. Her career began as a trainee nuclear medicine technologist in Pakistan before she moved to the UK. When asked why she had chosen this specialty, Asifa explained: “Since childhood, I have been fascinated by hospitals and healthcare. I was keen to pursue a medical profession. As I grew older, my interest in technology also developed. “Medical imaging met my interests in working with patients, healthcare and technology. I chose SWB because it offers lots of variety in terms of nuclear scans and they are exclusively producing krypton 81 gas generators for lung function tests. I like diversity and, it’s

important to have this experience to help with my career growth.” Asifa added: “Nuclear medicine is advancing all the time and, there are no limits. Currently, we are using so many radiotracers and there are many more advancements still to come. Up until now, I have done four research projects and, I am now involved in a project which is all about the auditing of one of our scans which will end up benefiting future patients.” Asifa has jumped into life at the Trust and told us she enjoys meeting people from all different cultures and backgrounds. “I flew over from Pakistan, 4,000 miles, to work in a new environment and experience a different culture. It has been a challenge to adjust; however, I find it both fascinating and enjoyable getting to know my colleagues and learning about their backgrounds.” Joseph O’Brien, Head of Nuclear Medicine, remarked: “We are pleased to welcome Asifa and Hibaa to the team. Nuclear medicine technologists play an important role in what we do and, both are enthusiastic and are contributing well to our service and learning new skills every day.”

Hibaa Aldubai, Technologist and Asifa Javed, Senior Technologist have recently joined the imaging team

Ciara-Jane Browne to oversee operational activities within imaging The imaging department uses state-ofthe-art equipment to provide a variety of diagnostic services. From x-rays to ultrasound, CT scans and MRI scans, the team fill their days with helping diagnose patients with some of the most sophisticated equipment scanning available.

IMAGING with a portfolio including leadership and oversight of all allied health professionals within the group including radiographers, sonographers and mammographers.

Leading the way to exploring the future of operational activities for the team is CiaraJane Browne, known to many colleagues as CJ. Excited to be appointed as professional lead for imaging and pathology, which is a newly introduced role to the Trust, she is keen to embark on a new role within the department. CJ is looking forward working with the allied health professional (AHP) groups and supporting them across all sites and focussing on the integration and moving to Midland Metropolitan University Hospital, she said: “It has never been a more exciting time to be part of the allied health profession group. I am keen to jump straight in and am excited to focus on workforce strategies, skill mix and operational delivery of projects within the group.”

She continued: “AHPs are the NHS’s third largest clinical workforce and work across organisational boundaries. Their practice is integral to most clinical pathways. Quality has always been an important part of imaging and this role will enable a focus on this.” CJ Browne has been appointed as Professional Lead for Imaging and Pathology CJ joined the Trust in 2013 as a musculoskeletal sonographer before moving onto the position of superintendent sonographer. Her focus will be to move forward the groups’ operational activities

So, what does the future for imaging look like, we asked: “Moving forward we have the opening of Midland Met to look forward to so workforce planning will be a large project to focus on and this post will provide dedicated strategic allied health professionals.” We wish CJ all the best in her new role.

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Pulse

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News in brief from around our organisation Mandie Ballentine: 34 years at SWB

“In this area of work, it is inevitable you will experience change but with a good team alongside you, you will always come out the other side better.”

Mandie Ballentine, Colorectal CNS will be saying farewell to the Trust after 34 years of service.

She added: “I used to always say to junior nurses on my ward – always treat people and patients like you would want your loved ones to be looked after and you will not go far wrong.

Mandie started at Dudley Road in the year 1987, 34 years ago. From there, she worked her way through the ranks on ward D15 before going on to become a ward manager on D17. “Following on from being a ward manager on D17, around two decades ago I moved to the Sandwell site to become a Macmillan nurse in 2001,” said Mandie. “I have thoroughly enjoyed my time as a Colorectal CNS for the last 20 years and feel it was a role I was born to do.” During her 20 years at Sandwell specifically, Mandie has seen many

“Lead by example, set the bar high, don’t ask others to do something you wouldn’t do yourself and always remember people skills are transferred to all aspects of your life so just have respect for one another.” Mandie Ballentine retires from the Trust

changes and faced many challenges but believes as long as you are compassionate in the care you deliver, and always put your patients first, you can always overcome any obstacles you may face.

Around three years ago Mandie relocated to Derbyshire so as part of retirement is planning on spending more time in the Derbyshire countryside as well as enjoy more quality time with her children. Happy retirement Mandie!

Have you claimed your festive reward?

In recognition of your continued hard work and dedication this year, all employees have been issued with a £10 shopping voucher to be redeemed via the SWB Benefits portal. This is just a small token to thank you for all you do for each other and our patients. You will have received a thank you letter to your home address along with a flyer detailing how to redeem this gift. Individuals that already have a SWB Benefits account may have received an email as well. There are over 90 retailers with which you can spend your voucher.

The festive voucher is now redeemable and will expire on Tuesday 21 June. If you need assistance in creating a SWB Benefits account or accessing your gift please call our benefits partner on 0800 542 5930. If you need to use a Trust computer to access your gift, please speak to your manager.

Amber Markham Group Director of Nursing Surgical Services This month we say hello to a familiar face, Amber Markham. We caught up with her to discuss her latest challenge, becoming the Group Director of Nursing Surgical Services.

ready to open and move into Midland Met. That means we need to look at different ways of working and the role of the trained nurse. We will be introducing more advanced clinical practitioners in surgery to support the medical model. I will also be looking at how we can support the nursing teams with the further introduction of band four nurse associates and developing our apprenticeship roles.”

Amber began her career as a surgical nurse in vascular surgery. She has also worked in paediatric ITU, adult ITU for a whopping 21 years, plus she's taken on a 10-month ward manager post in gynaecology and 10 months in theatres as the clinical lead before her successful appointment to this position. Amber told us: “I have worked at this Trust for 24 years. In that time, I have left twice to work elsewhere but have always come back. Colleagues here are friendly, and the organisation has something special about it. I have progressed through my roles and have had the support to achieve this over the years. This new role is something I am excited to take on.” Amber proudly explained what her new position entails: “My role is to lead nursing and health care colleagues within the group to deliver continuous quality improvements in nursing and clinical practice for patients. I provide strategic nursing leadership to develop high quality, safe and cost-effective nursing.

So, what is Amber most looking forward to? “The team in surgery are a fantastic bunch that have the drive to make things better and deliver excellent patient care. “I am keen to look at how we can build on the last two years, taking our learnings from Amber Markham, Group Director of Nursing the pandemic and refocusing on the basics of Surgical Services nursing. It will involve ensuring all new nurses “I am also responsible for clinical risk and the have a robust induction and a preceptorship quality governance agenda within the group period that prepares them to be a nurse in our and provide professional leadership and, it is my organisation and then seeing them develop job to develop the clinical leadership capability. further into their roles.” I have broad experience across surgical services What does Amber enjoy outside of work? She in the NHS which helps when making decisions beamed as she explained: “I enjoy spending and will help guide me in this new role.” quality time with my family - my husband, my Talking of how she'd like to develop nursing two girls who are currently at university, and my surgical services, Amber remarked: “We have two cats and two chickens! I also like spending a monumental task ahead of us as we get time on my allotment, crafting, and walking.”

Jo Harvey Trust Lead Cancer Nurse With almost three decades of nursing experience, Jo Harvey steps into the brand-new role of Trust Lead Cancer Nurse. Through a variety of roles within the NHS from Macmillan ACP, cancer CNS and working in the gastroenterology team, Jo has banked a great deal of experience and is keen to share her drive and passion for cancer care within her new position. This is an exciting new role at the Trust and we caught up with Jo to find out more. “I have been nursing for the last 28 years, 20 years within the gastroenterology team and cancer. I have been a Macmillan ACP for the last three years and a cancer CNS prior to this. I worked on an agency when I first qualified in 1993 in local hospitals. I then worked in New Zealand for 12 months and on my return worked in the learning and development team, when in 2002 I secured my post in gastroenterology. After a few years it was decided I would take the GI cancer work and helped with the rest of the team to set up an Upper GI and hepato-biliary cancer service of which has developed greatly over the years.” A new role is not all Jo has to celebrate, the Macmillan Upper GI/HPB CNS team of which

the Trust to deliver against the national cancer agenda and the NHS long term plan for cancer. “My vast amount of cancer experience not only with Upper GI, hep-bil, unknown primary cancers and more recently the rapid diagnosis centre, means I will be able to adapt to different cancer sites and understand the issues at the start of the patients journey, right through to the end of treatment. “I am looking forward to working with a multitude of professionals and experts to see how we can shape the way for cancer and its future, ensuring the patient is at the heart of everything we do. Ensuring patients get a timely; quality service throughout their cancer journey is what I strive for. Jo Harvey, Trust Lead Cancer Nurse

she was part of, were recently awarded the Innovation Award at the Macmillan Professionals Excellence Awards. Jo continued: “My new role as Trust Lead Cancer Nurse will form part of the cancer services triumvirate where I will provide specialist knowledge and support to enable

“I am also keen to build relationships with colleagues from all aspects of health where we are all aiming for a shared goal - achieving excellence in cancer care. I am driven, passionate and enthusiastic about cancer care, so I feel privileged to be in this position which means I can influence how cancer care moves into the future.” All the best in your new role, Jo!

Letters, of less than 200 words please, can be sent to the Communications Department,

Trust Headquarters, Sandwell Hospital or by email to swb–tr.SWBH–GM–Heartbeat@nhs.net

YOUR RIGHT TO BE HEARD Can we do more for gluten free? Dear Heartbeat, Can I please ask why there are very limited options for gluten free in our canteen? For weeks now sandwiches have been unavailable as I see that there are vegan potions for Christmas dinner, but nothing is mentioned about gluten free – gluten free is not a lifestyle choice for me but a necessity for my health. Kind regards, Anon Dear colleague, Thank you for your email in relation to gluten free products in the catering retail units. Unfortunately we are unable to produce gluten free dishes in house as due to the nature of the catering practices employed within the department we cannot guarantee the content of products prepared in our kitchens or cafes are free from allergenic cross contamination. Therefore, we are dependent on the gluten free items that we are able to purchase in from our suppliers. I have spoken to the catering managers across City and Sandwell sites who have confirmed that we offer gluten free chicken rolls, gluten free egg and roast tomato rolls and gluten free Gobi aloo wraps along with a selection gluten free biscuits and cakes. We acknowledge that the selection is somewhat limited and have been in contact with our suppliers to enquire what other gluten free products they are able to offer to enable us to enhance our customer choice and hope to improve the selection. Kind regards,

them don’t really make sense if you can get better value elsewhere. Is there a forum for staff to make suggestions or have input into what they’d like to see as benefits? Kind regards, Anon Dear colleague, Thank you for your feedback on the Trust’s staff benefits offer. As you say, the Trust does have a wide range of staff benefits and wellbeing options including our SWB Benefits portal that offers discounts at national and local retailers. The portal also gives employees access to a number of salary sacrifice schemes, such as cycle-to-work, technology and the Tusker car scheme. The salary sacrifice schemes allow individuals to spread the cost of their purchase over a period of time (e.g. 2-3 years), just as they might if choosing to enter into, for example, a phone contract directly with a company, or when leasing a car. However the salary sacrifice scheme has additional savings on things like national insurance contributions. Information is provided to ensure that individuals can make an informed decision about whether salary sacrifice is right for them and applications are checked to ensure that an individual’s salary does not fall below the national minimum wage. We would always encourage individuals to shop around and ensure that the deals on offer through our benefits partners are the best for their individual circumstances before signing up. Our benefits partners are selected through a tender process and are reviewed periodically. If you have a suggestion in relation to our staff benefits offer please feel free to email the HR team on swb-tr.SWBH-GM-HR-Enquiries@nhs. net Kind regards, Frieza Mahmood Chief People Officer

Jane Owen Trust Catering manager

Why withdraw the wellbeing hour? Dear Heartbeat,

The true benefit of staff benefits Dear Heartbeat, I have been looking at some of our staff benefits we offer and I must say I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand we offer fantastic benefits such as all our wellbeing offerings both on site and at the Sanctuary as well as being able to get a blue light card and the free will writing service. However, when I looked into things such as Tusker and tech benefits it seems like we are encouraging our staff to get into debt. Some of those tech benefits have massive monthly payments which encourages people to spend a lot more than they should and Tusker, well, you get better deals from the car dealership themselves even with the current chip shortage in modern cars. Who at the Trust makes the decision on staff benefits and how are these selected? It would be nice to know what the selection process is and whether any thoughts from staff are collected to identify what staff would actually like as benefits. Some of

The COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on many of us, many have lost loved ones, and many have lost their jobs and livelihoods. Of course, there were also a lot of people that got to sit at home on furlough all through the glorious summer of 2020 whilst being paid the vast majority of their wages while they were far removed from the risks of actually catching the God awful virus but hey at least they clapped for us, anyway I digress. I would actually like to take the time to praise the Trust on its benevolence and forward thinking by bringing in the wellbeing hour policy. For once a good policy that has allowed staff the freedom and flexibility to manage the work life balance during this highly stressful COVID-19 period. For all the staff that have no option but to come into work every single day, that can’t possibly work in the comfort of their own homes due to the nature of the job that they do, the wellbeing hour has been a small ray of light in these bleak uncertain times.

I therefore find it strange to hear that the policy is being withdrawn. Was it not bad enough that it actually started in June and was kept quiet from the vast majority of staff until they had already lost over two days’ worth of time? I guess the policy was only meant for the people that populate the higher bands of this Trust. Was it not bad enough the ‘day off’ reward or ‘meal out’ reward both of which was promised by numerous managers was quietly withdrawn? We gave a policy that has been universally beneficial for staff morale and is fairly easy to manage by any half way decent manager or team leader and what do the higher ups do… cancel it! Kind regards, Anon Dear colleague, I’m glad that you valued the wellbeing hour and were able to take it. This initiative was widely publicised across the Trust via the COVID bulletin, daily bulletin, TeamTalk, Heartbeat as well as through various management forums and was open to all staff. We know that, of the staff that did manage to take the wellbeing hour, this was from a range of grades and not limited to those in higher pay bands. However, whilst the wellbeing hour was intended to support staff to take some regular time within the working week to focus on their wellbeing and access the wellbeing options available in the Trust, the overwhelming feedback we received was that this approach wasn’t working for all teams. Ongoing operational and staffing challenges have made it difficult to facilitate this time in a regular and consistent way across the Trust, putting additional pressure on already stretched teams. The wellbeing of our colleagues continues to be of paramount importance to us, which is why the Trust is looking at alternative ways in which to support wellbeing in addition to the wide range of support already available. This includes: creating structured time within existing team forums to focus on wellbeing; investing in the improvement and refurbishment of staff rest areas; continuing to focus on recruitment and retention to improve staffing levels; allocating funding from our training and development budget to support training in health and wellbeing; exploring ways in which to support staff with their food and drink whilst at work. This approach is based on feedback received from both managers and colleagues within the Trust. As you mentioned, the Trust has also funded Away Days for a large number of teams – this option has not been withdrawn and the funding is available until 31 March 2022. If your team has not yet had an away day and wishes to do so, please speak with your manager about this. Kind regards, Frieza Mahmood Chief People Officer

Richard talks about: playing our part for a greener planet Richard Beeken, Chief Executive

RICHARD'S LAST WORD Our NHS generates a massive amount of carbon emissions as we deliver care to thousands within the local population. We consume vast amounts of energy and water, produce tonnes of waste and require colleagues and patients to travel to get to work and receive care, which all use our planet’s valuable resources. Throughout the pandemic, many of us have been concerned about the impact of more single use, disposable items being used in even greater quantities. I think our Trust has a fantastic opportunity to make a difference to our planet, reducing carbon emissions, and, if everyone in the NHS follows a similar path, the real benefits will be enormous. It was fantastic to see the Trust’s Green Plan at the first Trust Board meeting of the year. It was a welcome change to talk about the significant achievements that we have made in this area, and to set high ambitions for the future. With one of our three strategic objectives being about improvements to the population’s health, our Green Plan is a key component to deliver this. Reducing carbon emissions leads to a healthier environment to live and work in. Clean air makes a real difference to people’s health. Our respiratory team will tell you just how damaging polluted air is to people’s lungs and their long term health and wellbeing. People who live in higher polluting areas (i.e. along the M5 and M6 corridor) have a proven increased likelihood of hospital admission with respiratory conditions. We have been commended nationally for our sustainability work, winning last year’s coveted Health Service Journal sustainability award. This award was for our combined efforts, with partners, to become more sustainable, engaging with staff and communities along the way.

What we are committing to 1.

Workforce and system leadership – A clear Board level lead and senior responsible officer for leading on carbon net zero and our greener NHS agenda (Rachel Barlow). Engaging staff, patients and visitors in sustainable practices, assess all business cases for sustainability and social value, work with partners to optimise sustainability across the local area. Estates and facilities – MMUH will be in the top 10 per cent of UK buildings in terms of energy performance. New buildings or refurbishments will be planned in line with the latest environment and sustainability guidance. We will create our first net carbon zero in the learning campus on the MMUH site, put in place ambitious plans to deliver net carbon zero for energy related emissions by 2030. Travel and transport install more electric vehicle charging points, move to low and ultra low carbon vehicles within our transport service and leased vehicles, incentivise travel to work via alternatives to single use car occupancy, enable remote working, work with planners to improve use of canal network. Medicines – shift towards low carbon usage products for inhalers and anaesthetic gas, increase recycling rate for medical packaging, reduce medicines wastage, support reduced prescribing and increased social prescribing.

Climate adaption – natural and mechanical ventilation in buildings, keep green spaces on Trust sites, risk assess areas of the Trust for the impacts of climate change.

Green spaces and biodiversity – implement our grounds and garden plan to maintain green spaces and biodiversity across our sites, including growth of food, install outdoor gym equipment, plant 400 trees across our sites in the next two years.

Sustainable care models and digital transformation – introduce more “one stop shop” appointments for patients reducing need for multiple visits, more remote appointments for clinical care, work with partners to support patients at home in improving energy efficiency.

Our People – enable all colleagues to make changes to improve sustainability, maintain smoke free sites, reward staff for green actions and provide suitable training, support reductions in fuel and food poverty.

Sustainable use of resources, supply chain and procurement – improve recycling and waste reduction (this will demand a significant change from each and every one of us), reduce water consumption, reduce single use plastic items, increase reusable PPE, work with suppliers to reduce packaging.

10. Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) – publish our GHG emissions annually, switch lighting to LEDs, replace gas fired steam boilers with low temperature hot water boilers, offset carbon with tree planting, phase out coal and oil heating, purchase 100 per cent renewable energy. Our Trust is truly leading the way in innovative practices and I know there is a growing groundswell of passionate, committed people, right across all areas of the Trust who are coming together to make real change. We are likely to be leading the green agenda for health and care partners across Birmingham and the Black Country too, and we are looking forward to sharing our experiences, as well as learning from others. If you want to get more involved or have ideas that you think we should adopt, contact Fran Silcocks, Head of Sustainability or Rachel Barlow, Director of System Transformation. We can all contribute to making a difference and will continue to work hard to make those innovative changes towards a greener planet.

Team arrhythmia take on zip wire challenge at Midland Met YOUR TRUST CHARITY

on my teammates to get me through the challenge. I’m confident that together we can see this challenge through. “The opening of our new hospital is significant not just for us as medical professionals, but for the patients that will use our services. The enhanced level of care we’ll be able to deliver and working in a modern, fit for purpose space is something I’m looking forward to. I’m especially keen to begin using the new cath labs at Midland Met.”

 @SWBHCharity To donate to the Your Trust Charity text “SWBH16 £5” to 70070 2022 is here. That can mean only one thing – our charity zip wire event is just around the corner. On 26 and 27 March, Your Trust Charity will be hosting its flagship fundraising event. Thrillseekers from across the Trust and supporters from outside the organisation will unite to take on the mighty zip wire. Descending 220 metres on a zip line, participants will enjoy the views as they reach speeds of up to 35mph, all whilst raising money for our Midland Met charity appeal. This month we caught up with the team from cardiology to find out more. Team arrhythmia is made up of Dr Shamim Rahman, Emma Corbett and Syreena Wilks. Together they care for patients with complex cardiac conditions and cardiac emergencies, including heart attacks, cardiac arrests, and life-threatening arrhythmias. Supporting the charity appeal was important as Midland Met will be the beginning of a new era for them and signifies the opportunity to help transform the care they deliver. Dr Shamim Rahman, Interventional Cardiologist, told us: “The main reason I decided to take part is to prove that I’m not a wuss. I have a phobia of heights, so I will be relying

when Midland Met opens is the difference it will make to improve healthcare services in our local communities. Having new equipment in a brand-new hospital is something we’re all excited about.” If you would like to support the team it’s not too late. You can donate via https://www.justgiving.com/ fundraising/teamarrhythmia.

Emma Corbett, Cath Lab Sister, told us: “I’ve been saying for years I wanted to do something for charity like a bungee jump or skydive but have always been too scared, so this was perfect! “Zip wires look like fun and, being able to raise money for my Trust where I will see the impact of our fundraising made me take the plunge (no pun intended). I used to do adventurous things when I was younger like rock climbing and canoeing but nothing like this as an adult. I’m a little nervous, but I’m sure that I will overcome my nerves on the day.” Emma added: “Doing this event is important to me as Midland Met is our new hospital and where we’ll be working. I’m keen to work in an environment that’s modern and purpose-built. Plus, it’s a little closer to home, so less of a drive for me.” Syreena Wilks, Staff Nurse, remarked: “I chose to take part for two reasons. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. Plus, with the pandemic, lots of families have been struggling. I want to help raise money to improve the quality of life for patients and families by providing support through services that may not have enough funding. “This event promises to be fun, and it’s outside of my comfort zone. I’m not naturally a daredevil, but this sounded like an exciting way to raise money. I’ve shared posts across social media to encourage people to donate and asked friends and family too.” Syreena added: “The thing I’m eager to see

Dr Shamim Rahman, Emma Corbett and Syreena Wilks will reach new heights for charity this March

January 2022 staff lottery results 1st £172.75

2nd £103.65

3rd £69.10

Anon

Don’t forget that Your Trust Charity lottery costs just £1 a month and anyone who works for the Trust can join. Payment is deducted from your wages each month. To take part email amanda.winwood@nhs.net.