Health services set to raise awareness at iconic temple

Services from our Trust are partnering up with an iconic Sandwell temple to raise awareness of healthcare services available to the community.

The Balaji Temple in Oldbury will welcome teams from our organisation at the venue on Saturday 22 April, at an annual health promotion event.

Dr Kanagaratnam, Chairman of the Balaji Trust and a retired GP, said: “It has been a personal dream of mine to bring health and wellbeing services together at Balaji Temple for the benefit of the community.

“Wellbeing and peace to all is a central tenet of the Hindu faith. I welcome all local residents to attend and benefit from the wonderful services provided by Sandwell Council and SWB NHS Trust, whilst taking in the sights of the Temple and sharing a wholesome vegetarian lunch with us.”

The event will be held in the community centre, which was previously used as a COVID vaccination centre.

The Hindu Temple is open to all and is visited by over 150,000 people annually, playing an active role in supporting the community. More than 20,000 school children visit the site each year and it’s been described as “the delight of Oldbury that crosses community lines to bring people together” by Shaun Bailey, the MP for West Bromwich West.

Initiatives including the Targeted Lung Health Checks (TLHC) for smokers and ex-smokers and the Cancer Hotline service which residents can call if they are worried about symptoms of the disease will be at the event.

As part of NHS England’s THLC programme, residents across Sandwell will receive an invitation to take part in the check. Those invited will have an appointment with a lung health nurse, and depending on their symptoms will then be offered a low-dose CT scan in a mobile truck located within their community.

Steve Nelson, Programme Manager for the TLHC project, said: “Attending the event allows health professionals to reach out to the wider community, raising awareness of this really important initiative. For the majority of those who attend the lung health checks, everything will be fine, while for those where we do find something wrong, catching it early can make all the difference. Lung cancer can be difficult to detect early which is why so many

PRIMARY CARE, COMMUNITY AND THERAPIES

people are currently diagnosed with an incurable disease. However, these checks are helping us to diagnose many more people earlier when it is far easier to treat.”

Daren Fradgley, Chief Integration Officer added: “Bringing together such a wide programme of health and wellbeing programmes at the Balaji Temple will spread the message and improve engagement of the local communities, helping us deal with the health inequalities that exist within the region. This is a great example of partnership working with our community and other organisations in the Sandwell area.” Other services from the Trust to attend will include bowel cancer screening.

Meanwhile, Healthy Sandwell, part of Sandwell Council’s Public Health team, will also be raising awareness of the support it provides to local people, helping them to make positive lifestyle changes such as quitting smoking or losing weight.

Are they really all benefits?

Dear Heartbeat

So I’m fairly new to the Trust and when one of my fellow colleagues told me about some of the staff benefits available at the hospital I was well excited! It was nice to get a £10 festive offer and access to some of the other NHS perks such as the Blue Light Card however when I delved deeper into the depths the whole staff benefit scheme, I was a little surprised to what I was finding. Having done some research, I was a shocked to find we encourage of staff to save money but at the same time encourage debt! Around Christmas time for example we were encouraging staff to get into debt buying electrical goods for them and their families in high interest monthly payment schemes and that is just one example I noticed on the surface. Do these things go through a proper sign off process? Is the Trust paid a nice chunk of money to promote these things or something so we turn a blind eye to staff finances if it lines the pocket of the Trust? Lucky for me I’m quite financially savvy but I can imagine many staff especially those on lower bands of getting tricked and feeling pressured into these schemes and paying out more money long term. Is this how we should be looking after our staff especially when the cost of living is so high at the moment? We call them staff benefits but perhaps we should put an asterisk* next to whole staff benefit offers we offer our hospital staff. That is unless some of these so called ‘benefits’ are reviewed with more due diligence. I understand we are all adults, and not all the benefits are bad here but I also think as an NHS organisation, we should be providing actual benefits and not producing pitfalls of debt for our staff.

Thanks, Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

The Trust offers a wide range of benefits to our colleagues. These include a variety of free to access benefits such as: lifestyle discounts through a range of retail outlets (these are completely free to access via 'SWB Benefits'), health & wellbeing benefits such as massages, meditation, yoga etc through our Sancturary /Wellbeing Hubs, onsite gyms, physiotherapy, counselling, eyecare vouchers, will writing service, pre-retirement seminars, discounted bus travel, to name a few. Full details of what we offer can be found in our Reward & Recognition Guide via our Staff Benefits Connect page or by logging into the SWB Benefits portal.

One of the many benefits we provide includes a small number of salary sacrifice schemes. These schemes allow individuals to purchase/ hire a product (depending on the nature of the scheme) and spread the cost over a longer period (e.g. 12 / 24 months) by exchanging a proportion of their salary for the cost of the benefit. By doing this, colleagues make savings through reductions in national insurance and pension contributions (and in certain schemes, tax). No interest is charged on these items. Schemes such as Cycle to Work (which is a government scheme) and our Lease Car scheme help to promote sustainable travel to work.

The Trust does not receive any payment from our benefits partners for these schemes, nor do we pressurise people into using them.

Checks are made to ensure colleagues do not fall below the national living wage and there are caps on how much can be spent within specific schemes. It is an individual responsibility to determine whether such a scheme is affordable or beneficial to them, as each person's circumstances and preferences are different.

We also offer a variety of methods to help people with the costof-living crisis in addition to all the free benefits mentioned above. This includes information on a range of financial well-being support options, a pop-up shop that sells goods at cost price and a school uniform swap shop. We are continuing to explore other ways in which we can support colleagues during this difficult time.

Kind regards,

Frances Jackson

Senior People & OD Partner (Retention Lead)

Wasted resources?

Dear Heartbeat,

Can someone explain why there is so much for want of a better term ‘wasted resources’ on interpreters?

I say this because every day I work, I see interpreters arriving and when the patient arrives, saying, they have NOT requested an interpreter and they (the interpreter) are still getting paid at band 4 level I believe.

A lot of these patients come on a regular basis, they know exactly what treatment they are having and what it entails, so why on earth are these interpreters being paid week after week to relay the same messages? Something needs to be done about the needless booking of some of these interpreters.

Please do not reply mentioning the Trust not wanting family members to interpret because I have also seen relatives arrive with patients that have had interpreters booked and the family member has refused the interpreter coming into the consultation and they the relative goes in and interprets what is being said and they (interpreter) are still being paid for work not done.

Thanks, Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for flagging this as an issue. Interpreters are provided on the basis of bookings requested locally by clinical teams and the central team make every effort to accommodate these through the Trust bank interpreters (45 - 50); you are right to say they are renumerated at AfC band 4 .

On the issue of family interpreting, it's true that Trust interpreting policy explains that patients’ family and friends should not be used to interpret, although there are circumstances where this needs to be balanced against a patient’s health need at that time, for example if an undue delay in providing an interpreter may be a risk to the patient’s health.

Our policy is based on national evidence-based guidance (NHS England, 2019), which strongly discourages reliance on family interpreting. However, this guidance explains that if a patient expressly desires a family member to interpret, informed consent should be obtained, sought from them independently of the family member, in their own language and documented by clinical staff. This can be picked up locally when deciding whether an interpreter is required for an appointment.

Use of family though is strongly discouraged in policy to safeguard clinical accuracy and independence of translation in general. Often interpreters are requested by clinicians for this reason.

A region-wide review of our interpreting services was recently completed with a number of actions to be picked up regarding quality. One of these will be implementation of remote video interpreting. This is not intended to replace face-to-face interpreting however, but to enhance service provision in the event there is an unmet need.

Not knowing the detail of the area or clinic, it is difficult to comment more specifically. I am very happy to come over to hear more about the issues pointed out and pick up with service leads as appropriate if you would like to get in touch - jamie.emery2@nhs.net.

Best wishes,

Jamie Emery Patient Insight and Involvement Lead