Welcome

Welcome to the April issue of Inside St John’s bringing you the latest news from the site.

Celebrating Success Awards

Many thanks to all staff members who submitted an entry for the Celebrating Success Awards 2015. Nominations have now closed and the judging panel will meet at the beginning of May to shortlist entries so keep your eyes peeled on the intranet for the shortlist.

25 Year Anniversary Celebratory Lunch

An informal celebration of the hospitals history to mark the official opening of St John’sHospital will be held on 9 June at Howden Park Centre, Livingston (opposite the hospital) from 12.30pm. A free buffet lunch will be provided which will follow with talks & presentations from past and current staff.

An invitation is extended to all groups and disciplines of staff who work at St John’sHospital.There are still some places left so please advise Laura Mancini if you would like to attend.

eCasenotes

You may have seen some introductory communications on this exciting programme. Please see April Team Brief for more details.

Awareness sessions will be run for staff who use paper casenotes. Further information can be found on the intranet. If you have any queries (or are not able to attend an awareness session) please contact

Coffee Lounge upgrade

The coffee lounge upgrade has now been completed apart from the introduction of a new Unison area.Staff have commented on how much the area has improved with new flooring, seating and curtains to enhance the environment for visitors and staff alike.

Frailty

The West Lothian Frail Elderly Programme launched on 21April. The aim of the programme is to improve outcomes, individual experience, deliver value for money and establish a long-term and sustainable service for older, frail people in West Lothian. The Programme has identified four key project areas. At the launch event speakers outlined the main areas of the work:

  • Frailty Pathway in Hospital – Latana Munang (Consultant Physician and Geriatrician, St John’s Hospital)
  • Frailty Capacity Modelling in West Lothian – Neil Pettinger (Analyst)
  • Dementia and Functional Mental Health Redesign for the Elderly – Graham Paxton (Mental Health Services Manager, West Lothian CHCP)
  • Supporting Health and Care in the Community – Alan Bell (Senior Manager Community Care Support and Services, West Lothian Council)

The feedback from the day will now be analysed to consider the best approach for incorporating feedback into the programme. Changing our approach to how and where rehabilitation is provided will be one of the important changes considered by the teams involved in hospital. Look out for more updates in the newsletter and on the intranet.

Power cut

A short power outage took place on the morning of 14 April at approximately 10.00am affecting the main St John’s site. This was linked to a loss of power from Scottish Power and related to the hospital’s back-up systems. A group involving the site management team and facilities have looked at the lessons to be learned from this incident.

Planned maintenance checks have taken place successfully to ensure the system is robust. The facilities team will be introducing a new programme of planned checks for SJH in the coming months to further increase reliability.

Tripshare

Do you want to know how you could save money coming into work? Do you want to help the environment?

To try help make parking easier for people who share journeys to work we are starting a pilot to create 20 protected spaces in one of the barrier car parks for registered car share users. The number of staff/visitors onsite and the availability of car parking spaces will always be a challenge therefore as a means of reducing the pressure on car parking and also help reduce travel costs for staff, this preferential space will be operated for a trial period and if successful will be expanded for more staff who lift share.Please registerhere.

Please contact Iain Sneddon or Hugh Morrison for further details.

Alderstone Road Closures

Essential bridge works are planned for three structures located on Alderstone Road in Livingston this summer.

The structures are:

  • Alderstone Bridge – located on Alderstone Road over River Almond just to the north of Almondvale Football Stadium
  • Alderstone Road Underpass – located on Alderstone Road approximately 100 m north of Alderstone Bridge
  • Hospital Interchange Bridge – located on Alderstone Road over A705 Cousland Road immediately south of Peel Roundabout.

Information has been circulated via everyone emails. Please ensure you give yourself enough time to get to and from work during this period.

Smokefree Lothian

Smokefree hospital grounds were introduced across Lothian on 1 April 2015. The change is generally going well although we do have some areas of concern and would ask you to encourage staff, patients and visitors to follow the policy of not smoking within the hospital grounds.

Tell us 10 Things

“Tell us 10 Things”is a system we use to collect patient feedback in our wards and departments across SJH. Below are some examples of the actions we have taken in response to your comments in the Emergency Department (ED).

The patients and public told us:

  • They did not like adverts on the television screens in ED waiting room.- We have now changed the screens so that they now only show the BBC news.
  • There was no facility to have hot drink/sandwich and the vending machine only sold fizzy drinks and chocolate.- We have installed a new vending machine in the ED waiting room with sandwiches, fruit and other healthy snacks.
  • The waiting room walls were cluttered with various posters. We have now tasked the reception staff with keeping the area clutter free throughout the day. They have ensured that all of the posters are current and relevant and have been properly attached to the wall.
  • There was no way of attracting attention of the reception staff if they were not at the desk.

We have installed a new bell system to alert staff that someone was waiting at reception. We also organised better signage directing patients and public to the bell.

  • There was no notice of waiting times clearly on display. - We organised provision of a screen to be installed in the waiting area to show the current waiting times. The same time is also written on a whiteboard behind the reception desk and is regularly updated.

Patient Discharges

The hospital is focusing on supporting more patients to be discharged by noon each day. This is beneficial for lots of reasons. It helps patients avoid staying in hospital any longer than they need to. Importantly it also helps patients who are being admitted avoid any delay in getting to the right ward as early as possible. It also helps reduce the risk of patients having to be moved late in the evening to another ward. For ward staff it helps reduce the likelihood of patients arriving later in the day. For the Emergency Department it helps reduce the potential for over-crowding which is important for patient and staff safety.

Achieving this requires lots of teamwork and planning from all the clinical teams as well as supporting services such as pharmacy, porters, labs, social care, imaging, the discharge lounge and domestic staff. Patients and visitors can also play their part by being supporting early in the day discharge. Your help in achieving this for patients is greatly appreciated.

The Land of Lost Content by Sureshini Sanders

Sureshini Saunders, Community Geriatrician, has written a book about the Sri Lankan civil war and how her family came to live and work in Scotland. Between them they have served the NHS for over 100 years.

This true story explores the love of country and family; a tale of betrayal, migration and above all human resilience.

The Land of Lost Content by Sureshini Sanders is available on Amazon for £3.99 (kindle) or £8.99 paperback.All profits go to civil war victims.

New appointments

Plastic Surgery

Patrick Addison, Consultant Plastic Surgeon has recently been appointed as Clinical Director for Burns, Plastic Surgery and Laser.

Oral and Maxillo Facial Surgery

James Morrison, Consultant in Oral and Maxillo Facial Surgery (OMFS) has recently been appointed as Clinical Director for OMFS.

Clinical Lead Emergency Medicine

Martin McKechnie will be stepping down from this role from August and Andrew Stevenson will be taking over. Martin is currently the President of the College of Emergency Medicine in Scotland and our thanks go to him for his contribution to the development of the Emergency Department over the years.

Death Certification

On Wednesday 13 May the Scottish Government is introducing a new system of reviewing and registering deaths.

All staff involved in the care of dying patients and their families will need to understand the new process in order to support bereaved families and ensure a smooth transition. From Monday 27 April there will be open awareness sessions across various NHS Lothian sites.

Further information can be found on thestaff intranet.

Catering Strategy consultation

NHS Lothian’s draft Catering Strategy - Our Food, Our Health, Our Care - is now out for public consultation. Further information on the strategy and how to feedback can be found here.

PVG Checking

A reminder that all NHS Lothian staff in regulated work with vulnerable groups must be on the new PVG Scheme by July 2015.

This follows The Protection of Vulnerable Groups (PVG) legislation replacing the disclosure arrangements for people working with vulnerable groups. More information can be found on HROnline.

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