Welcome

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

Smokefree Lothian

NHS Lothian’s grounds will be smokefree from 1 April. A four page pull-out featured in the March/April issue of Connections advising staff on the changes can be found here. There will also be printed copies available in due course as well as leaflets for staff, patients and visitors.

Celebrating Success

Nominations for the Celebrating Success Awards 2015 are open. If there’s someone that you think is at the heart of NHS Lothian and deserves recognition for their hard work and care, don’t forget to nominate them for an award. Further information and a nomination form can be found on the intranet.

Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU)

As part of the ongoing investment in services at St John’s, SCBU has been completely refurbished and the babies and staff moved into their new premises on 19 March. The original SCBU was opened back in November 1989. Work started on the unit during August 2014 and was completed in eight busy months. The total refurbishment has created a significantly improved facility for babies, parents and families.

The new unit can accommodate ten babies in incubators and has four nursery areas including one single room and three multiple occupancy nurseries. The parent facilities have also been transformed giving them additional space in a more homely environment. The furniture for this area was purchased from the Angela Brown Endowment Fund which contains funds raised by parents and families.

Lynne Kerr, Clinical Nurse Manager and Jane Fleming, charge midwife would like to thank everyone who has been involved in the project from the original decant to the planned move back into the new unit. There has been disruption for many but everyone has pulled together and been extremely helpful and positive. Jane said “I am delighted with the way the unit has turned out and that’s down to the help and support we have had from everyone involved”.An official opening is being planned to officially celebrate both the SCBU upgrade and the upgrade of the Labour Ward which completed last year.

SJH 25th Anniversary Event

We are preparing a celebration for the 25 year anniversary of the official opening of SJH to be held on 9 June at Howden Park Centre from 12pm. A free buffet lunch will be provided which will follow with talks & presentations from past and current staff. The event will be informal and will be a celebration of the hospitals history.

Please advise Laura Mancini if you would like to attend.The invitation is extended to all groups and disciplines of staff who work at St John’sHospital. We expect a good response so please note your interest early.

Memory Treatment Service

The Memory Treatment Service was initiated in West Lothian in 2003. Over the past few years there have been significant changes to this service and in late 2013 there were changes put in place to make this a nurse-led model of assessment for people who present with memory impairment. At this time the team expanded to include two Band 3 Post Diagnostic Support Workers.There have been ongoing developments over the past year, to provide an excellent service to people who present with memory impairment, those who are given a diagnosis of dementia, and their carers.

The team consists of two senior staff nurses, Kim Davidson and Jackie Smith, who complete a full initial assessment of the client’s memory and a staff nurse John McKay who monitors memory treatment medication. The team also provides post-diagnostic support from the point of diagnosis. The Post-Diagnostic Support Workers Jackie Kerr and Selina Davis provide support based on the “5 Pillar Model”. They provide a service for people with a diagnosis of dementia at any stage of their illness for 12 months and have close connections with other agencies. The team have recently written a blog for campaigner Tommy Whitelaw who works for AllianceScotland. Read it here.

Laundry Incident

On 16 March an incident occurred in the main laundry at SJHwhichresulted in a temporary interruption to services. The laundry is now working extended hours to catch up with a backlog.

Alan Boyter, Director of Human Resources, visited the staff to thank them for their hard work and commend them on their response.

Tell us Ten Things

Tell us Ten Things (TTT), a system NHS Lothian uses to get feedback from patients and relatives, is changing. The questions have been revised to reflect what patients have told usis important to them. This is a key part of our work to implement the national Person-Centred Health and Care programme and these revised questions have been aligned to the five'Must Do with Me' national priorities:

  • What matters to you?
  • Who matters to you?
  • What information do you need?
  • Nothing about me without me
  • Personalised contact.

The new (pink) surveys will be available from early April andstaff will collect the old (blue) forms and deliver the new ones to all inpatient areas.Ward staff are encouragedto ask all patients to complete a survey. The surveys should be sealed and returned to the TTT teamas usual. They will be analysed and results shared with clinical teams monthly so we can learn lessons and improve. We are also looking at ways to extend TTT to all inpatient hospitals across NHS Lothian. For further information contact Jeannette Morrison, Person-Centred Health and Care Programme Manager (telephone 01506 523589 or Ext 53589) or the TTT team, based in the Patient Information Centre,RIE (telephone 0131 242 7660 or Ext 27660).

SJH Master Planning

Work has been continuing to develop a plan for the long-term development of SJH.

The Programme Initial Agreement for the St John’sHospital campus redevelopment was considered by the NHS Lothian Finance and Resources Committee on 11 March. The first phase of this work was approved to move to the next stage of governance which is the redevelopment of ward 20 (Burns Unit) into a high volume day case unit for hand and ophthalmic surgery. Work will now commence on developing the business case to confirm the project’s scope, costs and programme for delivery. Other developments on site continue with the upgrade of the main reception, the Howden Café, staff changing areas and the coffee lounge.

Trakcare Paperlite Programme

NHS Lothian has started a programme of work which aims to remove the need for paper case-notes, by moving towards an electronic scanned version, and to reduce the need to produce additional paper by moving some key components of the paper record to an electronic form – these key components are:

  • Inpatient clerking and admission documents (unitary patient record)
  • Inpatient progress notes
  • Some inpatient nursing and AHP forms (e.g Waterlow, physiotherapy assessment)
  • An archive of ECG traces
  • Some outpatient forms.

This will work as follows:

Before a patient attends an outpatient appointment, their case-note is scanned and during the clinic the clinician would view this via Trakcare – they may still write a note on an outpatient continuation sheet and dictate a letter as they would currently. The continuation sheet would be scanned after the appointment.

The patient can then be added to the waiting list as normal and on admission their clerking is fully completed via Trakcare (supported by mobile laptops on trolleys) – during their stay all disciplines can view and add to the patient’s progress notes via Trakcare. Some assessments and all ECGs will be recorded electronically. All the paper created during this stay (as not all forms will be completed electronically) will be scanned and therefore available electronically during any future admissions/appointments.

Please note this is not a move to a completely paper-free working and paperwork will still be produced – the main difference is that it will be made available via Trakcare.

The first steps are:

  • Move to electronic case-notes
  • Pilots have been completed in OPD 4 for a GI clinic and in the observation ward – you may have seen this icon starting to display– this indicates the patient has at least one scanned document
  • These will start to be used in clinics and for inpatients from May/June
  • Nursing/AHP forms – training starts in the stroke ward and ward 14 in late March
  • Clerking– review of current admission documentation to take place in April.

Further information will be added to the intranet and monthly updates will be published in ‘Inside St John’s’ and via all staff emails. Dates for awareness/training sessions or electronic case-notes will be advertised over the next few weeks.If you have any queries about this programme please contact Sandra MacGillivray, eHealth Senior Project Manager at

Trip Share

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 pilotto 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 as a trial for a period and if successful will be expanded for more staff who lift share. Please registerhere.

Clinical Change Cabinet

The first Clinical Change Cabinet took place at the end of February. This aims to change practice and improve outcomes, by developing our approach to individual patient care and driving quality. Importantly, it will be clinically driven and not management driven. The next meeting is scheduled to take place on 21 May. More information can be found here.

Pensions

A reminder that new arrangements for public sector pension schemes will come in from April 2015. Information on the changes can be found here.

Death Certification

New arrangements for the certification and registration of death will come into force in Scotland on 13 May 2015.The changes are required by the Certification of Death (Scotland) Act 2011.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland will run the new independent review service and has produced a series of Questions and Answers to guide you through the key points of the changes.

New consultant appointments

Diabetes and Endocrinology

Dr Liesbeth Van Look has replaced Dr James Walker who has now retired.Dr Van Look has been completing her training at SJH and is already well-known to the service.

Dr Rohana Wright has also been appointed to a new post to support the increased demand on diabetes & endocrinology. Dr Wright joins SJH after completing her training in Newcastle.

Cardiology

Dr Alan Jaap has been appointed to a new cardiology post split between SJH and the RIE. Dr Jaap joins after completing a fellowship in Australia.

Haematology

Dr Robbie McNeil has been appointed to replace Dr Rosie Jones who has taken up a post in NHS Borders. Dr McNeil is currently finishing his training in the West of Scotland and will join St John’s from August.

Retirements

In addition to the retirement of Dr James Walker from Diabetes and Endocrinology, St John’s also says farewell to Dr Donald Farquhar from Medicine of the Elderly who has been a consultant at St John’s for many years. Dr Farquhar’s replacement is currently being advertised.