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2-3 CONNECT ISSUE 19 Welcome to issue 19 of Connect In this issue... SUHT in the news 2 Action boy William reunited with lifesaver 3 Make your vote count 4 Patients and families have their say 5 Getting to know… 6 Golden Stethoscope 7 The Fundraising Connection 8 Tell us what you think... Let us know what you think of Connect, plus tell us what news and features you’d like to see in future editions. Email: connect@suht.swest.nhs.uk Write to: Communications Mailpoint 18 Southampton General Hospital Tremona Road Southampton SO16 6YD Telephone: 023 8079 4853 Website: www.suht.nhs.uk Connect is produced by SUHT’s communications team. Printed on environmentally friendly paper. When you have finished with this magazine please recycle it. Pharmacist completes international lecture tour A senior pharmacist based at Southampton General Hospital has visited Australia and New Zealand to share his pharmaceutical and clinical experiences of working in a leading nutrition team. Peter Austin, who works within the nutrition support team and specialises in clinical nutrition, gave a series of presentations at a symposium on enhancing the safety of intravenous therapy in intensive care. He presented twice at a satellite meeting of the Australasian Nutrition Society annual conference at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and presented four sessions at the University of Auckland, including one on how pharmacists and nurses are prescribing in Southampton for the benefit of patients. His final two presentations were undertaken at hospitals in Hamilton and Tauranga, New Zealand, which discussed how patients are managed in different settings. media monitor the latest SUHT news Ground-breaking Southampton trial could revolutionise diabetes treatment A hi-tech under-the-skin sensor is being used to monitor diabetes patients’ glucose levels in a pioneering new study by Southampton clinicians. Diabetes experts based at Southampton General Hospital are fitting the tiny devices to participants’ stomachs and using them in conjunction with watch-like armbands, which check patients’ physical activity. The trial, the first of its kind in the UK, is looking at how much of an impact exercise has on blood glucose levels while also taking diet and insulin intake into account. Led by Professor Christopher Byrne and Dr Andrew Chipperfield, it is hoped the study, funded by Diabetes UK, will shed new light on type 1 diabetes. Professor Byrne, head of endocrinology and metabolism at Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “At the moment, it is uncertain how day-to-day variation in physical activity influences blood glucose in people with type 1 diabetes. “But thanks to the introduction of sophisticated, light, user-friendly monitoring devices, such as the two we are trialling, we will gauge a better understanding of the link between physical activity and glucose control in diabetes.” media monitor: This story was covered by the Daily Echo, Medical News Today, the Liverpool Daily Echo and The Engineer Doing the rounds Daily Echo journalist Kate Thompson spent a day with SUHT’s matrons to find out more about the crucial role they play in the battle against hospital infections. media monitor: This story was covered by the Daily Echo Reproduced with kind permission of the Southern Daily Echo
Bowel cancer screening programme reaches first year Action boy William reunited with doctor who saved his life As a toddler, William Beresford survived a deadly infection. Eight years later, a twist of fate led him to be reunited with one of the doctors who helped save his life. Now a fun-loving ten-year-old, William recently returned to Southampton General Hospital following a tobogganing accident. William, from Compton near Winchester, loves rugby, hockey, skiing and fast cars. He also has a passion for art and natural history and talks animatedly about his wish to be a British Antarctic Survey researcher. It is impossible to tell that just before his second birthday, he nearly lost his life after contracting meningococcal septicaemia. The same bacteria could also have caused him to suffer brain damage or lose limbs. William and his twin brother, Ollie, had both been unwell with a viral infection. But while Ollie got better, William became much sicker and was eventually taken to hospital in Winchester. When his condition deteriorated further, Michael Marsh, a paediatric consultant, brought a team from Southampton’s paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) to collect William. His parents, Jo and David, drove ahead to Southampton to meet them there, but when they arrived there was no sign of their son. William had suffered a heart attack in hospital in Winchester and they were faced with the possibility that he would not make it to Southampton’s PICU in time. Jo said: “They got him there about midnight but we were warned he might not get through the night. We kept a vigil at his bedside and they eventually stabilised him. We took it six hours at a time and he gradually got stronger.” William spent seven days in PICU before he regained consciousness. Jo said: “I remember him asking for his snuggly and doggy - I only had doggy with me! We were the luckiest people L-R: William, Jo and Ollie in the world; it was a miracle really. We were lucky to have Southampton’s PICU, with Michael and the team, just 15 minutes away. Any further and we might not have been so lucky. They were fantastic.” Incredibly, William made an excellent recovery and has gone on to live life to the full, although his active lifestyle recently led him back to Southampton General Hospital. He was tobogganing on a tray in the snow, when he hit a bump and crashed, cutting his knee open. He went to hospital in Winchester, where he had 12 stitches, but later developed an infection that needed surgery in Southampton. The infection, called cellulitis, spread from William’s groin to his ankle and he spent several days on children’s ward G3. Jo said: “The team there were so busy and working so hard but I didn’t once see a grumpy face. They were lovely.” While they were at the hospital, the family, who now also have a five-yearold son, Marcus, met Michael Marsh. Dr Marsh said: “It’s a pleasure to see him embracing life now; playing sport and having fun, because it was very stormy when I treated him as a toddler. He’s full of life and that is the ultimate reward for me.” The Hampshire bowel cancer screening programme has now been running for a year, at three sites across the county. In the past year, staff have seen more than 450 individuals in pre-assessment clinic and completed over 400 colonoscopies. The three screening sites are Southampton General Hospital, Winchester, and Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospitals. They provide nurse-led clinics with specialist screening practitioners for people receiving abnormal Faecal Occult Blood tests (FOBt), as well as colonoscopy services. Bowel cancer screening is available every two years to people aged 60 to 69, who are registered with a GP. People aged over 70 can request a screening kit, once every two years, by calling the free phone number 0800 707 6060. Participants in the programme complete the screening test kit at home and should receive their results within two weeks. People who receive an abnormal FOBt result will be offered an appointment with one of the specialist nurses. The nurse will explain what a colonoscopy involves, assess a patient’s fitness and answer any questions. The screening programme aims to detect polyps, which may have the potential to develop into cancer over time. Mostly they can easily be removed, reducing the risk of bowel cancer developing. It aims to detect early cancers, in patients with no symptoms, when treatment is more likely to be effective. Bowel cancer facts • Bowel cancer is the third most common cancer in the UK. • It is the second leading cause of cancer death. • About one in 20 people in the UK will develop bowel cancer during their lifetime. • It kills more than 16,000 people each year. • Your risk of developing bowel cancer increases with age and 8 out of 10 people who are diagnosed are over 60.
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