Heartbeat September 2018

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Sun shines on the annual sustainability garden party at City Hospital CORPORATE & GENERAL NEWS Our colleagues, visitors, and patients soaked up the sunshine when they attended a special garden party at City Hospital, which encouraged people to be more environmentally friendly. More than 100 people came to the event which was praised by colleagues for its informative and engaging activities. Francesca Silcocks, Sustainability Officer said: “We organise the sustainability garden party every year to showcase to our colleagues and visitors our great work in making our organisation become more sustainable. “At the event, people have the opportunity to meet with representatives from different organisations and have a discussion around cutting down on waste and their transport options. “Over the past few years, our organisation has carried out many initiatives to reduce our impact on the environment. For example, our general waste is no longer sent to landfill, but instead to a local materials recycling facility where it is either recycled or reprocessed. We have also saved £16,000 a year, thanks to having two food waste digesters at Sandwell Hospital, helping us to dispose of food in an environmentally friendly way.” Colleagues who attended the event were treated to free food and had the opportunity to ride smoothie bikes. Their energy from peddling powers a blender and at the end of the work out they can reward themselves with a glass of fresh juice. Dawn Hall, Waste Manager, added: “It is very important that everyone knows how to dispose of waste correctly. Not only is that action good for the environment, but also it helps the organisation save a lot of money.” Jorena Bell, Ward Service Officer, said: “I really enjoyed the event and I found it very Sustainability Officer, Fran Silcocks (second from left) with colleagues and volunteers who helped on the day useful. I have learned more about ways to be more sustainable. “I have also been made aware of the new bus routes and I also now know how to use a bus application on my phone, which I find very useful for my commute to work every day.” Debbie Knight, account manager from Weir Waste, who attended the event, gave her three tips to cut waste at home: • Donate old clothes to charity, instead of throwing them away. • Avoid buying fruit wrapped in plastic bags. • Always recycle at home. Make sure you wash the used tins and bottles, so they can be recycled, instead of going to landfill. L-R: Bimla Devi, Apprenticeship Team Administrator and Manjit Purewal, Data Coordinator test out the smoothie bike Midland Met Cup – SWBH reign triumphant! As England took on the might of India at test match cricket, an overcast Sunday played host to valiant battle between physicians and GPs at West Bromwich Cricket Club for the hotly contested Midland Metropolitan Cup. For the 5th year in a row SWBH faced Sandwell Clinical Commissioning Group in the annual ‘friendly’ cricket match with each party drawing together their dream team of players from across their organisation eager to win the prized cup. The honour of opening batting fell to our star batsman, Consultant Geriatrician, Asim Majeed who alongside Conflict Resolution Trainer, Richard Burnell - the two of whom proved their worth when they sent the first six of the game sailing clear over the top of the fence at West Bromwich Cricket Club. Whilst our team settled into a steady batting rhythm, the real battle started when nine wickets had fallen and the CCG began their batting response slowly but surely fighting their way back up to just three runs short of SWBH, ending the game at 175 runs for our triumphant 178. Still jubilant about the glorious victory, our captain, Chief Executive, Toby Lewis caught up with Heartbeat. He said: “After a close Our winning cricket team finish, we’ve managed to keep the Midland Met Cup again, in a year where we’ve fought hard to keep the Midland Met Hospital on track, it’s only proven our tenacity by keeping the cup in our hands too”. If you’re a budding cricketer and would like to be considered for next year’s team to take on the CCG, contact Clare Dooley on ext 3837 or email claredooley@nhs.net The Midland Met Cup 8
Smoke free countdown: 300 days to go CORPORATE & GENERAL NEWS Consultant Respiratory Physician, Dr Arvind Rajasekaran and Buyer, Parmdeep Singh both recorded videos for our social media platforms to mark 300 days until we go smoke free As announced by Chief Executive, Toby Lewis on the 70th anniversary of the NHS, our organisation will be smoke free from 5 July 2019. Earlier this month (8 September) we marked 300 days until the ban on smoking comes into play and colleagues are being encouraged to kick the habit. As an organisation we want to support any colleagues who are interested in quitting smoking. If this applies to you, you can access free stop smoking services during working hours, where you can find support to quit smoking and improve your health and wellbeing. Alongside traditional coaching and support, 12 weeks of free nicotine replacement therapy to help manage cravings is also available. Heartbeat caught up with Parmdeep Singh, a buyer in our procurement team who has been attending the smoking cessation group. He said: “I joined smoking cessation about seven to eight months ago after being a heavy smoker for seven years. Occupational health have been encouraging and supporting me to attend the weekly sessions and they have been providing a lot of accessories such as nicotine patches and mouth sprays. “Since I have attended the group, I have reduced to only smoking one or two cigarettes a day and I believe the patches and sprays do help. “The smoking cessation group is very welcoming and helps staff get together and share different experiences and what different things they can do together and encourage each other to stop smoking.” As part of our promotion of the 300 days to smoke free, we shared a video of Consultant Respiratory Physician, Dr Arvind Rajasekaran on our social media platforms. Dr Rajasekaran explained the benefits of going smoke free and the film has had over 1,000 views. He said: “I am very pleased indeed to introduce our Trust decision to go smoke free. Lung cancer still remains as the single largest cause of cancer related deaths in the UK and lung cancer is principally caused by smoking cigarettes. “This decision to go smoke free will be part of a wider action plan to increase awareness of Stop smoking clinics are available at our Trust, with each session taking sessions taking 20-30 minutes. • Sandwell clinic Monday: 8.30am-12.30pm • City clinic Tuesday: 9.30am-1.30pm the harmful effects of smoking and also our efforts to help people to give up this habit.” Paul Fisher, Consultant in Public Health at Sandwell Council also recorded a video for us to share. He said: “I am fully supportive of the actions of the NHS Trust to go smoke free. “Lots of organisations across England now are going smoke free, (lots of universities and other large organisations), to help protect the health of their staff. Hopefully this activity will reduce the exposure to second hand smoke to the staff, to the visitors, to the patients at the hospitals and it will hopefully encourage people to consider quitting smoking.” One of the first steps in our journey to going smoke free was the recent removal of the smoking shelter at the rear of Trinity House. This shelter has been the subject of a number of Your Right to be Heard letters in Heartbeat after the last couple of months, as colleagues in offices close to the shelter were uncomfortable with the amount of second hand smoke created by people using the shelter. Anil Patel, Digital Media Officer, who is based in an office directly behind where the shelter was said: “It’s a big relief now that the shelter has been removed. We are able to open our windows freely without having to be concerned about second hand smoking.” Keep your eye on our social media coverage of our journey to smoke free by searching #SWBHsmokefree If you would like to take the opportunity to begin your journey to quitting smoking, contact the occupational health and wellbeing department on ext. 3306. You can also visit the Healthy Sandwell Hub which has lots of information on quitting smoking. 9
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Heartbeat September 2018

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