NHS Covid App - please turn the app off while in hospital buildings

If you have the NHS Covid App on your phone, please remember to switch this off when entering the hospital buildings. We have recently had instances where staff have been contacted by Track and Trace and told to isolate after leaving their NHS Covid app turned on while at work and treating patients with Covid.

If you are contacted by Track and Trace and the contact relates to an occasion where you were wearing full PPE and treating a patient, please explain this.

Remembrance Day planned events

The trust will be marking Remembrance Day tomorrow (11 November) in a range of ways to ensure as many staff who choose to take part can do so safely.

Poole Hospital's service will be streamed on our Facebook page live from 10.50am due to space limitations at the flagpole at the front of the hospital. Staff are encouraged to view the live stream instead of attending in person to support social distancing. You can watch the stream at www.facebook.com/UHDTrust. Christchurch Hospital staff are welcome to join this live event.

The Royal Bournemouth Hospital will be holding a socially distanced service at the flag pole commencing at 10.55am. A section of car park A will be closed in order to maintain social distancing and staff are invited to attend.

To view or print the order of services please check this bulletin on the intranet.

Poppy Appeal at RBH

Due to Covid-19 and infection control procedures, this year sales of poppies are limited to enamel poppy pin badges. Please support us in raising much needed funds for service charities. The badges are on sale at main reception or contact Nick Williams on ext 4157 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

New UHD Covid-19 intranet pages

We have brought together our Covid-19 intranet pages to make it easier for you to find what you're looking for.

The pages are clearly divided into:

• clinical information
• infection control advice – including updated PPE donning and doffing videos and the latest posters for staff and patient areas
• HR and wellbeing support – including our up-to-date FAQs for staff.

You can also easily see where our Covid areas are in the hospitals and our latest patient numbers.

Access the pages via the green box on the intranet homepage.

Covid-19 Staff Advice Q&As

Please click here to view the latest Covid-19 Q&As covering staff advice.

Safe Spaces

During the first phase of Covid-19, we were able to provide a number of temporary safe spaces such as The Bubble at Poole and areas in The Sandbourne Suite at Bournemouth. These proved to be hugely beneficial and so you would now like these spaces to be established as a legacy for staff in the new organisation. With this in mind, we are carrying out a feasibility study with our estates team to confirm their location and ensure they are established on a permanent basis. In the meantime and despite essential building works and patient activity increasing, we have managed to ringfence some of the temporary spaces but recognise we need to provide more areas for staff during the winter months. This remains an urgent priority for us over the next week or so and we will keep you updated on progress.

Staying safe in communal spaces

Please remember to follow infection control advice in all areas of the hospitals including the communal areas in the libraries. This is vital to help control the spread of Covid-19 in our Trust.

Important - Covid-19 infection control training compliance

As we head into winter, the risks of the second wave of Covid-19 are becoming apparent. We are seeing an increase in numbers of patients with Covid-19, and it's vital to protect yourself, your colleagues and our patients.

All clinical and medical staff should complete the infection control e-learning module as soon as possible, unless they have attended face to face level 2 infection control training, completed the E-learning for Health infection control module or the infection control level 2 module via BEAT/VLE within the last twelve months.

We will be reporting on compliance and expect managers to cascade this important message to your teams.

Poole staff can go to the mandatory training pages on the intranet to complete training online.

Bournemouth and Christchurch staff can view it via the BEAT VLE.

Have you had your flu jab?

A huge thank you to all the teams who have rolled up already for their flu vaccination this year. It's more important than ever to have your jab with Covid-19 in circulation in the community.

Well done to the following groups of staff who are leading the way this year:

It's simple to have your jab this year – with more than 100 peer vaccinator colleagues across our hospitals, there's probably one near you! If not, why not arrange for the occupational health trolley to visit you and your team at a time that's convenient. Please visit the intranet for more information on peer vaccinators, trolley rounds and more.

Agile Working from Home eForm

As with the first Covid wave, the Trust will continue to support staff working flexibly. This includes working from home, where appropriate, safe and feasible and has been approved in advance by line managers.

Please see the latest news on the intranet to find out more about working from home and how to log a request.

Medical workforce planning is going digital

Medical staff are invited to help assess new e-tools that will replace our current rostering and job planning processes.

The medical staffing systems programme will provide a joined-up, state of the art system for NHS trusts across Dorset to support our medical teams through innovative digital workforce tools.

Over the next 12 months we will be implementing e-job planning and e-rostering platforms to help improve the day-to-day experience, work/life balance and the wellbeing of our doctors. It will offer safe and effective rosters, provide clearer visibility of workforce blockers and gaps, identify areas of best practice to help retain, develop, attract and recruit medical staff.

The medical staffing systems programme team has been working in partnership with clinical and workforce leads from the trusts to identify products that they now need your help to evaluate.

Two virtual marketplace events will be held on Microsoft Teams in early December, with presentations on these systems:

• 1 December, 9am-12.30pm: for junior doctors to assess e-rostering systems
• 2 of December, 9am-12.30pm: for specialty doctors and consultants to evaluate e-job planning tools.

It's vital that attendees can commit to a whole session, in order that the scoring process is fair. To register your interest in either marketplace, or for further information, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Help your patients leave hospital at the appropriate time this winter

There are many recognised risks of being in hospital longer than necessary, and this winter, living alongside Covid-19, it is even more important to help our patients leave hospital at the appropriate time.

To help us do this, our wards are updating a web-based system called Health of the Ward (HoW).

The expected date of discharge form on HoW will soon include 'criteria to reside' and 'delay reasons' fields. Recording this information during or after your board rounds for each of our patients will help inform discussions with our health and social care partners about how they can best plan their services to help our patients leave hospital.

An email will be sent alerting everyone that the fields are live, and supporting information will be available on both intranets. More information on criteria to reside can be found within the National Hospital Discharge Service: policy and operating model on the intranet.

Our new values as #TeamUHD

After months of hard work, the new values for our united trust have finally been agreed in an exciting new development for #TeamUHD. Nearly 2,000 of you took part in a staff survey to help shape our new values with 500 members of the public also sharing their opinions on what mattered most to them. The results were themed by our culture champions – a diverse team of staff from Poole and RBH – who successfully presented their recommendations to the executive board earlier in October. The values will be revealed in full, with all the reasoning and evidence behind them, in this week's copy of The Brief.

If you have any questions, comments or queries email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ICE pathology roll out

Due to Covid-19, deployment of ICE hardware is being brought forward. Areas involved have been contacted via email with advice and instructions. Further information can be found on the ICE intranet page. All staff involved in the ICE pathology roll out should now be trained and familiar with EPR. They will now need to complete ICE online training – details and links can be found on the ICE intranet page.

The IT specialist nurses will be supporting areas for a limited time after installation of hardware, so staff must ensure they are trained and ready to use the system. There will be no floor walking and you must book the IT specialist nurses for an advance appointment. They will not be able to visit you without a pre-booked day and time. Once areas are using ICE, all support requests for ICE hardware or log ins should be requested via the IT helpdesk self-service portal under the ICE icon.

Pharmacy deadline for requests for same day discharge medicines

Please help us by ensuring that all prescribing queries have been resolved, the discharge prescription is signed and the pharmacy team informed by 4pm each day.

Please see the latest news on the intranet for further information.

A reminder of new ID cards process

When the new cards are distributed, old cards should be taken away and collated with the paperwork provided and returned to the relevant location (Poole: Porters lodge / Bournemouth: Malcolm Keith's office). The one exception to this are those who use this card for BloodTrack or pharmacy systems. These staff need to keep their old cards while these systems are updated. In this instance it is essential that we receive back the paperwork as this identifies to pathology who needs to have their BloodTrack information amended.

The process is:

• issue new card – date in column on paperwork
• take back old card (where appropriate) – date in column
• staff member signs sheet
• collate together and return to relevant location.

Any gap in the second column identifies BloodTrack users to communicate to pathology for update. These users will eventually find that their old card will stop working with BloodTrack and their new card will have been activated. At this point old cards can be retuned and in turn removed from the security system.

BEAT VLE webinars for Poole Hospital managers

The BEAT VLE (Virtual Learning Environment), also known as the 'green brain', will be rolled out at Poole Hospital from January 2021. The system will give staff easy access to online learning materials and training compliance information. The launch is currently being planned for the new year, so keep an eye out for further details on this.

Meanwhile, a series of webinars are being organised for managers and other individuals who assist with training bookings and queries across the trust (such as the temporary staffing office, department education leads, operational managers, etc). We want to make sure you are fully prepared for the upcoming changes and provide you with some useful information so you can continue to assist staff when we switch to the new system. Separate training materials will be available for staff once the system is launched, but for now we are focusing specifically on anyone who currently monitors training compliance in their area and follows up with non-compliance, and anyone who books training on behalf of staff and/or deals with queries from staff about mandatory training.

If you think you could benefit from attending one of these webinars, please request a space using the relevant link below:

Monday 23 November, 2pm – click This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.to register your interest
Thursday 10 December, 10am – click This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to register your interest

If you have any queries regarding these webinars or the BEAT VLE at Poole, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call ext. 3608.

Healthcare science equality, diversity, and inclusion staff survey

Equality, diversity and inclusion have never been more important through Covid-19. That's why staff in healthcare science are invited to take part in this new survey, which is designed to gather lived experiences of staff from all backgrounds, across all bands and all career levels. If you have any questions, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Take part in the survey here.

Help improve our hospitals - NHS Staff Survey

Our time is precious, as events of the recent months have shown. Taking just ten minutes to fill out this year's National Staff Survey can help make a difference to our working lives at UHD. This year's Staff Survey has a focus on your experience of working through the pandemic, but there are further questions on issues that matter such as leadership and freedom to speak up, where our voices are really important. The survey is completely confidential. You can complete yours by email or post, so please do all you can to have your say and ensure that your teams and colleagues have the opportunity to do so too.

To find out more, or if you have any questions, please email or contact the organisational development team: Poole Hospital: Marie Cleary on ext 2820, or RBCH: Aimee Smith on ext 4438.

Advance warning of road closure

The road around the West Wing and the Jigsaw Building entrances will be closed from 7am on Saturday 5 December. This is a temporary closure to enable the replacement of the water chiller outside the eye unit plant room.

Diversion signage will be in place for the duration of the closure to assist patients, staff and visitors.

Temporary permit parking - Poole Hospital staff

Staff holding temporary parking permits for Barclays, and Poole and Bournemouth College are reminded that they may only park in the designated areas offered to the Trust.

Barclays: this is the surface car park located adjacent to Serpentine Road, entry to the multi-storey is not permitted.

Poole and Bournemouth College: the car park to the rear of the college off Danecourt Road.

Parking outside of the allocated areas may result in parking charge notices being issued to individuals or the withdrawal of the facilities by the providers.

Revised IT forms on the self-service portal now available

Improvements to the IT equipment request form now allow users to see the price of requested equipment items. Multiple amounts of an item can now be ordered and the software will default to select items that are required to go with it. If an agile working eForm has been completed, equipment under that scheme can be ordered.

Improvements to the IT equipment move request form now enable users to select desktop and telecoms equipment they require moving. If a network wall socket needs installing (which will trigger a separate request to action), this can now be done via the form. A date for a move to be actioned can be added and a possible return move date, with the option to state a case for an earlier date required. If this needs to be done within two weeks from date submitted, it will be escalated to the team leader to review and respond to.

New Poole Hospital chief resident welcomes your input

Dr Anjnee Shah, from the department of dermatology, has been appointed as Wessex chief resident for the hospital and takes over from Dr Laura Croucher. The year-long role allows senior doctors in training to pursue management and leadership projects within the trust.

If you have any ideas for improvement projects, or you just want a chat please contact her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or connect on Twitter: @EastDorsetCRs

Junior Joctors Forum (JDF)

If you would like your team represented at the JDF please contact:

Dr Anjnee Shah, dermatology CESR trainee and Wessex chief resident: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Dr Stephanie Austin, dermatology clinical fellow, JDF senior chair person: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Dr Anna Halstead, FY2, JDF junior chair person, doctors mess pastoral team: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Dr Daniel Robertson, FY2, doctors mess president: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Fraud Awareness Month

Throughout Fraud Awareness Month we will be highlighting the most reported frauds across the NHS, providing some guidance on preventing these and identifying when you should report your concerns.

To find out more about what invoice fraud is and how to spot it, and also about fraud risk to finance functions in relation to Covid-19, please check this bulletin on the intranet.

Any deliberate overclaims could constitute fraud and should be reported to your Local Counter Fraud Specialist (LCFS).

If you require any further information regarding fraud or bribery within the NHS, please contact the organisation's LCFS.

UK threat level update

The UK threat level from terrorism was recently changed from substantial to severe as a precautionary measure in response to the recent events in France and Austria. This threat level moving to severe means it is highly likely that a terrorist attack could happen in the UK, but the change is not based on a specific threat.

Please click here to read the latest Trust action card.

Anyone with information is urged to contact police by calling 0800 789 321 or by visiting www.gov.uk/ACT

More information on the latest UK threat level increase can be found here.

Cancer training opportunity

The Wessex Cancer Alliance has shared access to some online cancer training via a webinar, that Trust staff can benefit from. This training is aimed at supporting non-clinical staff working in cancer services and the Alliance would be keen to encourage MDT coordinators and other administrative support staff, critical to the successful running of cancer services, to take up this training as part of their personal development.

Anyone from the Trust wishing to access the webinar must do so using the code LIVE2020. This will be accessible for 12 months. You can register here Cancer Demystified LIVE webinars. Recordings can be found here Cancer Demystified Recordings

To register:

• input your details (name, email address, job role, organisation)
• proceed to payment page
• type in code as substitute for payment details
• your will receive confirmation of registration.

Catering corridor cut through

Staff are reminded that the catering corridor in Poole Hospital is not to be used as a shortcut walkthrough to the Dolphin restaurant to support us to comply with infection control guidance.

Care First webinars

Care First, our employee assistance programme, is putting on webinars this week. The themes are:

• Tuesday 10 November, 12-12.30pm - Finding positives during Lockdown
• Wednesday 11 November, 12-12.30pm - Changes for travelling to Europe from 1 January 2021
• Thursday 12 November, 12-12.30pm - How counselling can have a positive impact on your mental wellbeing
• Friday 13 November, 12-12.30pm - Cyberbullying

Fire extinguisher survey

A fire extinguisher survey will be carried out at RBH on Thursday 12 and Friday 13 November. The company will be accompanied by the IRE officer while this is being done.

Reindeer Run is back with a virtual twist!

Sign up for a festive fun-run in aid of your NHS Heroes at Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch hospitals this Christmas! We want you to run, jog or walk 5km between Saturday 5 and Sunday 20 December. You can complete your run wherever you like (please adhere to restrictions and social distancing) but there will be a signed route at Avon Heath Country Park you can follow using the signs or Strava running app. Registration is £8 per person of £20 for a group of four. Sign up here.

Roadworks

Click here for a list of the current roadworks taking place.