Staff Bulletin 12 August 2022

Ice lollies available today and Sunday for staff and patients

If you're at RBH and Poole today and Sunday, pick up an ice lolly between 2-2.45pm from the Shelley or Dolphin restaurants. Christchurch staff will receive theirs directly. Please allocate a member one member of staff to collect lollies for the whole team where possible, and can wards please collect the lollies for their patients at the same time.

Night staff - ice lollies for night staff will be available from 8pm this Friday for staff to collect. At Poole, please collect from the catering walkway by the vending machine, and at RBH collect from the clinical site office corridor near the atrium.

Teams working offsite are still very welcome to collect their lollies from Poole or RBH, with free parking available in the Lloyd Adams car park at Poole (by the education centre) and in the spaces behind the catering block at RBH. For satellite sites collection time is also between 2-2.45pm but please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to let the team know you will be coming to collect them.

Our new deputy chief operating officer

We are delighted to announce Alex Lister as our new deputy chief operating officer at UHD.

Alex has been group director of operations since 2018, initially at Portsmouth Hospitals before returning to UHD. His healthcare career started when he qualified as a nurse almost 30 years ago. He has worked in senior operational roles that span the full breadth of clinical operations, service transformation and performance improvement, and is well equipped to take on this role.

Alex brings with him a wealth of experience as a senior operational manager and an explicit commitment to excellence in health care and supporting people. The recruitment process for a new group director of operations for medicine will start shortly.

Poole: deliveries delay

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the loading bay and goods in area at Poole are currently closed. The logistics department are still accepting deliveries at the front entrance of the hospital, but this is severely impacting the service the team normally offers.

Poole: No medical photography next week

Between 15-18 August there will be no medical photography service. A standby camera facilities for urgent clinical photography can be supplied by the equipment library. There will also be no medical photography on 1 and 2 September.

RBH: Wudu in the chapel unavailable on Monday

The Wudu in the chapel will be unavailable on Monday (15 August) to allow for some investigation work on the water supply. Estates apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

RBH: No palliative care team this Sunday (14 August)

For urgent concerns, 24 hour advice is available from the Macmillan Unit, please call ext. 5470 option 1 between the hours of 8am to 5pm and option 3 between the hours of 5pm to 8am.

For non-urgent queries, please leave a message on ext. 6021 and a staff member will pick these up on Monday (15 August).

New suicide awareness eLearning on BEAT

Knowledge of suicide prevention is important for the safety of our patients and our staff. If you wish to find out more information, complete the zero suicide alliance eLearning which can be accessed by logging into your BEAT VLE and picking suicide training from the find eLearning section on the right side of the page.

While this is an information programme, please remember there is lots of wellbeing support available in the trust, including Mental health First Aiders who are accessible to all of us. Please signpost all this support to your colleagues.

RBH: Free bike tagging next Tuesday (16 August)

Next Tuesday, our local police cadets will be up bright and early to tag our bikes at 7.30-8.45am, in response to feedback about the accessibility of this service. You only need to fill in a form and leave your bikes and the tagging should take 10 minutes. The team will be based outside the large bike shed by main outpatients.

Safeguarding referral update

Our safeguarding team has made a change to the safeguarding children e-forms. There is a new box to ensure any concern raised for babies less than 28 days old are also reported to the oasis midwifery team. If you have any questions contact Helen Beaulieu on ext. 4580 and Teresa Izzo on ext. 2619.

Email signatures

We have a standard trust email signature, which is the only signature that should be used.

It is really important to use consistent signatures ensure email recipients see us as a professional and trusted source of information. Please visit the communications pages on the intranet to copy and paste the signature and logo into your signature strip and amend it with your details.

RBH: Change in opening times for Café West

From Monday (15 August) the café will open from 7.30am-6pm, Monday to Friday. The café will be closed Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays. Please pop down to the café to access sandwiches (available on a meal deal!), homemade salads, paninis, pasties and new seasonal cold drinks.

Poole: Fire damper testing

RJ Urmson is currently at Poole to carry out annual fire damper testing. The usual team are expected and will be with us until 2 September. Any queries please contact estates department on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Reminder: Pension rates changing from 1 October

There will be changes to the percentage contribution rate that members of the NHS Pension Scheme pay from 1 October 2022. The changes will apply to all members of the scheme and will impact on the amount that members pay into the scheme each month, meaning if you are a member, your monthly take-home pay may be affected by these changes.

UHD will continue to contribute 20.6 per cent of your pensionable earnings towards your pension each month and the amount of pension you'll receive in retirement will not be affected by these changes. Click here to see how much your contribution rate may change, and here for more information.

New edition of the quality and risk newsletter out now

The next edition of the quarterly quality and risk newsletter is now available on the intranet. This newsletter aims to keep us all updated on the strategic developments around patient safety, risk management and quality governance across UHD. Click here to read it.

South West Rail strikes next weekend

Due to a planned national strike, South West Rail is urging customers only to travel by rail if absolutely necessary on 18-20 August. Please check the South West Rail website for updates and to find out how your commute may be affected.