March 2015
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’s Hospital. 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 Alliance Scotland. Read it
here.
Laundry Incident
On 16 March an incident occurred in the
main laundry at SJH which resulted 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 us is 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:
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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 and staff will collect the
old (blue) forms and deliver the new ones
to all inpatient areas. Ward staff are
encouraged to ask all patients to
complete a survey. The surveys should
be sealed and returned to the TTT team
as 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’s Hospital 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
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.
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:
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
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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.
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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
sandra.macgillivray@luht.scot.nhs.uk
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 pilot to 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 register here.
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.
This is your site newsletter and we want to hear from you about what’s going on in your
service.
Please send stories to Laura.Mancini@nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk