Midwives at Good Hope Hospital received a donation of more than £3,000 from the final two members of the Sutton Coldfield Group of the Standing Conference of Women’s Organisations (SCWO) this week.

The funds will be put towards two special needs suites and the bereavement suite within maternity, benefiting Good Hope’s youngest and most vulnerable patients and their families.

Jean Dempsey, 81, and Jean Walford, 74, from the SCWO came into the department to present the cheque to the maternity team– and announced that after more than 25 years, this would be their last visit to the Hospital as the organisation was to disband.

Maggie Coleman, maternity services manager, said: “We have enjoyed a special relationship with the SCWO for many, many years and we would like to thank the ladies for all of their support. Their donations have made a real difference to our maternity patients. Their latest donation will, amongst other things, allow us to purchase soft, home comforts for the bereavement room to make the environment as comfortable as possible for relatives at a very distressing time.”

Jean Dempsey said: “Our organisation has always taken a special interest in our local Hospital’s maternity services. The group has not only been a place for local women to meet on a monthly basis, but we also made it our goal to help and support our town and it’s Hospital. Now is the time for us to retire as the final two members of the SCWO, but we are so pleased to have given a final donation to such a worthy cause.”

Visitors to Good Hope Hospital are benefitting from a free parking trial which commenced this week.

From Monday 14 February, all the main visitor areas at the Hospital are free of charge for those who park on site between the hours of 6pm and 9pm, Monday to Friday. The trial is expected to last for a three month period, ending 13 May 2011.

The aim of the scheme is to both encourage inpatient visitors to visit their relatives and friends more regularly and to ease some of the congestion experienced at peak times at the Hospital.

The trial will help determine whether providing free parking in the evening will help ease car park congestion during the day, when the Hospital and its parking is at its busiest.

Paul Quinsey, Head of Technical Services for the Trust, said: “This trial is a positive step forward in working to tackle the long standing parking capacity issues which Good Hope has experienced. It is our hope that patients visiting their inpatient relatives and friends during the daytime, find they can park more swiftly and efficiently with this scheme in place. Depending on the results of the trial, it may be something we roll out on a permanent basis, or it may simply provide us with more information about what we can do next.”

Please note this will apply to the main visitor car parks only.

For more information about the free parking trial, please contact the Good Hope car parking office on (0121) 424 7877.

My role in the communications team has a strong focus on patient safety and infection control. I work with clinical teams across the hospitals, looking at ways to raise awareness and promote the work they develop and implement, creating safer systems and procedures for the patients coming through the doors each day.

Winter is a tough time as there are lots of nasty viruses hanging around, waiting to encroach on our surrounding community. The usual suspects come in the form of flu and noro virus, known more informally as sickness and diarrhoea – if you cross either of their paths and catch one of these you are going to know about it.

For us, we need to make sure we keep them out of our hospitals and away from our patients whose immune systems need protecting from germs, allowing them time to recover from operations and get their health back on-form after suffering a serious illness.

On driving into one of our car parks, entering through one of our doors, or ambling along a corridor, you may have seen our giant blue and green cartoon bugs, decorating every wall and noticeboard in sight in the form of posters and banners.

At every opportunity, these little bugs and their awareness campaign help us remind you and our staff that the only way to beat the bugs and not catch or spread the nasty viruses, is to clean our hands, especially when entering and leaving wards, along with before and after any physical patient contact.

The most difficult of the two for us to tackle is noro virus. If it manages to find its way in, it spreads between patients at the rate of knots making it difficult for us to contain when we have an outbreak between patients in a ward.

We have now found it most effective to close the affected wards to visitors, giving patients time to recover without new germs being brought in by visitors. Did you know, if you have suffered from diarrhoea and vomiting, just because the symptoms have stopped, you are still highly contagious for a whole 48 hours after they disappear – that is nearly two whole days!

It’s amazing how much you learn each day working in the NHS, infection control is one of the most interesting areas as there are so many different aspects to it. So, next time you come in, take a look around and see how many of our beat the bugs you can spot on your way round but, remember – keeping the bugs away makes for a much safer stay.

The Care Quality Commission has lifted the final condition imposed on the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust after inspectors found the trust has made the necessary improvements to assess the training needs of staff.

In April 2010 the regulator registered the trust on condition it made improvements to three essential standards of care when it introduced a new registration system for all health and adult social care services.  Two conditions were removed in October 2010.

Inspectors gathered information to support their decision during visits to three hospitals (Heartlands, Solihull and Good Hope Hospital) in December. These visits were carried out specifically to see if the trust had made the necessary improvements relating to the training needs of staff.

Inspectors spoke to patients and relatives in the Accident & Emergency department and on wards which provide care to older people.

Patients in A & E said they were pleased with the standards of service and that staff are always “helpful and polite”.

People staying on wards also commented on how quickly they had been assessed on arrival and improved standards of cleanliness.

Staff confirmed that they had contributed to appraisals at which their training needs had been assessed.

The report published today says the trust has:

• Given staff training in dementia care, safeguarding and infection control
• Launched a Faculty of Education one stop shop for staff; which has increased access and information and advice and guidance to support staff learning and career development
• Evidenced improvements to induction and ongoing training opportunities  for all staff
• Provided staff with access to online training
• Given staff access to a range of in-house training that covers key skills to masters degree level courses.

Andrea Gordon CQC regional director for the East and West Midlands said:

”We are confident that trust has reviewed its approach to supporting staff by improving access to training and development opportunities.

“This is positive step which is already improving patient experiences and giving staff better access to support and training which helps them to improve their performance in their respective roles.

She continued: “The trust has assured us that they will continue to sustain and deliver training that meets the changing needs of staff across the trust.

”We would like to thank everyone who spoke to us to help us get a real understanding of how the trust has addressed our previous concerns.”

SOLIHULL residents are being urged to get involved with Solihull Hospital following the recent formation of a user group to represent patients and carers who use the hospital.

The Solihull Patient and Carer Advisory Group will meet every six to eight weeks at Solihull Hospital and provides both patients and careers the chance to share their opinions with senior hospital management about current and future services.

Heart of England Foundation Trust, which manages Solihull Hospital, has a well established network of user groups and the Solihull group is the latest addition to this.

Jamie Emery, patient and public involvement manager from Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, said: “User representation is a very powerful way of shaping services and providing feedback to senior managers in an open forum. The approach works well and we will be delighted to encourage individuals who wish to make a difference to their hospital to come forward and help us improve the services we deliver.”

The next Solihull meeting will be held on Wednesday 16 February 2011 at Solihull Hospital and meet every six to eight weeks in the early evening.

For further detail please contact Tom McLoughlin, patient and public involvement support officer on 0121 424 0548 or tom.mcloughlin@heartofengland.nhs.uk