Please see below for answers to questions and points of discussion that were raised on the session. If you asked a question that wasn't answered, please bear with us whilst the response is published. There will be opportunity to ask further questions and give your feedback at the next event.
Q: Can there be anything further done to prevent smoking outside of the hospital from both patients and staff?
A: There is a podium digital sign that the redevelopment and IT teams are working on. Part of the digital screens will include content for no smoking
Q: Raising concerns has become increasingly difficult due to changes to the datix system which involve lots of data entry.
A: A new process is currently in development which will make raising concerns easier and more straightforward. Further information about this will be shared soon.
Q: Are the blinds on wards being looked at? They are inside the windows so are not easily fixed when broken.
A: This is being fixed via estates but a considerable job due to the design of the cubicles. Please bear with us.
Q: Where are we up to with developing better signage for wayfinding around the hospital?
A: Patient Experience team had a wealth of data and feedback from patients and public that is currently being fed into an improvement process.
Q: Whilst increased staff rooms on wards are welcomed, will there be any available for staff on the emergency floor?
A: We are aware of this as an issue and are looking to rectify it, the issue at the moment is lack of space but colleagues will be informed once ward area rooms have been established.
Q: Would it be possible to have a single point of contact for admissions to provide clinicial oversight of referrals/admission to hospital?
A: One of the priorities is admissions avoidance, which will include working with NWAS so their teams are aware of the range of services available in the community that can be considered before bringing someone to hospital and how to access them as we know currently a lot of patients are coming to ED as a default without considering these other options first. It’s important this is a 7 day service too. There will be a piece of work looking at how this is communicated to teams but also to our local communities – most people expect a 999 call and ambulance attendance will take them straight to hospital but there may be other options before people need to come to us. We need to work together as a system to educate and inform people of the services NWAS will consider before they bring people to hospital, to manage people’s expectations at the start of the process.
Q: We have patients who we know are fit to be discharged safely, however once they have been with us longer than 48 hours we cannot discharge them with a Trust assessor first. This causes delays and I think we should change this process?
A: We need to be aligned to national discharge policy, I will be looking at all of this in collaboration with system partners. Included in that we are working with the Head of Adult Social Services for the Council.
Q: We have an issue of private care homes with really restrictive policies, like they won’t admit residents back from hospital after 2pm, so they end up staying in hospital longer than need be. This doesn’t seem sensible.
A: We will be looking at this as part of the acute discharge work – with private care homes it will be a negotiation, but we will pick this up with them. We are also aware that a number of our local care homes are struggling with their CQC ratings and that can make families anxious about sending their loved ones there, so we are looking at how we can support care homes with quality improvement work to improve their CQC ratings.
Q: I’m in the eye screening team in the basement of the Edwards building – we don’t have an air filtration system but we haven’t been given a dust monitor while the demolition has been taking place?
A: The location of the dust monitors was agreed with staff side but I’ll be visiting the Edwards building next week and we can pick this up then if we need to relocate some dust monitors to provide that assurance. Important to note that monitors have been in place for several weeks and at no point have they recorded a breach in dust levels.
Q: Will the Dental be getting dust monitors installed?
A: A member of the SLT has already discussed this with the Health & Safety Team, and they are looking into the possibility of installing dust monitors at the Dental Hospital.
Q: Has there been any progress on improving the staff room areas?
A: Work has begun on staff rooms within ward areas. We have also met with the DCSS division (Diagnostics and Clinical Support services) as we recognise that they currently have very limited space on the Royal Site and are looking to improve their current facilities before we move on to further reviews.
Q: Has anyone noticed the how the bike storage floods following heavy rain?
A: This issue has been raised to our Estates Team to look into.
Q: When the old Royal has been demolished, could we have some green wellbeing space for staff and patients?
A: A green space was on the original plans, I’ll revisit this and come back to you with updated plans in our next MD Briefing.
Session handouts
If you attended a briefing, you should have received a session handout containing key messages, these are designed to be shared with your teams and other colleagues that were unable to attend. They can also be downloaded here: