www.surreyandsussex.nhs.uk

Coming to your ward soon is Mouth Care Matters - a SASH initiative funded by Health Education Kent, Surrey and Sussex, to improve the oral health of hospitalised adult patients.

Evidence suggests improved mouth care of patients can reduce the risk of infections, improve patients general health and lead to shorter hospital stays.

SASH is leading the way in patient oral healthcare and is the first trust in England to have a designated mouth care team (pictured above). The programme will be introduced across the south east of England in 2016.

The aim of the initiative is that any adult patient hospitalised for more than 24 hours will undergo a mouth care assessment. Healthcare professionals involved in providing mouth care will also have appropriate training. To achieve this goal, four newly recruited oral health trainers are working on the wards delivering mouth care training to staff and providing mouth care for the most vulnerable patients. They are being supported by dentist Charlotte Binks, project lead and consultant in special care dentistry, Mili Doshi, and oral health promoter Jenny Chay.

Mouth care matters

Free flu vaccinations are available now for all staff - please make sure you protect yourself, your families and our patients against flu.

Our executive team have already joined many of our clinicians to ensure they protect themselves and others.

Seasonal flu is highly contagious and is a common viral illness which affects around 15-20% of the population each year. It can

be extremely dangerous, particularly for many of our patients who are vulnerable. For some people the illness can lead to complications which are life threatening. In protecting ourselves by getting vaccinated, we help reduce the risk to our patients. Receiving the vaccine also helps reduce the risk of staff being off sick. During the busy winter months this means we can continue to provide the best level of care to our patients.

Occupational health will be visiting wards as well as offering walk-in clinics in their office at East Surrey Hospital (Tuesday to Friday from 9 -9.30am and 3 - 3.30pm) and at Crawley Hospital (occupational health office). Dates and times of these and additional flu clinics are advertised on the Intranet under

support services/occupational health.

Issue 14 2015

Be a flu fighter

Fiona Allsop, chief nurse (centre photo) and Dr Des Holden, medical direc-

tor, (above) receive their flu vaccination.

Michael Wilson, chief executive,

receiving his flu vaccination

Get social with SASH Twitter @sashnhs @sashcharity Facebook.com/sash.nhs YouTube.com/sashnhs LinkedIn.com/company/surrey-&-sussex-healthcare-nhs-trust

Taking ED to Disney

Congratulations go to the children’s

diabetes team who have been

commended for a prestigious

national Quality in Care Award for

their work with children and young

people. The judges praised their

project which they said embraced

technology to help promote self-

care and independence when living

with diabetes.

National recognition

for diabetes team

David Barton, lead emergency practitioner, has recently returned from Disneyland Paris where he helped provide medical support to 200 chronically ill children on a trip of a lifetime.

This is the sixth time David has volunteered for the Magical Taxi Tour charity trip. He said: “These children spend a lot of their time in and out of hospital and because of their complex health needs they are not usually able to travel abroad. By taking the hospital with us to Disneyland Paris they and their families had a wonderful weekend of fun and amazing memories.”

Occupational health (OH) are here to support all of us in

managing our health and wellbeing.

The winter period can be extremely stressful. Pressures at work

and staff illness may result in additional demands on you and your

team whilst not forgetting the added stress that often comes with

the festive period too.

With this in mind, the OH team have put together some useful tips

to help manage any stress and anxiety we may face at this busy

time of year:

Take some exercise: This is great for working off any

stress or anxiety

Make time for relaxing: Try meditation, yoga, listening to

music or reading to unwind

Get enough sleep: Rest will help recharge your batteries

If you feel unwell don’t try and carry on as if you are not

Plan ahead to manage your time and learn to delegate. If

you feel overwhelmed then try and take one step at a time

Create time buffers in your planning to deal with

unexpected events or emergencies

Recognise when you are tired and listen to your body

Manage your workload: Don’t take on more than is neces-

sary or you can cope with

Don’t over commit: Learn to say ‘no’ if you feel you

cannot deliver

Finally, any member of staff can access the free CIC

counselling support and advice line in confidence on 0800

0851376 or email assist@cic-eap.co.uk.

To make a self-referral to OH complete the online referral form

available on the OH pages on the Intranet.

Winter pressures and stress

Our staff travel guide encourages staff to use alternative ways of travelling to and from work rather than using cars. The guide outlines different options that can help you reduce the cost of travel as well as cut emissions and traffic in the area. More details are available on the Intranet. (Departments/support services/estates and facili-

ties/travel plan)

Staff travel guide

Get social with SASH Twitter @sashnhs @sashcharity Facebook.com/sash.nhs YouTube.com/sashnhs LinkedIn.com/company/surrey-&-sussex-healthcare-nhs-trust

The Ideas to Innovation Factory has been live for one month and collectively you have generated almost 100 ideas. There have been some fantastic suggestions coming through and our team of innovation agents are assessing and working their way through each idea. Examples posted so far include:

an ATM cash point in main entrance – installation is planned for the end of October

a pre-operative assessment – ‘one-stop shop’ – preliminary work is now underway

Our innovation agents review and categorise each idea and, where necessary, further information is gathered. Ideas are then discussed in the evaluation group meeting and a decision is made as to whether the idea will be implemented. In addition to assessing all ideas coming through on the Ideas to Innovation Factory, the innovation agents will support the implementation of the idea.

Ideas

Everyone who has put forward an idea will receive a response about whether their idea will be implemented. Please be reassured that you will hear back from a member of the team over the next few weeks. Due to the large volume of ideas being put forward a lot of work is going on in the background to ensure that each idea is given careful consideration.

How can I get involved?

The project is being led by the transformation team. If you would like to get involved in assessing ideas and supporting people who have generated ideas, or you would like a member of the team to attend one of your team meetings please contact katy.Morris@sash.nhs.uk. If you have an idea please register on the Ideas to Innovation Factory website: https://sashnhs.induct.no/login If you do not have access to email and would like to register an idea please speak to Katy Morris, Allana Hansell or

Sue Jenkins on x 1874.

Star of the Month award

NHS Staff Survey

The annual NHS Staff Survey is your chance to give us your feed-back and rate our Trust. Over the last four years your responses have helped us to make improve-ments in our working practices and culture which have moved us from being in the bottom 20% of acute trusts to the top 20%. For the second time we are included in the Health Service Journal top 100 NHS trusts and top 40 acute trusts to work. This is a fantastic achievement which helps us recruit into our vacancies and is a credit to you all. But, we cannot afford to be com-placent and we need your help and support to ensure that this year’s survey delivers our best results yet. Please complete and return your survey to Capita in the pre-paid envelope. The survey takes no longer than 10 minutes to complete and is managed on our behalf by Capita Surveys & Research. Responses are strictly confi-dential. Capita use the staff names for addressing purposes only – a barcode ensures your responses are not linked to your name.

The survey closes on Friday 27th

Ideas to Innovation Factory

- update

Well done to Rachel Green, team leader in our waiting list office, who is this month’s Star of the Month. Rachel has made quite an impression - six of her team nominat-ed her for this award. According to her team: “Rachel did an amazing job of covering while our manager was

off on sick leave. She has held the team together, been extremely cheerful, kept calm under pressure and done a thoroughly good job for the last two months.”

Rachel was presented with £24 of restaurant vouchers as a thank you by Gillian Francis-Musanu, director of corporate affairs.

Trust Headquarters, East Surrey Hospital, Redhill, Surrey RH1 5RH

Tel: 01737 768 511 www.surreyandsussex.nhs.uk

New chief operating officer

Meet our new chief operating

officer Angela Stevenson

who has stepped up from her

previous role as deputy chief

operating officer.

Angela was also director of

clinical services (medical di-

vision) for five years where

she was responsible for the emergency department

and played a pivotal role in the turnaround of or-

ganisational performance.

She brings a wealth of experience to the role, hav-

ing worked as a clinician and within general man-

agement in both the NHS and private sector.

Angela said: “I am driven to deliver excellence in

patient care and recognise that each of us has a

role to play. I believe that every one of us comes to

work wanting to do a good job and therefore, it is

important to make people feel valued and

appreciated. I want people to feel that their

individual contributions, however small, really can

make a big difference.”

We have a range of great nursing opportunities available at the Trust and are keen to encourage registered nurses living locally to come along and be part of the SASH team. If you have a friend or relative who may be interested in joining our nursing team then please ask them to get in touch. Whether they have recently qualified or are thinking of returning to nursing after a career break - we welcome everyone and support the return to practice campaign. They can find out about the full range of opportunities available at www.surreyandsussex.nhs.uk/sashnurse.

For an informal chat phone Sue Carr, matron, (nursing workforce) on 01737 768511 x 2098

Be a SASH nurse

Executive drop-in sessions

If you have a question that you would like to ask

one of our executive team then come along to a

drop-in session at the Three Arches Restaurant,

East Surrey Hospital.

Paul Simpson, chief finance officer

6 November 2 – 2.15pm

Gillian Francis-Musanu, director of

corporate affairs

19 November 2 – 2.15pm

Come along for an informal chat and take the

opportunity to discuss your ideas and suggestions

as to how we can improve our services. All staff

are welcome, just turn up - no appointment is

necessary.

Visit the Intranet for a full list of executive drop-in

sessions - departments/support services/

executive board.

Dates for your diary

17 November: VMI taster session - 3.30-5.30pm - Atrium,

East Surrey Hospital

20 November: Senior leaders meeting - 11.30am -12.30pm

- Lecture Theatre, East Surrey Hospital

24 November: All staff meeting - 11am -12pm - Atrium,

East Surrey Hospital

26 November: Public board meeting - 11am-12.30pm -

AD77, Trust HQ

26 November: VMI taster session - 2.30 - 4.30pm - Lecture

Theatre, East Surrey Hospital