M

Dear members,

embership atters

Autumn 2011 Issue 3

Changes at the top but FT remains the priority

In June, I announced my intention to step down from my position as chair of St Georges Healthcare NHS Trust at the end of October this year. I have been proud to serve the trust for the past eight years and I am pleased to have been part of the many positive developments which have helped to enhance patient experience and safety. During my time as chair the trust has seen some significant changes not least the establishment of St Georges Healthcare as both a major trauma centre and hyper-acute stroke unit. In 2009 St Georges Healthcare was named Large Trust of the Year by Dr Foster Intelligence, the publisher of the Hospital Guide, evidence of the great strides that the trust has made in recent years. But we cannot afford to rest on our laurels and must continue to look for innovative ways of working to improve quality of care and deliver efficiencies. For the last three years we have been working hard to become a foundation trust (FT) and it is a huge disappointment that the trust board had to take the decision to put back our application to 2013. I still maintain that being a FT will give St Georges Healthcare a badge of both good quality of care as well as sound financial management and we should continue to strive to become a FT as soon as practically possible. Under the leadership of a new chair and chief executive officer, the board will need to continue to prepare the ground for our FT application. They will need the support of our members to achieve St Georges vision to be a thriving foundation trust at the heart of an integrated healthcare system. One that delivers improved patient care in community, hospital and specialist settings, supported by a unique and nationally recognised programme of research, education and employee engagement. I would like to thank everyone for the support you have given me during my tenure. I will always consider myself to be part of the extended St Georges family which includes staff, patients and the local community and wish you all well for the future.

Nursing response team provide 24/7 care

The trusts nursing response team are helping to improve patient care and experience through the 24 hour cover that they provide. The team, first established in November 2009, sends senior staff to support key areas including A&E, acute medical units and both general and speciality medical and surgical wards. Staff from the team have also been deployed to cardiac, neuro and paediatrics. Exposure to a wide variety of ward areas is seen as a positive aspect of the role as the nurses are able to develop a range of different skills. Nurse Sarah Soares has been part of the team since March 2010. She said: I decided to join the team because I wanted to gain experience in all fields of nursing. I enjoy going onto different wards and helping out colleagues when they are short staffed or when they have a heavy workload. Its nice to lend a helping hand.

Naaz Coker, Chair of St Georges Healthcare NHS Trust

Annual General Meeting 2011

St Georges Healthcares 2011 Annual General Meeting (AGM) will take place on Thursday 29th September starting at 18.00hrs. The evening will include presentations looking back at 2010/11 and forward to the year ahead. Staff will then make short presentations about key areas of work and patients will be invited to share their experiences. After questions and comments to the trust chair, the meeting will end with the presentation of our annual Special Achievement Awards for staff who have made an outstanding contribution in the past year. Light refreshments will be served at the end of the AGM. Naaz Coker, St Georges Healthcare chair, says: 2010/11 was a year of significant developments for the trust including integration with community services Wandsworth. Our consultation to become a foundation trust (FT) was also launched and to date we have over 11,000 members. Our financial position remained challenging and going forward we must address this if we are to achieve FT status by 2013. The AGM will take place in the Monckton Theatre, ground floor, Grosvenor Wing, St Georges Hospital, Blackshaw Road, Tooting, SW17 OQT. RSVP via email to nazet.pereira@ stgeorges.nhs.uk or by calling 020 8725 1635. Please let us know if you have any support needs by 17th September.

Living our values:

Simple changes for a healthier life

September 25th marks Walk4Life day, when people are encouraged to leave their cars at home and take to the streets.
Walk4Life is part of the Change4Life movement that has been set up to encourage families and adults to eat well, move more and live longer. Walk4Life is all about helping people move and walking is a great way to start. Why walking is good for you Walking is a great way to improve the general health of the whole family. Its one of the easiest ways for children to do their recommended 60 minutes of physical activity every day that gets their heart beating faster than usual. These 60 active minutes a day will help burn off energy and prevent excess fat being stored in the body. It also helps young muscles and bones grow properly. Adults need to be active for 30 minutes five times a week so walking can really help. Emma Merrikin, specialist community dietitian at St Johns Therapy Centre said, Making simple changes to your daily routine can make a real difference to improve your lifestyle. If for example you get off one bus stop earlier and walk the last bit of the journey you are increasing your daily exercise. Adding some fruit, either dried, tinned (in juice rather than syrup) or fresh, to your breakfast cereal not only makes the breakfast more enjoyable but you are also increasing your fibre intake and getting one step closer to your five a day. At St Georges Healthcare NHS Trust we offer a range of services that can help you to get on track. There are weight management group sessions and individual appointments available with a dietitian during the day and evening at GP clinics and health centres. If you would like support with exercise you can speak to your GP or practice nurse about locally funded exercise opportunities. Top tips These tips from Change4Life show how easy it can be: For children: Up and about: children need to walk, jump, run and move to be healthy. 60 active minutes: children need 60 minutes of physical activity every day. Football in the garden, scooting in the park and walking to school all help. 5 a day: add some crunch to sandwiches with cucumber, grated carrot or tomato. Me-sized-meals: children only need kid-sized meals; too much food can be unhealthy. Snack check and sugar swap: excess sugar can lead to stored fat in the body. Choose snacks without added sugar such as fruit, unsalted nuts, breadsticks, rice cakes or toast.

St Helier integration update

For adults:
Snack swap: if you eat straight out of a big packet of snacks it could make you eat up to more. Instead, put your snacks in a small bowl. Fibre swap: be good to your gut and up your fibre intake. A simple solution is to swap white bread for wholemeal. Portion swap: feel satisfied not stuffed! Use smaller plates and youll have a smaller portion. Drink swap: even a small reduction of alcohol can make a big difference. 5 a day: work fruit and vegetables into your day. Frozen fruit and vegetables count, it only takes a couple of minutes to microwave some frozen peas for your omelette. Up and about: reduce the time you sit down; even standing is better for you. In December 2010 the board of Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust announced that the trust would not be able to achieve foundation trust status due to its financial position and would have to demerge. St Georges Healthcare was the only NHS trust to express an interest in integrating with St Helier Hospital, including Sutton Hospital and Queen Marys Hospital for Children, and is working to submit a formal bid on 11th November with the St Helier transaction board expected to make a recommendation in January 2012. St Georges Healthcare and St Helier Hospital already have a wide range of clinical and academic links. Many services at both organisations are members of established clinical networks with care pathways operating across the trusts and a number of joint medical appointments. These services include cancer, trauma, stroke, renal surgery, cardiology, vascular surgery, maxillofacial surgery, ENT, paediatric surgery, urology, plastic surgery, neurosurgery and thoracic surgery. St Georges Healthcare is planning a public meeting from 18.00hrs on Thursday 6th October to discuss the potential merger. Find out more at www.stgeorges.nhs.uk/ aboutsthelier.asp
tor trying her hand at CLINICAL SKILLS: a visi arm bandaging an FUN FOR ALL: stand hol der Mariam Tarik from the Courtyard Clinic

Community open day celebrates St Georges

Some 2000 people enjoyed St Georges first ever community open day on Saturday 18th June, supported by MITIE Cleaning and Environmental Services.
The day was officially opened by the Mayor of Wandsworth Cllr Jane Cooper, while the Rt Hon Sadiq Khan, MP for Tooting, also attended to lend his support. Staff from across the hospital and university were on hand at over 50 stands to showcase services, provide advice on healthy living, and offer information about career opportunities. Visitors also enjoyed expert tours of the hospital and emergency vehicles. As well as all the science and healthcare activities, family entertainment included juggling lessons, face painting, and street theatre performances.

For more tips, ideas and activities to help your family make small changes for a healthier future, visit http://www.nhs.uk/change4life

Vaccines ask the expert

Edward Jenner (1749-1823), the pioneer of the smallpox vaccination, trained at St Georges Hospital under the great surgeon and experimentalist John Hunter. Jenner became world famous following his publication in 1798 in which he demonstrated that vaccination with cow pox prevented the deadly smallpox. The term vaccine actually derives from Jenners use of the term cow pox (Latin variol vaccin, adapted from the Latin vaccin-us, from vacca cow). Membership Matters spoke to Professor David Lewis, professor of clinical vaccinology and medicine, to find out about vaccines and their importance in healthcare today. What are vaccines? Vaccines contain proteins or sugars that we call antigens, designed to trigger the body to produce an immune response. A vaccine boosts white blood cells and these cells attack infections or make proteins that prevent infections. For which diseases can people be immunised? Vaccines protect against serious illnesses such as meningitis, pneumonia, whooping cough, hepatitis, measles, mumps and rubella. Some of these illnesses do not have a cure and all may cause tremendous health problems, disability, or even death. Do vaccines work? Yes and there is plenty of evidence to prove this. Somewhere in the world a child still dies of measles every three minutes, but this is a quarter of the deaths that occurred before the measles vaccine was introduced. Before the 1960s in the UK over 100,000 cases of whooping cough, which can cause death or brain damage, occurred in infants every year, whereas today, thanks to vaccination, the number is very low. Dramatic falls have happened with meningitis, diphtheria (which annually killed over 3,000 children in the UK in the 1940s), paralytic polio and other diseases that have been practically eliminated from Europe by vaccines. The recently introduced HPV vaccine will hopefully eradicate cervical cancer in the generation of girls receiving it today. Are there any safety issues or side-effects? Vaccines, like any drug, do cause side-effects, but they are among the safest medical products available. Some common side-effects are a sore arm or a minor fever as the immune system is stimulated to produce the protective response. One of the most amazing things about vaccines is how incredibly tiny doses of a vaccine can stimulate the body into complete protection against an infection. In contrast, if you get a severe infection such as meningitis, your doctor may need to prescribe long courses of antibiotics in doses tens or even hundreds of thousands of times higher than the one or two doses of vaccine used to prevent the disease. Do we still need vaccines now that many major diseases have largely disappeared? A whole generation of parents have grown up never seeing these devastating diseases, which in some cases can lead to complacency. Despite relatively high vaccination rates, many communities still have outbreaks of diseases like measles and tuberculosis and these remain a significant public health problem in London. Therefore immunisation must continue if we are to keep these serious illnesses under control. With global travel we will be increasingly exposed to infections from parts of the world where vaccines have not yet had a chance to control diseases that Europe has long since eradicated. What is the future of vaccination? Research into immunisation is ongoing and proving extremely effective. As mentioned before, the smallpox virus has been completely eradicated. Polio is almost eradicated and rabies is largely controlled in animals by a very successful vaccine. New vaccines are close to release for diseases like meningitis B and dengue (which kills thousands of children in the Caribbean, South America, Africa and Asia). Intensive work remains to be done for infectious diseases such as malaria (a death every 15 minutes), tuberculosis, gastroenteritis (the biggest killer of children under 5) and HIV. Vaccines are being developed to treat and prevent many forms of cancer. St Georges is at the forefront of this research with grants of many millions of pounds coming to researchers in the university and hospital to develop and evaluate new, lifesaving vaccines. Where do I find more information? Your GP can answer any questions you have or visit www.medicines.org.uk, www.dh.org.uk or www. nhsdirect.nhs.uk

turer in : Matthew Szarko, lec SCIENCE OF THE BODY ing the tomical sciences, explain medical education, ana ng visitor to a you anatomy of the eyes

Meet the members

Membership Matters spoke to Stiva Bailey to find out why he joined St Georges Healthcare.
When did you become a member? I became a member in October 2010 following a letter I received from the chair of the trust inviting patients to become members. Tell us a bit more about your interest in St Georges Healthcare. A few years back I received some treatment privately for a slipped disk in my back. Unfortunately this treatment went wrong and I eventually ended up at St Georges. I had an embolisation in April 2009, followed by a microdiscectomy in December 2009 and then a hernia repair in February 2010, so plenty of experience as an inpatient! I am also a postgraduate student in politics and have a passion for the workings of the NHS. Being quite new to Battersea I am keen to engage with and help the local community where possible. Why did you become a member? I became a member to learn more about St Georges and to have the chance to make a difference and contribute to new initiatives. Are you involved in any other local groups? Not yet, although I aim to get into local politics at some point in the future. Have you considered how involved you would like to be as a member? Yes I am keen to create research surveys, representing patient opinion, conducting quantitative and qualitative analysis of services at the hospital and community. Would you consider standing for election to the council of governors? I would certainly consider this as long as I was confident that I could add value in this position.

MEET MEMBER: Stiva Bailey

Cancer service commended by national team

The trusts cancer services, with particular input from the Macmillan Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS), have been commended by the NHS National Cancer Action Team (NCAT) for their participation in the Cancer Information Prescription programme. The purpose of the programme is to offer high quality information tailored to individual patients needs in the form of an information prescription. The cancer services team at St Georges Healthcare was commended for their level of engagement in the train the trainer programme. The majority of the trusts Macmillan CNSs and other members of staff who work with cancer patients, have now been trained how to use the system. Their knowledge can also be passed on to other members of the cancer team. NCAT also acknowledged the partnership approach of learn and share events with The Royal Marsden and Croydon NHS Trust. These learning exercises have provided invaluable learning to the wider national programme. Beverley van der Molen, Macmillan information and support manager, said The Information Prescriptions Service is a tool to support clinical teams offering cancer related information to their patients. It enables staff to tailor information to the needs of patients and aims to improve the overall experience at St Georges.

er, Macmillan cancer information offic HELPFUL TEAM: (l-r) Julia Charsley, manager millan information and support Beverley van der Molen, Mac cancer nurse and June Allen, Macmillan lead

Review to look at Better Services Better Value in southwest London

Doctors, nurses and therapists are coming together with patients and their representatives to review health services in southwest London. They are calling the review: Better Services Better Value. Six clinical working groups have been formed, looking at the following areas: - Planned care and end of life care - Urgent, unscheduled and emergency care - Maternity and newborn care - Childrens services - Polysystems, mental health, long term conditions and staying healthy - Specialist services under London review (for example cancer, cardiac and paediatrics) The NHS spends 2.2 billion annually on health services in southwest London. The review will consider: Are we spending this money in a way that benefits patients the most? and, Can hospitals work collaboratively with each other to improve the service we offer to patients?. It is recognised that hospitals across southwest London have areas of excellence among the services they provide. By exploring how these areas of excellence can be shared, quality across the board can be improved and services can be protected for all patients. The clinical working groups will be discussing the problems and not proposing solutions at this stage, so it is too early to start talking about any proposals for change. However, the overall aim will be to improve health outcomes for patients in southwest London within available resources. You can find more information about Better Services Better Value at www.southwestlondon.nhs.uk

Membership Matters is written and published by the trusts communications unit. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent those of St Georges Healthcare NHS Trust. The next edition will be published in January 201 2. If you have suggestion s for future articles please em ail members@stgeorges. nhs.uk

Dates for your diary

All sessions are free and open to all, but we do ask you to reserve your place by emailing members@stgeorges.nhs.uk or calling the membership office on 020 8266 6132. Please also let us know if you have any special requirements.
Date 21st September 2011 29th September 2011 6th October 2011 17th October 2011 16th November 2011 Time 12:00-13:00 19:00-20:00 18:00-20:00 18:00-20:00 12:00-13:00 19:00-20:00 13:00-14:00 19:00-20:00 Subject Mens health by Mr Ken Anson, consultant urological surgeon Trust Annual General Meeting Potential integration of St Georges Healthcare NHS Trust and St Helier Hospital Superbugs by Dr Tim Planche, consultant in medical microbiology Diabetes by Dr Natasha Patel, consultant in acute medicine unit and diabetes

Location Afternoon: Lecture theatre G, ground floor, Jenner Wing Evening: Hyde park room, 1st floor, Lanesborough Wing Monckton lecture theatre, ground floor, Grosvenor Wing TBC Afternoon: Michael Heron lecture theatre, 1st floor, Hunter Wing Evening: Hyde park room, 1st floor, Lanesborough Wing Afternoon: Lecture theatre F, 1st floor, Hunter Wing Evening: Hyde park room, 1st floor, Lanesborough Wing
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