A woman has thanked the Network after a problem with her heart was spotted following a free screening at her local supermarket.

The team worked with local clinicians, care professionals and charity partners to deliver the event at Tesco, in Leigh, last autumn. The aim was to raise awareness of the importance of heart health.

The woman underwent blood pressure, electrocardiogram, stethoscope and blood tests and an issue was spotted.

Further investigations were carried out and she eventually had a pacemaker fitted.

Natasha, community manager at Tesco, in Leigh, spoke to the customer over the phone. She said: “She was incredibly grateful and believes the event saved her life.

“She hadn’t been feeling well for a while, but visits to her GP had not resulted in anything. She wanted to pass her thanks to everyone involved.”

More than 450 people received the free heart check at both Leigh and Bury, with the bus used for the activity seen in the picture above right. 

Celebrations mark success of asthma school work

An event was held this month to celebrate the achievements of the Asthma Friendly Schools (AFS) pilot project.

The initiative tested elements of the national Asthma Bundle of Care and targeted seven primaries and a secondary school which had a high number of pupils missing classes because of the condition’s symptoms.

Running in parallel with the pilot was an asthma peer support programme where children volunteered to receive training that enabled them to support their friends with asthma.

Claire Slattery (pictured below right) was the lead nurse who managed the project from start to finish, and Hannah McMullen, from Youth Focus North West, managed the peer support programme. The programme ran over the past 18 months.

The project produced a toolkit of resources including videos, documentation and standards for asthma friendly schools that could be shared across Greater Manchester to enable other schools to reach the standards.

At the event at the Friends Meeting House in Manchester city centre, hosted by the Network’s programme manager Fran Carbery, Claire Slattery presented the learning from the pilot, which demonstrated a reduction in school absence.

Three schools attended on the day: Green End Primary School, St. Margaret’s Primary School and Co-operative Academy Manchester Secondary School.

The children talked about their experiences of the programme and what they had learnt, stating that they had a greater understanding of asthma (some children had asthma and some didn’t), and understood better how to manage it and to support their friends.

A panel that included the AFS leads and head teachers/staff from the schools answered questions about their involvement, explaining the importance of the AFS programme to their primary or secondary and how the children, staff and parents had benefitted from it.

Cassie Cox, from Manchester Healthy Schools, explained the intention to incorporate the AFS programme into the healthy schools programme to make it sustainable.

Professor Claire Murray presented a research project that she is involved with, called SynAir-G, that will test air pollutant sensors in schools in five countries around Europe, and will include Manchester.

There was great engagement from the audience, which included healthcare providers, commissioners and schools, as well as third sector organisations. 

This included lots of pertinent questions for the speakers and the panel, with further comments about the additional learning and skills development that the children experienced, including presentations, public speaking and technology.

Stall holders included Asthma and Lung UK, Mums for Lungs and Manchester Healthy Schools.

The Network used World Asthma Day 2024 to launch its asthma app across Greater Manchester.

The awareness day, on Tuesday, May 7, was organised by the Global Initiative for Asthma, (GINA) (www.ginasthma.org), a World Health Organization collaborative organisation founded in 1993. This year it had the theme ‘Asthma Education Empowers’ – providing an ideal opportunity to launch the new digital health passport app. 

The app is free for all children and young people across the city region to use and allows them to better manage and monitor their asthma at home or at school. Previously, a pilot scheme had seen the app available to a smaller number of people in the Manchester area.

The Network spread the word about the app on social media to mark World Asthma Day and clinical lead Easwari Kothandaraman wrote a blog about the importance of the day. You can read it on our LinkedIn page.  

A new initiative has been launched at Oldham’s maternity unit to improve its services for women/birthing people who are deaf.

It is widely recognised and researched that people who are deaf, or if they have impaired hearing, have poor experiences of health and social care, due to a lack of systems able to support their communication and hearing needs when in hospital - but they are entitled to the same equitable maternity care as a hearing person. 

Women who are deaf may not be able to hear their newborns cry while they are asleep themselves, or do not hear a knock on the door when staff want to enter, which can impact on their privacy and dignity.

Lesley Chan, assistant director for maternity services at Oldham, played a big role in the introduction of new devices, which give baby crying or privacy alerts. As well as recognising the need to improve services, she has a personal driver for the work, as her daughter has a rare complex syndrome, which means she is multi-sensory impaired.

Lesley said: “We know the Equality Act 2010 requires us to meet reasonable adjustments for women/birthing people and we should always personalise their care. This is such a simple piece of kit to purchase and will hopefully improve their patient experiences.”

(Pictured above: a nurse from the maternity ward with devices for birthing people who are deaf or have hearing impairments.)

Two of the city region’s many hard-working midwives were put in the spotlight on International Day of the Midwife.

Fataneh (pictured left) was recruited internationally and currently works at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Read about her journey from Iran, via Southern India, to Greater Manchester. 

The second case study highlighted the support that midwife Eleanor (pictured right) gave expectant mother Sarah, who is autistic. They worked together to create a personalised care and support plan so that her care was centred around her individual needs and circumstances.

Read more about how Eleanor and Sarah worked together to make sure everything was in place for the big day.

The International Day of the Midwife, on May 5, is a day when people recognise, celebrate, and show gratitude to midwives all over the world for their service to healthcare.

In Greater Manchester, there are 1,534 midwives, caring for expecting mothers and helping to safely deliver more than 34,000 babies a year.

The Network marked Dying Matters Awareness Week, which aims to encourage people from across different communities to discuss death, dying and grief.

This year’s campaign focused on the language that we use, and conversations we have, around death and dying – specifically between healthcare professionals and patients, their carers and their families.

The Network highlighted events being held across the city region, including Greater Manchester’s Suicide Prevention Programme’s Projecting Grief exhibition at the Trafford Centre and the Dead Good Stretford Festival, which held craft workshops to explore feelings about grief and death.

The week also gave the Network an opportunity to promote its website for health and social care professionals, which focuses on information, training and connecting people in the Greater Manchester region.

(Pictured right: Carolyn from Bolton Hospice in a social media post for Dying Matters Awareness Week 2024).

We are proud of the members of our team who took to the city’s streets to complete the Great Manchester Run.

The Cardiac Network’s Col Daffern, as well as the Children and Young People Network’s Fran Carbery, hit the route on Sunday, May 26.

Former clinical lead Dr Carol Ewing, who retired recently, also took part in the annual event.

Col, pictured left with Fran, said: “My time was an hour and 28 minutes, which is roughly what it was the last time I did it in 2021. It definitely felt a bit easier this time, though. And thankfully the rain held off!”

Col was raising money for Target Ovarian Cancer and you can sponsor him here.

Fran, reflecting on the day, said: “It was a warm one! My time was 1 hour and four minutes - a few minutes slower than my fastest but not complaining as I’m not getting any younger!

“It was fantastic to have colleagues and partners there supporting. Really gives a boost when you’re starting to flag.”

Carol, who worked for our Children and Young People Network, was raising money for Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and you can sponsor her here.