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 Monday 7 March 2022
Hello and welcome to this fortnight's edition of the LCO bulletin. We hope you find this edition useful and if you’d like to share any items in our next copy due out on Monday 21 March, then drop us an email to let us know.
Don’t forget, you can also follow us for the latest news and updates on our Twitter and Facebook accounts.
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Hello everyone
A few important COVID related subjects to talk to you about today. Firstly, our revised COVID-19 safety measures as we welcome back more of you to our LCO office spaces as the Government lifts all remaining COVID legal restrictions by the end of next month. You find out more about the Government’s plan to living with COVID on the GOV.uk website.
We’ve included in our measures that masks are no longer mandatory in our non-clinical office spaces and that testing is still required, but dependant on the service area you work for. These have been decided upon after considering what’s best for our integrated organisation. Therefore, please take some time to review the measures which you can find on the extranet.
Vaccination
Secondly, the Government has now revoked the mandatory requirement for health and social care staff to have the COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment. This decision was made after views were sought through consultation.
This means the revocation will be effective from Thursday 15 March 2022 and from here on, you’ll no longer be asked to show proof of your COVID-19 vaccination status (or medical exemption) to your employer, nor to a CQC registered care home to gain entry when carrying out your role.
Whilst this is welcomed news, I do strongly believe in the importance of vaccination as I’ve said before. Vaccination is safe and effective and helps to protect us, our families and those we provide care for against harmful viruses and dieses. Therefore, I encourage anyone to reconsider who’s been undecided. You can find details on the extranet on how to access the COVID-19 vaccination, plus there’s lots of useful resources to help you make an informed decision.
Support and thank you
With the end of restrictions near and the turnaround on the vaccination requirement, I know some of you may have questions or concerns. If you do, please speak to your line manager or HR Business partner as we’re here to support you.
Then finally, from me and the rest of the executive team - a HUGE thanks. I know we’ve said this many of times, but we absolutely mean it. It’s been a tough journey and we’ve still some way to go in terms of our recovery, but your continued support and commitment through these unprecedented times is something we’ll be always grateful for.
Katy
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World Social Work Day
n my blog this week I’d like to talk to you about World Social Work Day, which takes place on Tuesday 15 March 2022. World Social Work Day is held by International Federation of Social Work (IFSW). “It’s the day in the year that social workers and social care staff worldwide stand together to advance our common message globally.”
I’d like to start with a brief history of this important day:
- The first World Social Work Day (WSWD) was celebrated in 2007 under the theme “Social Work - Making a World of Difference”
- WSWD involves extensive global partnerships representing 100s of millions of people
- Every year the WSWD poster is translated into more than 70 languages, and presented to governments, political bodies and posted on the notice boards of social services and social work classrooms throughout the world
- Last year's theme 'Ubuntu - I am because We are' was the most successful so far, and was particularly well received in Manchester adult social care (ASC)
- This year's theme is a result of IFSW working with a range of partners to build a global conversation on what local and global values, policies and practices are needed as we emerge out of the pandemic.
Every year in ASC we celebrate all your hard work throughout the year with a full programme of events. This year's events are:
- Chief SW will be speaking virtually to GM Social care staff at 10:15am. If interested then please complete the booking form to confirm your attendance.
- ASC celebration: Roadshows across the teams - I encourage you all to think of how you can celebrate the day locally in your teams. A small pot of funding can be made available for refreshments. Please email the Social Work Consultants on adultsocialworkconsultants@manchester.gov.uk to share ideas and claim for refreshments.
- A week of events organised by Greater Manchester Social Work Academy and Adult Principal Social Worker Network. The flyer [PDF, 188KB] has links enclosed to book the sessions that are of interest to you.
The programme has been designed to hopefully give you all the opportunity to attend at least one event. World Social Work Day is a day we should all celebrate the amazing job you all do, so I encourage you to attend as many events as you can.
Thank you for all the fantastic work that you do daily. I know this is one day out of many that you continue to deliver a first-class service to the people we support, but this day gives us that opportunity to recognise all the wonderful work you do throughout the year.
As always on behalf of myself and my colleagues on the MLCO Executive, thank you all for your continued hard work and dedication - it’s very much valued and greatly appreciated.
Take care
Bernie
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Do you have a colleague you’d like to say thank you to for a recent act of kindness or good piece of work? If so, why not put them forward for recognition via our LCO STARs scheme?
Nominating a colleague(s) couldn’t be simpler. You can either pop your thank you into our LCO STARs forum or drop us an email to let us know. What we’ll then do is mention your shout outs in a future edition of our fortnightly staff bulletin.
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As you’ll be aware, HIVE is the new electronic patient record system at MFT which will be introduced in September of this year. Although the majority of our services will continue to use EMIS in the community, HIVE will impact on all LCO MFT deployed staff. Some of our services that are more closely aligned to acute hospitals will use HIVE as their primary EPR from September, and all other community services will need to access HIVE to access hospital-based information such as records, tests, results, diagnostics and discharge information. It has a lot of advantages for us as it means there will be one single system across all the hospitals for this information moving forward.
Later this week, MFT deployed LCO staff will receive our first LCO HIVE update giving you more information and background on the programme which aims to complement the information you will receive from MFT.
The big thing coming up is that all LCO staff who use the EPR will need some training on HIVE over the summer to be ready to use the system. Training booking opens at the end of March and managers will be working with you to ensure you are booked on for the level of training that you’ll need. Look out for the HIVE update for more information on what you need to do.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic there's been so much inspiring work undertaken by our services, teams and individuals. Dr Sohail Munshi, LCO Chief Medical Officer was highly commended for his work on connecting the vaccine programmes to under-served communities at the 9th British Muslim Awards.
For those of you who’re not familiar, the awards showcase the strength of the British Muslim community, their impact on our culture and achievements from over the last year.
Categories include Muslims in the Community, Young Achiever of the Year and Spirit of Britain.
Read more from within this short article [PDF, 183KB].
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In response to the crisis in Ukraine, the Secretary of State for Health and Care has asked for his letter [PDF, 94KB] to be circulated to all Ukrainian staff. We echo the sentiments expressed and want to remind you of the support available to staff across the system and within the LCO family. Please be assured, that we’re here for you and will support you and your colleagues during this distressing time.
New to join the LCO family recently is Kelly Wray, our as our new Health Development Co-ordinator (HDCs) for Cheetham and Crumpsall. For those of you who’re not familiar, our HDCs bring together and support organisations, local residents and communities to improve health in neighbourhoods. You can find out more about their role over on the extranet.
Please join us in welcoming Kelly onboard. We caught up with her last week where she told us about her past experience as a Neighbourhood Development Officer, what's she's now looking forward to in her new role and a little on what she enjoys doing away from work.
Read her story in full in this short article [PDF, 133KB].
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The Baguley Health Visiting Team (pictured left) and the Bladder and Bowel Service (pictured right) were delighted to receive a visit from Kathy Cowell OBE, Group Chair for MFT along with Lorraine Ganley, LCO Director of Nursing.
The Baguley Health Visiting team were presented with their Gold Community Accreditation Award (MFT scheme) and the Bladder and Bowel Service showcased both their work. Read more from within this short article [PDF, 273KB].
In this short update from the Better Outcomes Better Lives programme, we share how the revised reflections form ‘My VIEWS’ is proving a hit amongst those of you working in our adult social care teams. The feedback has been extremely positive and as an incentive for you telling us what you think, we’ve been awarding some prestigious Our Manchester themed water bottles out. One lucky winner of one of these was Dave Bradley (pictured right) who had told us:
“The new form helps me to reflect better. Filling in My VIEWS makes you think, and I reflected and revisited an assessment - I thought about what more I could have got out of the assessment and went back to it.”
Read more from within the full update [PDF, 141KB].
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Tomorrow (Tuesday 8 March) and next Tuesday 15 March we’ve two awareness celebrations coming up - International Women’s Day and World Social Work Day.
To find out more and how you can get involved over on the extranet.
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 Join us for March’s LCO Team Brief
On Wednesday 23 March from 3:00pm to 3:30pm we’ve another Team Brief event coming up with LCO Chief Executive Katy Calvin-Thomas. If you’d like to join us for this, then please copy and paste this link into your Outlook calendar. Alternatively, you can sign up to the event by using this registration form and it’ll save to your calendar for you.
Note these events are open to all staff to attend. It’s ideal though if you nominate a representative from your team to join and then feedback to your area. If any events are missed, then you’re welcome to use the recordings of the events which we add to our internal YouTube channel to facilitate any of your discussions.
We’re planning our first Freedom to lead event in two years, and we want you to support us, in planning this event.
The event will be taking place towards the end of May. Freedom to Lead is a chance for staff to network and hear from the LCO executive team and colleagues about progress, plans and key themes from across the organisation.
If you’d like to get involved, then please email Louise McDonald, LCO Head of Organisational Development.
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New to the extranet is the Programme and Project Management Hub. It’s been designed as a resource for anyone across the LCO family who’s leading and working on programmes and projects. It’ll help you to better understand how to run your project and deliver change in the LCOs, find a project template, or connect with others who do similar work.
The Hub is split into four areas:
We hope you find the Hub useful. We’re keen though to hear what you think. Therefore, if you’ve any feedback or simply want to find out more, please contact Andrew Southworth and Peter Wilson.
On the Technology Enabled Care (TEC) resource page of the LCO extranet a new leaflet for public and patients [PDF, 608KB] has been published which talks through the different TEC devices on offer and how they can help individuals to live more independently at home. Please print and use this leaflet where appropriate.
Don’t forget we’re also producing regular guides [PDF, 297KB] to help you learn more about the products too. The most recent one was published in December and again can be downloaded to print for your use.
As a communications team, we’ve lots of resources for you on the extranet and the MLCO and TLCO websites. So, we’ve put together just some of our popular links for you to have to hand!
If you live in England and have had one or more of your COVID-19 vaccinations overseas you can have your vaccination details added to your NHS Record. The full details of how to do so can be found on the Manchester Health and Care Commissioning website. Please help to share this news between colleagues or patients you’re supporting that’d find this useful.
Manchester Health and Care Commissioning would like to offer you the opportunity to join them for their Trans Awareness - the basics training course. Held over three dates online (choose from any) you'll be provided with an overview of what people need to know about trans related issues. To book a place or find out more, use the links below.
The following jobs have recently been posted to the extranet:
- Integrated neighbourhood leads, closing date Friday 11 March
- Paediatric Phlebotomist / Senior Nursing Assistant, band 3, closing date Friday 11 March
- Reablement Support Workers, grade 4, closing date Thursday 31 March 2022
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MFT deployed staff only
Following a request from the MFT BAME Staff Network, a number of senior BAME clinicians have kindly offered to be available for one to one conversations. The aim of these conversations is to support colleagues who may have questions or concerns about having a COVID-19 vaccination.
If you’d like to arrange a chat, please contact sumayah.naeem@mft.nhs.uk in the MFT HR Team, who'll put you in touch with a colleague.
The Greater Manchester Wellbeing Team are offering the following free sessions for you to join in with over the next couple of months.
To choose from there’s:
Full details can be found on the Greater Manchester Working Together Eventbrite page.
Free training course for NHS staff
This comprehensive training course is an opportunity provided by NHS Improvement and NHS England. It’s been designed to equip you with the tools, techniques and approaches to deal effectively with difficult conversations with compassion, whilst highlighting the importance of looking after your own health and wellbeing at this critical time. For more information, see the promotional poster [PDF, 323KB] or visit the training programmes website.
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