Staff Newsletter 14 May 2020

Dear Colleague

We continue to be very grateful for all your hard work in healthcare and your loyalty to us at 18 Week Support.   

This is our seventh weekly newsletter to inform you of our activity providing clinical support to the NHS in these difficult times and to offer support to you.

18WS Activity

We are working with several NHS Trusts to help them recommence waiting list activity. In the next week we will have at least 9 sites up and running in endoscopy, ophthalmology, and neurology.

Headquarter staff

Our headquarter staff continue to work with us, but with reduced working hours:

9 a.m. to 3: 30 p.m. Monday to Friday.

We will be sending out company updates on the 18 Week Support LinkedIn page more regularly. Please can you follow us on LinkedIn to stay in touch?

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme update

Thank you to those of you who have returned your consent to being furloughed for April. You will now have received your payslip and I confirm that payment will be made by 5 pm on Friday 15^th May.

For those of you to still consent, please reply to the reminder email sent on the 12^th of May. We can accept a reply to this email saying you consent. You do not need to print off, sign, and scan.

Please return to Finance@18weeksupport.com ONLY. Please do not copy any other email addresses. We will process replies to this mailbox only.

We will notify you, via the newsletter, if the furlough scheme is to be extended to include May. In the meantime, can I urge you to put in your availability for the next few months via the usual channels to ensure that we are ready to resume clinics as activity increases?

Reporting

New 18WS Datix System

We have been developing our own Datix system which will make reporting risk and incidents much easier and less time-consuming. However, we need the help of clinical staff to read through and pilot test the documentation for us. If you are willing to volunteer, please contact Vanessa Fernandis, Head of Governance and Risk, directly at
vfernandis@18weeksupport.com

New Nurse in Charge Report

We have also developed a new draft Nurse in Charge report. This combines the previous report with the Patients of Concern report so going forwards there will be only one report to complete. The questions within the report have been streamlined and we believe the new draft report is much more intuitive and easier to use. However, we need your input to test this and give us feedback. Please would volunteer Nurses’ in Charge contact Vanessa Fernandis, Head of Governance and Risk, directly at the email address as above.

We have negotiated a 25% discount for journeys with Uber Medic cars for our staff.  If you wish to receive a link to obtain your discount please email Rebecca Finlay at R.Finlay@18weeksupport.com

Staying in Touch

We love our 18WS family and we want to stay in touch with you and get your news and feedback on how you are and what more we can do to support. Please send any comments or suggestions about this newsletter to Niara at nblommestein@18weeksupport.com.  