Express & Star

£4m to improve patient care at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospital NHS Trust

Sandwell's hospital trust will spend up to £4million during the next 12 months on projects proposed by medical staff to help improve patient care.

Published

Six extra midwives and 11 health visitors will be recruited as part of a £500,000 investment boost to the servicess offered to mothers and families.

It is one of around 25 projects, proposed by clinicians, given the go-ahead by health chiefs at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust.

Other schemes include investments in critical care, palliative care, pain management and children's epilepsy services.

Money to fund the improvements has come from efficiency savings made in other areas, chief executive Toby Lewis said.

He added the projects were 'long-term commitments' and funding would be in place for future years.

"The trust annually invests based on ideas from staff and the benefits of our savings in one area being re-distributed to another.

"All £4million of schemes proposed by staff between October 2014 and March 2015 are now approved by the clinical leadership executive after detailed scrutiny by doctors, nurses and managers.

"As an NHS trust with a balanced financial plan, we believe we can make more courageous decisions to invest in both innovation and quality."

As part of work to make savings, bosses have pledged to reduce staff sickness levels and spending on agency staff.

The number of days lost to sickness rose to 66,120 in 2014/15 compared with 64,130 during the previous 12 months prompting leaders to take action.

One of the approved projects is an investment of £100,000 in physiotherapy for workers as the common cause of staff sickness was muscle injury.

Other work as part of the wider plan to reduce sickness levels, includes closer monitoring of staff absences with weekly and monthly reviews as well as additional training for line managers.

The investment comes as more than 200 jobs face being axed at the hospital trust during the next 12 months to slash more than £16m from the wage bill.

But Mr Lewis said despite needing to reduce staff numbers, it was important to continue to re-invest money in improving patient care.

The staff review is the next phase of wider plans to cut around 1,400 posts over five years. Bosses are looking to scrap 205 'whole time equivalent' positions by March 2016 - but say around 260 workers are expected to be affected by the move.

A consultation is under way and it's hoped that a 'significant' number of the posts can be cut by redeploying staff or not recruiting to vacant roles.

Figures released in April, showed that the trust had reduced spending on agency staff from more than £1.1m a month to around £800,000.

The trust, which runs Sandwell Hospital, says it still needs agency staff, particularly for specialist areas or for short-term projects, such as IT improvements.

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.