NCIC News

All the latest from the Trust | January 2025

Intro from the Chair

Hello and welcome to our newsletter for foundation trust members and the wider community.  

steven morgan.jpeg

Christmas seems a long time ago now and here we are at the end of January, finally!

It has been a busy month for our services with winter pressures and bugs doing the rounds. Thank you to all staff – particularly those in the community – for working in the storm last week. It is not easy to reach patients in gale force winds and keep safe at the same time but your efforts are very much appreciated.

2025 is to be an exciting year for NCIC when a number of building projects will complete. These include: the endoscopy unit at CIC, the Community Diagnostics Centre in Workington and the Urgent Treatment Centre – also at CIC

Until next time, with best wishes,

Steven Morgan
Chair

New parking arrangements at CIC 

Patients attending appointments, or visiting relatives, are being asked to plan ahead due to temporary reduction in parking spaces at the Cumberland Infirmary (CIC).

A number of exciting construction projects are taking place on site, which will be of huge benefit to both patients and staff. However, this unfortunately means that in the short term, there will be increased pressure on car parking spaces.

The planned construction of the UTC requires closure of the A&E visitor car park and the temporary staff car park near to the helipad - resulting in a temporary reduction of 115 staff and visitor spaces:

On 27th January: The top half of the temporary staff car park near the helipad closed (losing 15-20 spaces), with the rest closing from the 3rd February (38 spaces in total).

3rd February: in order to create a temporary drop off opposite the A&E entrance, the very front row of the A&E car park will be taken out of use (22 spaces). This will allow the existing footpath to be replaced with drop kerbs and a drop off zone created.

10th February: the rest of the A&E car park will be closed (77 spaces in total).

To reduce the impact on visitors, we plan to increase the capacity of the main visitor car park by 40 spaces around 10th February (by reducing staff parking).

From the 10th February visiting times will change temporarily to manage demand for spaces:

Once the Endoscopy construction works are complete, the visitor car park will permanently increase by a further 20-30 spaces. These extra visitor spaces are anticipated to come into use in March.

More patients being seen in SDEC 

More patients are now being seen in Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) for rapid tests and treatment avoiding an overnight stay in hospital and reducing the numbers of people who need to wait in A&E.

SDEC has been in place since 2020, and is now seeing on average around 800 patients each month who have been referred through their GP, A&E and now directly from the ambulance service.

SDEC allows people to be admitted to a specialist unit as an emergency, where patients can complete their care and be discharged on the same day. This means more patients receive the urgent care they need in a matter of hours, freeing up beds elsewhere in the hospital for others who need them most.

When comparing our overall attendances from the same period last year, SDEC have increased the number of patients admitted to our SDEC units by 19% at WCH and by 37% at CIC with just under 10,000 patients being treated in our SDEC units in 2024.

0-19 service update 

Further to the news shared last year that the Trust would not bid for the contract for 0-19 healthy child programme, commissioners have now confirmed that they have awarded contracts to Harrogate & District NHS Foundation Trust from 1st April 2025.

Work is underway to plan the transfer of this service including around 120 staff to Harrogate under TUPE transfer. Harrogate have set up informal welcome events for affected staff and work has begun to oversee issues including data transfer and the interdependencies with other services the Trust provides.

The commissioners and new providers will lead on public communications with our support and we will keep you updated as the plans develop. In relation to neurology services in south Cumbria, we can now confirm that the commissioners have awarded the contract for this service to Bespoke Healthcare.

A small number of staff will transfer to Bespoke Healthcare as part of this change. We are grateful for the support of everyone involved in making these transitions a smooth one for our staff and patients

Storm damage thank you

A big thank you to everyone for keeping our services going through the very high winds last Friday. Although the weather warning for wind was amber – it certainly felt like one of the strongest winds we have had for a long time.  

Incident management meetings began last Thursday to make sure that business continuity plans were implemented where needed.

It did create some issues for us, the road network was disrupted by falling trees but our community teams did a sterling job in reaching our patients.

Those who needed to were able to get into work to keep our services running and our patients safe.  

Our physiotherapy team, based at the Sands Centre in Carlisle, were displaced and are currently operating out of the University of Cumbria’s physiotherapy suite. Patients have been contacted directly.

There were various issues across our sites including fallen trees and minor damage to buildings etc but all have been assessed over the weekend and fixed thanks to excellent work by our estates teams.  

Thank you Team NCIC!

Ken for a day as chaplain retires, aged 87!

The Chaplaincy team gathered at West Cumberland Hospital to say a fond farewell to the Reverend Ken Wright who has been in the Chaplaincy team for 28 years. He is well known at Workington and Cockermouth Community Hospitals. He was presented with an engraved terracotta pot filled with a Christmas Rose and other gifts, as well as a heartfelt letter of gratitude from chief executive Lyn Simpson.

Ken was made King the for day, an honour to mark his retirement and his 87th birthday! His retirement cake was a Galette des Rois (An Epiphany King’s Cake).

Ken said: “I certainly had a farewell I won't forget! It was very embarrassing, but also very humbling. I realised that after 28 years there aren't many who have been chaplains for longer. Thank you for all your efforts to make it memorable - it certainly was! There is a lot I'll miss but it is time I retired and my wife is delighted.”  

Trust funded chemotherapy chairs and scalp coolers 

Charity funded chemotherapy chairs and scalp coolers are helping cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

The CIC Oncology Fund, which is part of North Cumbria Hospitals NHS Charity, has donated more than £52,000 to buy the two specialist chairs and two coolers for the Chemotherapy Units at CIC and WCH.

Having two phlebotomy chairs, instead of one, means patients waiting for blood to be taken are seen quicker. 

The scalp coolers help patients undergoing some types of chemotherapy, in particular breast cancer patients, can suffer hair loss as a side effect. Hair loss significantly impacts on their wellbeing and body image.

Cervical Cancer Prevention Week 

This month we marked Cervical Cancer Prevention Week and reminded women to accept NHS cervical screening invites.

The NHS invites women for screening every three to five years depending on their age, or more frequently if the high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) is detected, with the programme saving thousands of lives annually.

Sister Julie Thomas, an oncology nurse specialist at NCIC, said: “Please do not defer your smear if it is due, attending for your smear could save your life.”

Be Involved: Become a member

Member and Governor update

Governor message from Tracy Ward, public governor for Carlisle

Hello, my name is Tracy Ward and I’m a newly elected governor serving Carlisle. I live in the area designated Carlisle Rural which is a good reminder that we may be part of the city but the city itself is surrounded by countryside where there are hardworking farmers, smallholders, livestock and ridiculously deep pot holes!  People in this area can feel isolated but we always try to look out for each other particularly during big weather events like Storm Éowyn and lambing!  As a community, we have a simple, unwritten mission: To do what we can, when we can.

North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust is another such community.  Its mission is to serve our diverse health needs and to help ensure that we are able to live our best lives, from beginning to end.  Nevertheless, as in my own community, it cannot work effectively unless everybody does what they can, when they can.

The governors’ role in this picture is twofold.  They serve to represent the views of members and the public whilst holding Non-Executive Directors to account for the performance of the Trust. In turn, the Trust then strives to work with its values of, “Safe, high-quality care, every time” at its core. Governors actively seek to engage with members and the wider public by listening to their views (both positive and negative) and signposting them to the right place when they have queries. 

In my role as governor thus far, I have learnt from members of the public that carers in our community can face difficulties when trying to manage care at home.  Full - and part-time carers - have mentioned to me that they feel ill-prepared for their role and can often feel overwhelmed by it.  Others mentioned the impact of caring on their own physical health especially when having to lift loved ones, bathe them or change their beds.  The strain on their mental health was also raised in these discussions.  People asked why there was seemingly no training available to help prepare unpaid carers to lift safely and be able to provide the personal care and hygiene necessary and with some dignity. As a new governor, I felt unable to answer the question but it is an area which merits signposting.

I am grateful to those I have met so far for sharing so candidly their journeys and I look forward to meeting more of you at the regular events held by the Trust.

Sources of support and information  for unpaid carers which I found useful:

https://carlisle-eden-carers.org.uk

https://www.carersuk.org/help-and-advice/

https://www.carersuk.org/media/qlsly1mc/state-of-caring-employment-web-2024.pdf

Governor questions

Governor Rebecca Mullins asked about returning used equipment.
She said: “There is a lot of items returned. Where do they go? Can we clean and sell them? Would the items help people waiting for OT and bed blocking in need of equipment only?

“It seems a bit strange we are receiving goods back for free that could help another person go back home. I know a package needs to be available but sometimes they are waiting on one item.”

Sarah Elliot, Associate Director of AHPs replied and said: “With regards to Physiotherapy, we encourage the return of all NHS supplied walking aids to hospital sites, which are cleaned and put back into circulation. 

“For Occupational Therapy, if this refers to compensatory equipment returned to the atrium at CIC, then this gets collected by the Cumbria Equipment Service (CES) and returned to them for cleaning. It is a minimal amount of the equipment that is provided overall to our population. These items likely referred to are low level equipment such as toilet frames, kitchen trolleys which are provided on prescription so that the patient/family/professional can collect them from retailers across the county and are the patients to own so the majority do not get returned to CES, or the hospital sites.

“These items do not contribute to delayed discharges from hospital. Each hospital and ICC has a stock of low level equipment that can be provided to a patient or family for immediate provision, again specifically not too delay discharges. This stock is always replenished and we have no issues in providing it. We do not have facilities on hospital sites to clean, store and sell items of equipment.”

Become a member

Anyone living in Cumbria over the age of 14 can become a member, you can choose how much or how little you want to be involved – join today.

Concerns or comments

If you have any concerns or comments please contact your governors on the email below. We are here to raise any concerns on your behalf.  More information on the members of the Governors’ Council and their role can be found on our website. If you have any comments or suggestions please contact us via the email below: AskYourGovernor@ncic.nhs.uk 

Keep right up to date

You can keep right up to date with our news on our public website www.ncic.nhs.uk/news or follow us on Facebook, linked in or ‘X’ @ncicnhs.


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