It can be tough being a patient in hospital. Let alone being a patient in hospital with a limited amount of visitors due to COVID regulations. 

Now imagine, that you’re an older patient with no family members to visit you, or help with providing items you need. 

Imagine that you’ve been in hospital for two months or even longer, with little or no visits and no idea when you’ll be going home or where you’ll be going home to.

Imagine you were rushed into hospital, and you have no night clothes or toiletries with you and no family support to bring these essentials to you. 

This is where our Patient Experience Team come in; a team of around 10 people working tirelessly to facilitate virtual visits, provide toiletries and nightwear to those who have none, providing companionship to patients, supporting the wards with activities and loaning of equipment, and finally, organising and recruiting tens of volunteers to help us encourage engagement on wards where morale is low and visits from family are even less. 

We’re really trying to bridge the gap between care and engagement, and although we have received donations such as toiletries, nightwear, socks and underwear, these go out really quickly and have to be replenished often. In regards to activities, these have to be single use or easily disinfected, so it’s becoming increasingly difficult to have enough available, and also enough of a range to cater to all patients. It would be great to be able to purchase the extra items that will really help our Patient Experience Support Workers and volunteers get some interaction and engagement going with patients who have been in hospital a long time with little social interaction other than from care givers. 

Any donation, share or mention will be a massive help, thank you so much!