You have helped to raise thousands of pounds to help support the Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust during the COVID19 pandemic. Your support has helped us to purchase 20 ipads for patient family communication, 4 ipads for parent virtual visiting on the Special Care Baby Unit, 20 tissue viability cameras for wards to monitor wound control, 4 fridges to store drinks and refreshments for staff wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), two massage chairs for our staff breakout areas, microwaves for night shift workers to have hot meals and we’re planning for a series of staff well-being initiatives that includes hampers, tea trolley rounds, staff room refurbishments, Trauma Risk Management training (TRiM), Schwartz rounds which provide a structured forum where all staff, clinical and non-clinical, come together regularly to discuss the emotional and social aspects of working in healthcare.
During the pandemic your support has enabled us to keep our staff fuelled on the frontline. We’ve made up 2,040 staff snack bags (136 snack bags each week) and 465 essentials bags (31 each week) on Wellbeing Wednesdays. Driven 1,123 miles around North Wiltshire dropping off bags to the Orbital, Carfax Health Centre, West Swindon Health Centre, Sandalwood Court, Eldene, Cross Roads, Moredon, Penhill and Abbey Meads GP surgeries, ICES, Wheelchair Service and the Ridgeway Hospital.
During the pandemic we’ve either purchased using your donations or had donated the following items for the staff care bags as well as other adhoc deliveries:
37,200 tea bags
30,000 Salute NHS meals (click here to find out more)
20,400 chocolate bars
20,400 lollies
20,400 Harribo mini packs
20,400 snack bars
10,200 packets of crisps
12,000 Easter Eggs
10,000 sandwiches from The Bank (click here to find out more)
6,000 costa coffee cans
5,000 iced Kenco sachets
4,650 hot chocolate sachets
4,080 packets of biscuits
4,000 cans of Red Bull
4,000 chicken eggs
3,000 Helen Browning boxed meals (click here to find out more)
3,000 Scrapstore cakes
2,000 cans of Britvic
2,000 Kenco coffee pods
2,000 curry pouches
1,244 Sooth and Care toiletry boxes
1,200 croissants
1,170 samosas
1,000 Tom Thornton ready meals (click here to find out more)
1,000 British Airways socks
1,000 Duck Island hand cream
1,000 spray hand sanitisers
630 Fresh Food for the Frontline boxes (click here to find out more)
600 noodle boxes from Niche
560 Neptune candles
500 overnight bags from Primark
465 jars of coffee
465 bags of sugar
450 pizzas from Blues Café (click here to find out more)
300 Neptune Hand creams
200 artificial flowers from Neptune
200 Neptune bars of soap
128 bottles of squash
120 carrot and chocolate cakes
90 Intel power banks
8 Nespresso coffee machines
4 Oak Furniture Land sofas (click here to find out more)
2 Oak Furniture Land coffee tables
None of this would have been possible without Voluntary Services. Over the last three months we’ve had 107 volunteers giving a total of 4,000 hours of work! We recruited 34 new Trust volunteers, 43 Wingman volunteers from the airline industry representing British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, United, Easy Jet and Jet2 who organised a first class wellbing lounge in our cafe (click here to read more about the Wingman project) and we’ve continued to be supported by 30 existing volunteers who have helped us push trolleys miles around the hospital, supported patients with wayfinding, have looked after staff on wards as staff welfare volunteers and have handed out hundreds of masks at entrances as mask monitors.
We've received so much support from local businesses who have donated items such as PPE equipment, accomodation for our staff, hand sanitiser, vechicles, toiletories, laptops and so much more. We like to say a huge thank you to them all for their support at this very challenging time. Click here for the list of supporters.
