Kate Baker, has joined our Trust as a much-needed healthcare assistant during the Covid-19 pandemic. Kate has a history with our Trust - she was inspired to become a patient partner after she was treated at Queen’s Hospital for a benign brain tumour in 2016.

We launched our Thinking of you service, a way for loved ones to communicate with our patients, in April, and since then we’ve seen what a difference it makes when patients receive a letter, a child’s drawing or a photograph.

We are sad to announce Onyenachi Obasi, one of our long-standing agency nurses, died last week in Queen’s Hospital.

Our Trauma and Orthopaedic department, like many across our Trust, has rapidly risen to the challenge of changing how they work to help keep our patients safe during Covid 19.

When beloved mother-of-three and grandmother-of-seven Helena Shears, 89, was terminally ill with Covid-19 in King George Hospital, it was our nurses who ensured her family felt connected with her in her in her final days.

All our teams are currently working extremely hard as we, along with the rest of the NHS, tackle Covid -19. That’s why we wanted to give our colleagues the spotlight, as part of our In Conversation With interviews, to share what they’re doing and the impact on them.

Retired construction worker Keith Bates and his family wanted to help the NHS as it tackled the Covid-19 pandemic. So when they heard demand for scrubs has risen at our hospitals, they bought some fabric expecting to be able to make around 120 sets.

Today (Tuesday 5 May) is International Day of the Midwife; a time for midwives across the world to be celebrated and recognised for the care they provide to women, babies and their families. We spoke to Esther Hayward, who has been a midwife at our Trust for four years, about how this year is being marked differently.

Ian Norris, Lead Stroke Nurse, retired at the end of April after a remarkable 44 years working at our Trust. He started as a volunteer when he was just 14 and has worked in a variety of roles including switchboard, HR, and as a nurse, eventually leading our Stroke team. With such a varied NHS career, Ian’s colleagues think he should write a book. We think it would be a great read – if he can find the time to write it, as he’ll be returning to nursing this month to help during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond! 

Lauren is amongst a number of recently recruited healthcare assistants coming from a wide range of backgrounds to join our Trust to help tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.