If you or someone close to you should become unwell over the Bank Holiday weekend, there are lots of options for you to get the care you need, saving you a long wait, so you can get back to enjoying your extra time off.

As it’s Dementia Action Week (20 to 26 May), we spoke to Alina Stevens, a nursing associate from our Dementia team. She’s wanted to work with dementia patients since she was just 11 when she was taken to the care home where her step-mum worked as punishment for misbehaving at school!

Our senior sister Nicola Loncke, has worked at our Trust for her entire career, starting her training with us in 1996. She’s spent most of her time on our neuro intensive care unit, and it was here that she recently made a difficult time that bit easier for a patient’s family, shortly before they died.

Read on to find out why Nicola was one of our You Made a Difference award winners.

If Nicola’s story inspires you to nominate someone from our team who has helped make a difference for you, you can find a nomination form here.

We’re marking the national Dementia Action Week, from Monday 20 to Sunday 26 May, by encouraging you to follow in the footsteps of our staff and become Dementia Friends.

Several members of our team completed the recent London Marathon, so we thought we’d speak to one of them for this week’s In Conversation With interview.

Mike Exford, 29, has been at our Trust since 2013 working as a physiotherapist and found he really enjoyed supporting our patients who’d had amputations. Last year, he joined our Red 2 Green team, which works to make each day in hospital count for our patients so they can get home quicker.

This was his second London Marathon and both times he’s completed it, he’s raised money for a worthy cause close to his heart – this time for a horse riding charity which works with disabled people, and has helped his niece Ellamay, 13. Mike also started karate when he was six because he wanted to be a Power Ranger – and he’s even got a red Power Ranger morph suit in his wardrobe!

To mark the national Dying Matters Week, which runs from Monday 13 to Sunday 19 May, we’re holding Death Cafes at both our hospitals.

If you or someone close to you should become unwell over the Bank Holiday weekend, there are lots of options for you to get the care you need, saving you a long wait, so you can get back to enjoying your extra time off.

Ray Allen, 66, never forgot the great care he received from our staff at the then Oldchurch Hospital, returning over 20 years later to give a donation of £2,700.

Our deputy Divisional Manager for Anaesthetics, Lucy Gladman, had an interesting career route to the NHS – she wanted to be a lollipop lady by day and a pub singer by night! When she left school she went to interior design school but quickly decided that wasn’t for her, so after a foray into being a travel agent, she found her true calling in the NHS!