Friends Patients Support Project
Our Patients Support Project has been running from March 2011 followng the appointment of a Patient Support Co-ordinator, Serena Venticonti. Please read an update below.
We were grateful to the hospital management that The Patients Support Project was the subject of presentations at the recent hospital Annual Members Meeting held on 15 September, 2011 when the hospital acknowledged and praised The Friends initiative. Chief Executive, Heather Lawrence, also included it in her blog following the Annual Members Meeting.
Chief Executive's blog of 19 September.
If you would like to request a visit from a volunteer to help a relative or friend in the hospital please click on the logo on the side bar to the left. You can also find out about volunteering for this project from The Friends Office.
The aim of the Friends Patient Support Project is to support our patients and to make their hospital stay as comfortable as possible. We are here to improve the patient experience and to make the hospital a friendlier place for everyone. Looking after our vulnerable patients is our priority and we will continuously develop our services to satisfy our patients’ needs.
Update December 2011
Achievements during the first nine months of the project:
Here to Help
We wanted to make the hospital environment friendlier and reduce the stress for patients and visitors who are coming to the hospital, so we are:
- Helping people find their way inside the hospital,
- Escorting people when necessary to their appointment
- Directing people to the right department.
The service has been growing day by day and in November 2011 we have been able to help more than 470 patients or relatives around the hospital.
Mealtime assistance
We aim to help eradicate:
- Poor nutrition or poor hydration particularly for elderly or vulnerable patients, and
- Loneliness and social isolation of elderly patients.
We are working in close partnership with the Nutritional Steering Group to make sure that the Protected Meal Time is established and respected in each ward.
Volunteers help during mealtimes as well as assisting patients who have physical difficult eating, the key difference is that volunteers bring time. Time to spend with patients, to encourage them to eat, to learn their likes and dislikes, to provide company and generally to enhance their mealtime experience.
Volunteers are a daily presence in Nell Gwynne Ward, David Erskine Ward, and Edgar Horne Ward. We follow up any request that comes through our referral system and have helped many people in different wards since the project started. Our numbers are growing and at present we assist a minimum of 35 patients at mealtimes, per week.
Request a Volunteer
The volunteers have been visiting patients daily around the hospital and we now have volunteers in the evenings, and on Saturday and Sunday.
Time Out
This is a new service being trialled.
In liaison with the psychologist and physiotherapists on Nell Gwynne Ward, we realised that taking patients outside the ward, on a regular basis, could improve their recovery and minimise the risk of depression. Since October we have started taking three or four patients at a time to the main atrium of the hospital on Thursdays where they can enjoy a lunchtime performance.
This trial will continue until the end of December when it will be reviewed and may then be rolled out to other wards.
The aim of the Friends Patient Support Project is to support our patients and to make their hospital stay as comfortable as possible. We are here to improve the patient experience and to make the hospital a friendlier place for everyone. Looking after our vulnerable patients is our priority and we will continuously develop our services to satisfy our patients’ needs.
