221216 - Chatterbox

16 December 2022

The countdown to Christmas is on The Christmas period is in full swing and there is an array of events and activities happening throughout the month. We want to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to celebrate.

Many of you have been tucking into festive lunches in our restaurants, watching the outdoor lights switch on, and getting involved in various competitions.

There’s still time to get involved.

Choirs Come and enjoy (and even join in) with some festive choirs performing at our hospitals.

Mince pies, tea and coffee will be provided.

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Christmas Day breakfast baps Share a Christmas joke

The Catering team are taking bookings for staff to have a free Christmas morning sausage or vegetarian sausage bap from Apley or Mytton Restaurant.

Tuesday 20 December, They will need to be collected 12:30-1:30pm in Captain between 9am – 11am on Tom’s Garden, PRH Wednesday 21 December, Christmas Day. Please visit the 12.15-1pm at Mytton Oak intranet for more details and to book yours.

Restaurant, RSH

We are looking for your favourite Christmas jokes to feature in some of our Christmas communications next week.

Send in your witty wisecracks, great gags and quirky quips to sath.commsteam@nhs.net to be in with a chance of yours being featured.

There’s more festive fun inside!...

Our hospitals light up for Christmas

On Tuesday 29 November, we evening, supported by SaTH switched the Christmas lights Charity, which really kick-started on at PRH in Captain Tom’s the celebrations in style.

Courtyard.

On Tuesday 6 December the It was a fantastic festive RSH Christmas lights were

switched on in Captain Tom’s Garden, which was also supported by SaTH Charity.

Thank you to everyone who made these events so special.

Pulling our socks up for Christmas

and the prizes went to...

On 7 December we celebrated NHS Christmas Sock Day. Not everyone can wear a Christmas jumper to work, but many of us donned our favourite pair of festive socks (or tights!) for the occasion.

It was a great way to have fun and also raise

money for our Charity, who have supported various teams throughout the year and gave out prizes to the teams with the best socks.

The winners are: Phlebotomy, RSH (above left) and Ward 15 and 16 (above right).

Christmas tree competition Staff have been busy decking out their wards and offices and I'm sure you’ll agree they are all looking fabulously festive.

Next week we will be sharing more information on how you can vote for the winner in our Christmas tree competition.

Kind couple donate trees to staff SaTH Charity had a fantastic offer for colleagues from a local couple (right) who wanted to give away two real Christmas trees grown on their smallholding.

The winners are: Nicola Teckoe, Head and Neck Clinic Prep, Atcham Business Park (below) and Karen Robinson, Heart Assessment Team, PRH. Congratulations both.

Festive lunches go down a treat

This week our restaurants Christmas meals, with big smiles have been busy serving on your faces! festive lunches for staff across both our hospital sites. It’s a busy time for our Catering teams, who have worked So many of you gathered with incredibly hard preparing the your teams and tucked into your lunches.

If you are working Christmas Day, don’t forget to order your free sausage or vegetarian sausage bap.

More details can be found on our intranet.

Children get creative in card competition What an artistic bunch we have on our Paediatric Ward.

under, eight to 12 years and 13 to 17 years.

The winner of each category will be presented with a prize, with the overall winner being Children and young people The quality of the pictures made produced as a SaTH Christmas staying in our hospitals were selecting the best designs a card. invited to take part in a really difficult job, however, Images of all entries are on Christmas drawing competition Hayley Flavell, Director of and a wonderful array of entries Nursing, rose to the challenge display in the hospital Chapels were submitted. There were during the month of December, and selected three worthy three age categories: seven and winners (bottom). so do pop in to see them.

The winning designs

7 years and under

Eight to 12-years-old

13 to 17-years-old

Donations pile up for our young patients

Our Children’s Ward has received a number of from Cash Providers in Wellington, as well as an visitors and donations in the run up to unexpected donation from Fairy Bricks Charity.

Christmas.

Pupils from Meole Brace Secondary School have The Telford Tigers Ice Hockey Team called in also popped in to show their continued support. with a large donation of teddies from the crowd’s teddy toss during last weekend’s game.

Thank you to everyone doing their bit to make this Christmas as magical as possible for our children The ward also received a huge donation of gifts and young people.

Couple raise £1,500 for wellbeing boxes A Shropshire couple who raised more than £1,500 following the sad loss of their baby son, George, have created well-being boxes for bereaved parents in hospital.

Martha, a nurse at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), and Ben Gumsley, a paramedic, lost their son George at 21 weeks gestation.

The well-being boxes, which are called ‘Love from, George’, include an array of useful items to support families. Martha and Ben hope to keep re-stocking the boxes for as long as fundraising allows.

Santa stops by Neonatal Unit party This week our Neonatal team held a Christmas party for children who have spent time on the unit in the past.

A big thank you to everyone who joined us and to the team for organising such a special afternoon.

A special mention also goes to Alex from our Stores department who dressed up as Santa and put Christmas smiles on everyone's faces.

Christmas crafting in the libraries

The SaTH Libraries team got into the spirit of things and held Christmas card making sessions.

Staff were invited to drop in for a cuppa and some crafting, and there was also the option

to pick up a ready-made card making kit to take home.

The sessions were supported

by SaTH’s Small Things Make A Big Difference Fund.

The libraries currently have a range of festive books available, so whether you're looking for some Christmas cooking inspiration or a wintry tale to warm your heart, they have just the books for you.

A warm welcome awaits you in our chapels December is a very special time to visit our hospital chapels, whether it be for some support, quiet reflection or a cup of tea with a chaplain.

which each one holding a special significance.

If you are working at or visiting one of our hospitals on Christmas Day, you are most welcome to join a Advent wreaths, nativity scenes and Christmas Day Communion Service, advent remembrance trees are all which is being held in both chapels located in each of the Chapels, at 10.30am.

Chaplain’s Corner (in addressing the town unaware of the Saviour’s birth) “Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight”.

God’s loving response to messy and broken world was to quietly enter in beside it, to love it and live it with us. That is the joy and hope of Christmas, yet we can take God’s gift and create burdens for ourselves and others through the expectations and pressures we place on each other.

A story to highlight the point. Once upon a time in a luxury country house hotel, there was a deputy general manager.

He was a perfectionist and workaholic often working fourteen hours a day, on really busy days eighteen.

I do not know what the preacher Phillips Brooks the author of the Christmas Carol ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ had in mind when penning these words.

All the departments reported to him, and he was the ‘face’ of the hotel for the guests. The manager would get annoyed with the staff for leaving the staff room in a state, and he would fume (inwardly) for not watering the poor plant on the window ledge.

He wrote the carol just three years after the end of the American Civil War in 1868 the most brutal Every week he would check on the plant, which war on home soil that America ever knew. was always dry and would water it, before resuming his busy schedule.

Wives and mothers counted themselves lucky if their husbands and sons had come home lacking After a few weeks, his hand happened to touch an arm or leg or an eye or shivering with what we the leaf of the plant only to discover that it was now call PSTD. artificial! The staff had been perfectly right in not watering it, he was the one so out of kilter and in Phillips Brooks wrote of the stable in Bethlehem the wrong. I was that hotel manager! as he place where hope and fear meet each other, and where hope emerges the ultimate Often, we can get out of kilter or equilibrium with victor in his carol. the busyness of Christmas. For those willing and able to celebrate it, it is a wonderful and joyous As a priest, like my fellow chaplains, and all who time. work in our hospitals, I am aware that for some Christmas is not the ‘rose-tinted’ perfect picture For those who are struggling with finances we found in Christmas adverts or in films. need to adjust expectations, simplify our Christmas and look to the most important aspects Often Christmas can prove to be highly charged such as love, reconciliation and friendship. emotionally as we strive for a perfect family Christmas only for arguments, stresses and/or And for those who find Christmas painful through strains in relationships to surface. isolation or grief, may they too find hope and comfort this year. If you do need a Chaplain then There are those who will mourn a loved one we are around throughout Christmas as always. having lost them this year, or those who have been separated from family for a variety of I pray that you have a blessed Christmas and reasons.

New Year - whether working, relaxing or with family and friends.

We also know that our wards and A+Es will see many for whom Christmas is far from joyous. But Fr Jonathan Mitchell all this is okay. Why? Because as the carol goes Roman Catholic Chaplain

Hike to raise funds for Doctors in Distress Pete Checketts, an anaesthetics trainee currently working at PRH, is planning to hike 85 miles in the Spring to raise funds.

He will be hiking for five to six days across the highest 20 Shropshire hills to fundraise for Doctors in Distress, a charity aimed at preventing suicide in healthcare workers.

Pete is aiming to raise awareness and raise funds for the charity.

If you would like to donate, Pete’s JustGiving page can be found here.

SaTH strengthens ties with student volunteers The Public Participation Team has been celebrating their relationship with Telford College and some of their amazing students that volunteer with us across both hospital sites.

Poppy Horrocks, Young Volunteer Project Lead, was invited to Telford College to talk to students and see their simulation suite and simulation doll ‘Betty’.

Poppy spoke to students and teachers about the wonderful help and support volunteers provide within our hospitals and how important their roles are.

Poppy’s work with young people is vital as it helps them to gain experience in a variety of different wards and areas, inspiring them to pursue careers within the NHS.

The Public Participation Team works closely with Telford College, and other colleges in the area, to place students in appropriate and relevant volunteer roles that fit in with their college timetables.

Julia Clarke, Director of Public Participation, said: “We have 311 amazing volunteers currently working at SaTH, and we are so grateful to all our

volunteers who enhance our patients’ experience, support our visitors and relatives and support our staff.

“Currently we have 170 volunteers who are under the age of 25 and our ongoing partnerships with local colleges is so important to us. As well as providing a great experience, it can also help the students with their future career choices”.

Cost of Living Support The wellbeing of our staff is a priority, and this means making sure you are healthy within work, but also within your personal lives.

We know that the cost-of-living rises will be affecting all of us in some way, and for some it will be causing significant stress and worry.

We have developed a Winter Financial Wellbeing Package for staff who find themselves struggling. This package enables anyone working at one of our hospital sites to apply for vouchers or funding to support financial wellbeing.

Our aim is to support staff to manage their finances, as well as ensuring they able to eat, drink, and support their family during school and winter months.

Staff can receive a free soup and a roll from the restaurants at both PRH and RSH, as well as a free breakfast. Simply ask the catering team and they will ensure this is provided.

For full details please click here.

Support your SaTH Charity with a smile Support your SaTH Charity and help us to support you via Amazon Smile.

AmazonSmile is a simple way for you to support our charity every time you shop, at no cost to you.

AmazonSmile is available at smile.amazon.co.uk on your web browser and can be activated in the Amazon Shopping App for iOS and Android phones.

When you shop with AmazonSmile, you’ll have the same shopping experience as amazon.co.uk, with the added bonus that AmazonSmile will donate a portion of the purchase price to your selected charity. Money

raised from Amazon Smile goes into the Small Things Big Difference fund, which is a fund exclusively for staff and has purchased things like fridges, kettles, microwaves and staff room

furniture, and supported the redevelopment of our door areas such as Captain Tom’s Garden and Courtyard. https://smile.amazon.co.uk/ ch/1107883-0

Notice Board

Notice Board

PAGES 16-23

Staff Support

Staff Support

1st - £400 - Paul Wareing, Cancer Performance Analysis 2nd - £200 - Shannon Talbot, Ward 11 2nd - £200 - Hannah Brown, Radiotherapy 3rd - £100 - Valerie Roberts, Porter 3rd - £100 - Kayleigh Hall, AHP Assistant Practitioner

The final word...

I would like to give a super big thank you firstly to the kind and compassionate gentlemen that attended to me at my home. They were amazing from when they first got there until they delivered me to your hospital.

Secondly, to the day and night staff on Ward 7 for all their kindness and compassion during my stay in your hospital.

And lastly to the doctor whom has been watching over me since my stay.

My thanks and appreciation to all of the staff that have helped me while I have been in your hospital.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD T&Cs AND ENTER THE STAFF LOTTERY