By Andrew Revell, Executive Director of Shipston Home Nusing.
It’s been a year like no other!
A year like no other…
2020, a year like no other! At the beginning of the year there was news of a mystery virus developing in Wuhan, the most populous city in Central China. It was all too easy to think this was all happening over 5,000 miles away and unlikely to affect us.
Rapidly it became apparent that this was not going to be the case. All too soon we were in the middle of a growing pandemic and preparing to deal with something that we had never encountered before. It was evident that it was was going to impact millions of families globally.
By early March we were immersed in ‘virtual’ meetings with NHS teams, Sister Charities and other stakeholders, developing protocols, polices, procedures to ensure we were able to continue to care for patients and families safely.
Wrapped from head to foot
Fundamental to everything was the protection of our staff and patients. We invested in and used the best quality PPE we could source. We took the view that being over cautious was the only approach to take to keep everybody safe and minimise the spread of the infection. And our goal was very clear. We were acutely aware that for our patients, the pandemic was likely to be the least of their worries. Continuing a normal hospice at home nursing service was critical. Following a two week period when we tested new procedures, a near normal service resumed, albeit with staff ‘wrapped’ from head to foot in PPE.
We were and are incredibly fortunate that our staff shared the view that failure was not an option. They were all committed to ensure that the care we provided was not compromised in any way.
Obviously our Fundraising events plan for 2020 was mainly cancelled. However, a few events took place where social distancing was possible. This year is unlikely to be that different to last year. Even with the planned relaxing in social distancing rules, we will continue to be cautious in approach to encouraging larger groups of people to meet.
The support we have received from our donors and friends in the community has been quite humbling. This has offset some of the financial worries we initially had due to the loss of fundraising income.
Moving on…
Now, some twelve months on and as we are slowly emerging from yet another lockdown. We are hopeful that a combination of the successful vaccination program and individual common sense will improve our lives considerably.
Moving forward, we continue to find ways of delivering our vision of ‘ensuring every adult in our community has access to free high quality end of life care for all.’
Meanwhile, my personal thanks go to our supporters, volunteers and sponsors, for helping us navigate our way through these ever changing times.