A great champion for all volunteers

Jane Podkolinski otherwise known as Jane Pod was a midwife at Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust for 31 years. She first joined the NHS as a trainee public finance account and then wanted to find out more so took on a nursing auxiliary role. She then retrained as a nurse and then a midwife. In 1981 she moved to Salisbury and joined the Salisbury District Hospital as a Bank Midwife.

During her 31 years at Salisbury Jane taught student midwives at Bournemouth university. For 17 years she had a clinical lead role on the labour ward and the last 6 years of her career as labour ward manager. Since she retired in 2012 Jane has volunteered for Wiltshire Creative and as a ward volunteer at Salisbury District Hospital.

It is during her time as a volunteer that she says she has learnt more about the hospital than she ever knew when working there. This led to Jane standing and being elected as the Volunteer Governor in 2021. She has taken this role very seriously and regularly catches up with volunteers in all roles across the Trust to hear about the challenges and successes. She will then cascade challenges to relevant directorate managers and will request their response to investigations and will feed this back to the volunteers ensuring the matter is dealt with appropriately and in a timely manner.

When new volunteers start Jane is happy to meet with them, spend time with them, show what is required of them as a volunteer and help alleviate any fears new volunteers may have when starting. She has the volunteer’s interest at the heart of all that she does and ensures that the Trust Board remembers and respects the 257 registered volunteers. Jane offers support to the Voluntary Services Manager and is willing to raise issues and concerns at a higher level.

“She is a great champion for all volunteers not only within the Trust but within our local community. We are very lucky to have her.”

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