Caring is in Katie’s nature
9th November 2020
Submitted by Eleanor Morri, Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust
Katie Shaw joined the Trust to support our Clinical Volunteers programme (set up in March 2020) during the Covid-19 outbreak. She decided to join us after seeing our advert and call for help. As a secondary school student in year 11, Katie had time on her hands with her school closure, and wanted to help. It is a future dream of hers to become either a paramedic or other healthcare professional. In her application, she wrote: "I want to be able to help the NHS at this time, I have finished school and would like to work in the health service.”
Katie first volunteered at our Rehabilitation hospital, supporting elderly patients or patients with cognitive conditions such as stroke or brain injury. Later on, she also supported our stroke and dementia ward within our acute hospital site. Katie is greatly appreciated by the staff who agree she has reduced the pressure off them enormously and improved the patient experience. We were overwhelmed when Katie decided to give up so much of her free time by volunteering three - 12 hour shifts per week!
Katie has just passed her GCSE’s, which will hopefully enable her to study further in health and social care. We hope the insights she has gained of hospital settings have prepared her for a career in health. She has also previously completed work experience with the West Midlands Ambulance service. Katie hopes to still continue her volunteering with us while picking up her studies again, which we are very happy about.
Katie is one of your youngest volunteers as a year 11 school pupil. She often told us volunteering has greatly benefited her by offering her skills and experience and insights into healthcare careers.
During the time Katie has been with us, she has been such a pleasure to have as part of the team. She is very reliable and committed and shows maturity for her age. She gets on well with patients, staff and other volunteers. She is well liked and respected by all and is a role model for young volunteers. Since she commenced in April 2020, Katie has contributed an amazing 352 hours of volunteering, which is fantastic!
We have received amazing feedback from the Matron at the rehabilitation hospital where she states that Katie and other volunteers have been invaluable during this extraordinary time. The assistance they have provided to the nursing and support services has been thankfully received by the teams. They have been extremely professional and selfless in giving their time to help and without them many patients would have had a more difficult time whilst unable to see their loved ones, Katie has become friends to patients and a valuable part of the team on both wards. They wanted to personally thank her and say they could not have survived the last few months without the volunteer support! - A truly outstanding testament.
This outstanding contribution also upholds our Trust vision which is to continually strive to improve the outcomes and experiences for the communities that we serve. Our Trust values are to be Kind and Caring, Exceed Expectation and be Safe and effective and she has demonstrated all three with the fantastic contribution she has made.
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