Jessica’s Story

18th April 2019

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My day job is head of patient experience at Kings College Hospital but I also volunteer with my dog. His name is Monty. We visit 2 trundle Ward, once a week, which is one of our orthopaedic wards.


Recently, I had the most amazing shift. It was challenging but also very rewarding. Monty is my route into talk to patients, and I spent most of my shift talking to two ladies who have dementia. One used to be a model and is very anxious but each time I visit I manage to calm her down. The other lady has had an incredibly hard life and is quite cross with the world. However, she was really pleased to talk to me and she calmed down by stroking Monty. I was particularly pleased that I helped her both drink and eat which is a problem for her.

Volunteering is truly an amazing thing and I feel very privileged to volunteer at Kings College Hospital. I think I often enjoy my volunteering more than my day job! Volunteers really do make such a difference to our patients and their families and I feel very privileged to lead the volunteers at Kings and also to volunteer myself. It’s such a great thing to do and I would encourage everybody to take part.