Thank you, you really are simply the best
16th November 2020
Submitted by Dorset County Hospital Foundation Trust
We would like to nominate our COVID Response Volunteer Team, quite simply because they have been the best. Their dedication, enthusiasm, willingness to just get stuck in and resilience to lots of ongoing changes has been both humbling and inspiring.
Taking on responsibility for both the packing and distribution of surgical masks and the coordination of donations, the team of just 20 volunteers have given up hours and hours of their time 7 days a week responding to what the hospital needed when it needed it most. Recognised throughout the hospital by their Yellow polo shirts, they brought smiles every day to everyone working here and we could not have achieved what we did without them.
Since March and the start of the lockdown, like many other hospitals we saw our volunteer service turned upside down and inside out. With the majority of our volunteers having to suspend volunteering to shield, we saw those who were able to stay on and wanted to stay on spend the first couple of weeks getting involved in a number of tasks whilst the hospital worked to get ready for whatever was coming our way.
There was no fixed routine each day and it was simply a case of responding to what might be needed, and training for tasks which may or may not be required. In the week running up to Easter the pace for our team changed dramatically as we volunteered to oversee the co-ordination and distribution of generous donations to the hospital, and we supported the packing and distribution of surgical masks around the hospital.
What happened over the weeks that followed has just been truly incredible and the commitment and enthusiasm shown by the team, not to mention the thousands of steps they put in moving around the hospital, certainly did not go unnoticed or unappreciated. Teams of volunteers were coming in seven days a week to ensure enough masks had been packed and then distributed and that the donations coming in were sorted and given out across the hospital. They would come in at short notice when required to support last minute tasking and as the tasking evolved they embraced the changes to the routines so that we could sustain and ensure we could achieve the task.
At its height, the team were packing over 30,000 masks and distributing them each week and they always did this with a smile on their face. They took on other tasks when asked as well and just kept going. As services have resumed in the hospital we have continued to develop and expand what we are doing as a response team and our COVID response team are now working with volunteers who have returned from shielding.
The Response role is truly that, and staying one step ahead has been instrumental to ensure we can offer the best volunteer service possible. The team being the eyes and ears on the ground have identified when there is a need to do more and made sure that some of our former roles have resumed such as guiding and patient/visitor liaison. They continue with tasks new and old, they are shaping the future of our service and they are ready to take on new challenges. They have been and continue to be just fab and in our opinion the best volunteer team ever!
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