As the government begin to lift restrictions, we want to continue to amplify the voices of our essential workers and keep hearing about the incredible lengths they went to, to ensure that the people they were caring for continue to live their lives to the full. From drive-through visits to nurturing creativity, our team have gone above and beyond during this pandemic.
People are at the heart of everything we do, our incredible team across the organisation demonstrate this in their day-to-day. During the lockdown, this was echoed as stories from the organisation across England and Wales were shared, of the dedication being shown by our essential workers.
Fred*, a person we support in London became one of the over 309,000 positive cases. He first began complaining of a headache, which was when the team decided to take his temperature more regularly. Fred was eventually admitted into hospital overnight on a Wednesday, was tested and subsequently diagnosed with Covid-19, the following Monday. Fred was in hospital for less than 24hrs. The team had all government guidelines in place at the service and once he was discharged to return continued to monitor him 24/7 at a distance.
The team ensured Fred understood what was going on, before he was diagnosed, easy read literature on Covid-19 had been given to him and the circumstances had been explained. Before the nationwide lockdown, Fred enjoyed going to the airport to watch the planes and enjoyed seeing his family. Lockdown was a huge adjustment for him, but our incredible team found innovative ways to navigate the challenging situation. The team were very patient and calm which allowed Fred to also remain calm during a stressful and uncomfortable situation. The whole team got together to deliver an outstanding level of care.
One of our deputy managers, Dawn, also was diagnosed with COVID-19, “it was an emotional experience for me, I was so tired and worried about passing it onto my family”, she explains. Alike many care professionals, the pandemic has been challenging, with many having to work twice as hard to keep the people they support safe as well as ensuring they themselves are kept safe. “I spent a lot the time calling my team, ensuring they were ok and that the people we support were ok”, Dawn tells me, “Krissie, kept telling me to focus on my recovery”, she says laughing. Krissie is one of our fantastic locality managers, who embodies our five values, consistently putting people at the heart of what she does.
“Krissie is an incredible manager and was incredible during this period, she came onsite so staff would feel comfortable and helped with waking nights”, Dawn says with warmth. Dawn recovered from her COVID experience saying “I cannot thank the team enough for their support while I was ill”.
Both, Dawn and *Fred completely recovered from COVID-19 with Dawn even accompanying *Fred to get tested at a testing site. “We explained everything to him before we got there and as we got there, they had a great booklet which had a step by step visual guide showing how the test would be conducted. He was so chill and calm, I think seeing the soldiers in their uniform was fascinating to him”, Dawn laughs, “He was asking questions about the “army men” non-stop!”.
Dawn’s story is just one of many demonstrating the commitment, essential workers have shown during the pandemic. As an organisation, we cannot express our gratitude enough and pride at being able to work alongside these incredible individuals.
*person has been anonymised