Seasonal Support for Team BCHC
Spending the festive season in a healthcare setting can often be a lonely, frustrating, and boring experience. We think it’s incredibly important to ensure that patients, service users and our Team BCHC colleagues are supported throughout the festive season and beyond!
Nova and the Charity Team put on our festive hats and began preparing (in September!) to help spread some sparkle
across the city by providing entertainment, gifts and seasonal cheer in hospitals, residential centres, rehabilitation centres and community services across the Trust.
We kicked off the holiday season in style by hosting events across the city for BCHC colleagues, providing musical entertainment, wellbeing resources, drinks and snacks, and hosting craft stalls packed with beautiful handmade items. We’d like to offer our sincere thanks to The Massage Company for attending a few of these sessions to offer free taster massages to Team BCHC staff, local henna artist Naznin Choudhury for providing free hand art, and Chris from Kaw-fee, the House of Brass quintet, guitarist and singer Bob Gessey, and GKitchen for helping us to provide staff with refreshments and entertainment at various events.
520 gifts were purchased for adult inpatients spending the Christmas period under our care, wrapped by volunteers from DWF, Groundwork UK and SopraSteria, and delivered across the city by our very own Santa Sarah and her elves! Our inpatient services also benefitted from musical performances and entertainment thanks to funding from our Arts & Culture in Health scheme.
We would also like to offer our most sincere thanks to the corporate sponsors who have helped us spread more sparkle than ever this year! Samson Security were the headline sponsor for Moseley Hall Hospital, allowing us to provide inpatient gifts of toiletry sets, socks and handkerchiefs, as well as decorations for the wards, and hampers for Team BCHC staff based there. The sponsorship also allowed for us to provide the five regional Early Intervention Community Teams with gift bags for their most vulnerable patients, containing festive gifts such as biscuits and card games, as well as winter support items such as a fleecy blanket, slippers, and bed socks.
We also received a considerable donation of toys and books from Mitie, Guru You Coaching, Aston University and several generous individuals. This, along with donations to our Winter Appeal, allowed us to provide 40 Advent calendars for the Paediatric Amputee Service, as well as 377 gifts for patients accessing children’s services, such as the Children in Care Team, the Children’s Neurodevelopment Team, and the Children’s Palliative Care Team. Tiaghan Drew of the Perry Barr Health Visiting Team received a number of gifts for this purpose, and said, “We are absolutely blown away! Thank you so much… We have had a lot of deprived children on our caseload this year and I know they will be very happy and grateful!”
BCHC Charity would also like to say a huge thank you to Vintage Trains, whose donation of Polar Express tickets allowed us to send the Austwick family on a fabulous festive journey on the beautiful heritage steam train from Moor Street. Amber said, "I'm very pleased to have the experience and would definitely go again! The characters were all very friendly."
The Charity also continued to provide support for those in financial hardship during the winter, by providing winter support bags to those in need across the city.
It’s thanks to the generosity of our star supporters that we can continue to make a difference in Birmingham, and as such we want to say a huge THANK YOU for all of your support to BCHC Charity and Team BCHC throughout 2023. We look forward to bringing you lots more good news stories for 2024!