It’s been an incredibly hard year for all of those involved in the delivery of Health and Social Care. The coronavirus pandemic has required huge changes to the existing way of working. Here at Nightingales Golden Care we have been celebrating the receipt of certificates of recognition, presented from the Lord Mayor on behalf of the people of Portsmouth, for Outstanding Service.
As our longest working member of the team Carole Rogers has accepted the award on behalf of all of our fantastic members of staff. Staff who like Carole, have worked so hard throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to keep the service running during difficult times.
‘Working through the pandemic has been hard as we were all walking into the unknown, but we had no choice but to carry on. As so many people depend on us for different things.’
In addition to their normal duties and responsibilities. Staff have ensured isolated service users are kept in contact with their loved ones by arranging video calls and messages, by escorting them to hospital appointments to prevent shielding family members having to do so, by helping to organise and administer COVID tests, by taking over responsibilities for medication and/or shopping for those whose families can longer visit and by ensuring their isolated service users have enough
food and essentials to see them through lockdown. Although equally as valuable, staff in Health and Social Care haven’t always received the same recognition as their NHS counter parts
“At first the focus was completely on NHS staff. We were not clapped on a Thursday night; we didn’t get to skip the queues at the supermarket, even when we were shopping for service users. It felt as if we weren’t recognised as important members of the workforce, and then all of sudden it seemed as if people started to realise how important care workers are, people thanking us in the streets for all we do. It’s lovely actually.’
On behalf of everyone, we would like to thank all of our staff for their brilliant work. They have really gone above and beyond the call of duty and we are so proud of them all.
