Staff from Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT) have shared how they will be supporting patients in inpatient wards and care homes over Christmas.
More than 1,100 Trust staff will be working across inpatient and community health services on Christmas Day. The same number will be working on Boxing Day.
Terry Walsh, a healthcare assistant at Rawreth Court care home in Rayleigh, will be working Christmas eve and Christmas Day. He said: “I enjoy working at Christmas because I enjoy making the day as special as possible for those under my care.
“Some of them have little to no family and I don’t see this as a legitimate reason for them not to share all the same festivities associated with Christmas.
“On the day we will be putting on a number of festive themed activities, listening to Christmas music and watching festive TV shows, usually 1970s to 1990s re-runs that they may have a sense of familiarity and nostalgia with.
“I got into a career of caring for the elderly following a six-year period of caring for my own grandmother until she passed away in 2015.
“She may be gone now, but my desire to care for others with the same passion is something that will never leave me. So for me, working Christmas Day doesn’t feel like work, it feels like a responsibility of mine in the hope that, if she is looking down on me, my love for her will be clear for her to see, in the care I’m giving to others.”
Peer worker Chloe Ramsey has been working with her colleagues and their patients to decorate Galleywood Ward at The Linden Centre in Chelmsford. The team provide inpatient mental health care for women.
Chloe said: “We will be throwing a large Christmas party for the ward. I have arranged a small stocking for each of the girls, filled with socks, positive posters for their room and a handwritten Christmas card.
“We will be playing some Christmas games with them and hopefully use the karaoke machine for some songs afterwards.
“The most rewarding part of being a peer worker is watching patients make progress – even small steps – and knowing I’ve been able to help them on this journey by being authentic and empathetic through sharing my own lived experience.
“I really enjoy the honesty and real human connection I find when supporting patients.”
Activity coordinators Sandie Woolford and Adewale Abass have been arranging festive activities at Clifton Lodge care home in Westcliff and will both be working over Christmas to support their residents, who have dementia.
Local singers including Sandie’s band The Cliftones, Sue Sawyer, and members of St Cecilia’s Christian Spiritualist Church have visited to sing Christmas songs in the run up to Christmas.
On Christmas Day, Sandie, Adewale and their colleagues will be opening presents with the residents and their families, organising group games, watching Christmas films and sharing readings.
They will be especially making sure residents who do not have any visitors are not left out.
Sandie, who has worked over Christmas for the past five years, said: “It has been a joy to support all the residents.
“Each year is different, bringing the joy and peace of Christmas. There are always treats to be had, a song or two, and everyone joining in, which brings smiles, joy and happiness as we all celebrate together.”
Ben Gray, a peer worker at The Lakes mental health unit in Colchester, said staff and patients will be singing Christmas songs and enjoying festive treats.
He said: “Although I love being with my family at Christmas, I also very much appreciate being with my wider family, staff and patients on the mental health wards at EPUT.
“We bring support at the darkest time of the year and light a candle of hope over the festive period, when many people with mental health problems are unable to see their own friends and family.
“It is important to give people hope in the dark hours of winter, in what can be a difficult time of the year. Hope is a lighthouse that guides the way, supports people and lifts them during hard times.”