Over the festive period, Brighterway stepped in to donate and gift service users across Southern Health with presents, outdoor decorations and some activities.

Karen Bagg, Practice Development Lead for Older People’s Mental Health said, “It’s been such a tough year. Our patients could not have visitors due to COVID-19 restrictions so we wanted to make Christmas as special as we could.

Receiving a present on Christmas day, spending time together and enjoying the atmosphere of Christmas made such a difference.”

More than 30 services across the Trust received funding after the charity opened applications in November to staff for requesting presents, decorations and activities.

Donations received throughout the year allowed the charity to fund over £20,000 worth of requests.

Service users loved receiving the gifts with one commenting, “Thank you so much for the amazing presents and activities, I’m actually amazed.” whilst another said that the charity have “made a tough Christmas better”.

Forest Lodge, a rehabilitation service, received funding for presents and an outdoor Christmas tree.

Admin secretary, Bina Sawjani said, “Service users very much enjoyed being involved in the decorating process. This is the first year we bought a real tree for the outside, at the request of service users, and it looked lovely. The personalised Christmas presents were much appreciated too.”

Brighterway aims to improve and enhance service user and staff experience, supporting projects that go above and beyond NHS funding.

“This is what Christmas is all about. I’ve loved hearing back from the units about the difference the funding has made, thank you to everyone who donated and fundraised for us this year, this wouldn’t have been possible without you”. Commented Ian Hynd, Head of Brighterway Charity.

Being away from home can be difficult at any time, but especially at Christmas. The staff at Bluebird House wanted to make it a positive experience for the young people in their care by providing presents, activities and food over the festive period.

Bluebird House is a specialist, secure mental health inpatient unit, providing assessment, treatment and care for young people aged 12-18 years.

With Brighterway funding, the staff put on a range of activities for the young people, starting with a “Gentlemen’s classy evening”.

Dressed up for the occasion in suit & tie, they drank at a non-alcoholic swing bar, played chess and ate fine meats and cheeses. Accompanied by smooth jazz music and a video of a roaring fire playing in the background.

The night was proven to be a big hit with the young men, with one of them describing it as “the best evening they’ve ever had”

In the lead up to the big day, they also enjoyed a retro games afternoon. The service purchased a new Sega mega drive to play original Mario or streetfighter – which resulted in laughing at the low quality and mimicking the age of the staff!

The Christmas fayre was described as a “lot of fun”, with the young people cooking different snacks for the buffet. They also played games whilst the band played Christmas songs.

Although some of the other young people are not fond or do not celebrate Christmas, the funding allowed the team to still buy them “non-Christmassy” gifts to show that they care.

“For these young people in such a stark environment with no family visits or decorations it was really important to us to show them we care” commented Aaliyah Williams, Occupational Therapist.

Aaliyah picked the Christmas pantomime as her favourite activity. “This year the young people identified they would like to adapt Shrek to be a Christmas pantomime and worked hard over 6 weeks developing a script, their characters, making sets and shopping for costumes.

It went down an absolute storm and we’ve carried it into the New Year as a regular drama group!

Overall the funding really helped us make Christmas at Bluebird House a little bit brighter so I would just like to say a massive thank you to the charity!”

If you would like to support Brighterway’s future projects by donating, please click here.

Ward Clerk, Jenny Bell describes how Christmas was made special for the staff and patients at Romsey Hospital over the Festive period.

The service requested Brighterway funding to bring some Christmas cheer to the patients and staff.

“A lot of thought went into the patients presents, we chose what we thought were practical, yet nice gifts. Slippers went down a treat as not all patients had any or their old ones were not an appropriate style, worn out or broken.

We also chose lovely warm scarves, some patients saved them for when they went home and other patients liked to put them around their shoulders whilst they were still in our care.

Lastly, we bought each patient a mug and added a sachet of hot chocolate, coffee and a couple of tea bags ready for when they went home.

Our team of elves handed the presents out on Christmas morning, and they were very well received. These were the only presents many of our patients received on Christmas day, mainly due to the COVID-19 visitor restrictions.

The service recently opened our first designated staff / tea room and we wanted to give our colleagues something practical to use in the room on their breaks.

I’ve worked on the wards at Romsey for 13 years and this is the first year that staff have been given a Christmas present.

After researching various personalised gifts, the team decided on themed mugs. Along with their name and job title, they also included the colour of their uniform on the handle and insides.

Like the patients mugs, they also included a sachet of hot chocolate, coffee and a couple of tea bags.

For the remainder of the funding, we added new cutlery, crockery, canisters, biscuit tins, trays and a fruit bowl to go into the new break room.

We previously had mismatched jars, cups and plates so it’s lovely to have these replaced with matching, new ones.

The ward staff were very surprised with the gifts and loved the thought that had gone into each one.

Thank you to procurement for their patience and help with our purchases and also to Brighterway Charity for their generosity in helping make patients and staff smile.

It’s important to make them feel appreciated in these difficult times, especially at Christmas.

Thank you.”

Throughout the pandemic, Basingstoke School Nursing Team have been looking for ways to boost morale and show appreciation for their staff.

Thanks to a grant received from NHS Charities Together earlier in the year, Brighterway were able to provide funding for a wellbeing lunch.

On December 15^th, the team got together over zoom to catch up, relax, compete in a quiz and discuss positives for the future.

The Basingstoke School Nursing Team service works in partnership with children, young people and their families to ensure that pupil’s health needs are supported within their school and their community.

This includes those attending a school within Hampshire and those that are electively home educated (except Southampton and Portsmouth city schools).

It’s been a very challenging year for the service, juggling with redeployment, limited staffing, restricted meetings and working from home. In August, during the Covid restrictions, they transformed into the newly commissioner 0-19 Service with School Nurses and Health Visitors working together to improve service delivery.

“My team have tried so hard to keep our service afloat and they always strive to give 100% to their duties” Gillian Broadway, School Nurse, commented. “I think the lunch was just what they needed as it was apparent that some of them were feeling the impact of this year.

I am so proud of them and their work ethic, it was lovely to be able to give them something back to say thank you.”

Staff were highly appreciative of the wellbeing lunch with one staff member commenting “How lovely it was to get a surprise gift” whilst another said “I feel humbled that Brighterway would want to help us”

If you would like to donate towards future Brighterway projects, please click here.

The Speech and Language Therapists (SLT) at Southern Health deliver a service within the learning disability services, stroke services and older people mental health across Southampton city.

SLT’S work with children and adults to help them overcome or adapt to a vast array of disorders of speech, language, communication and swallowing.

Brighterway have recently provided funding to purchase 3 specific assessment tools: Renfrew Action Picture Test (RAPT), Communication Assessment Profile (CASP) and Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Fifth Edition (CELF 5).

Assessments can provide a clear picture of clients’ strengths and weaknesses, in turn this allows staff to be more focussed in their work.

Clinicians and SLT students noticed a gap in resources based on experience of assessing people with learning disabilities and communication needs. They identified a number of assessments that would enhance their ability to work effectively with their clients.

We spoke to the Speech and Language Therapy team in Southampton city to hear their thoughts about the assessments and the difference they have made to the service.

RAPT

“The RAPT assessment has been useful to implement assessment via video calls as the images are clear. This has meant that we can deliver communication assessment virtually reducing the risks from Covid-19 to both our clients and Speech Therapy team.

When using the assessment during a face-to-face visit, the cards are able to be wiped with antibacterial wipes, meaning that the assessment can be re-used quickly and adheres to infection-prevention-control guidelines.

The assessment has provided clear information about a client’s use of grammatical constructs in his spoken language, allowing the therapist to select the most appropriate intervention efficiently and this client has made great progress and will be discharged soon.

The RAPT has supported speech therapists confidence in working virtually, rather than relying entirely on face-to-face work”

CASP

“The CASP has made it faster and easier to get a broad picture of a person’s understanding.

It’s meant, especially during Covid, that I’ve been able to gather information about different communication skills/needs with lesser risk of Covid transmission, as it requires less visits to carry out than doing several different types of communication assessments.”

CELF

“The CELF 5 covers some aspects of language suitable for our more able clients, this means that we can provide a varied service to meet the needs of all individuals who require our support”.