Recognising and celebrating the work of colleagues ‘behind the scenes’ at our Inpatient Unit
15th June 2022
Today is the very first National Healthcare Estates and Facilities Day.
When you see pictures of Weldmar Hospicecare, you will often see our doctors, or our nursing teams at our Inpatient Unit and out in the community across Dorset, or our Weldmar at Home team who provide care to patients at home at the end of life. Behind the scenes, there are many more departments ensuring that this specialist care can be provided, ranging from finance through to retail, fundraising, and more.
We’re marking National Healthcare Estates and Facilities Day by shining a light on our colleagues in Housekeeping, Catering, and Maintenance – a number of whom are pictured above.
We have an exceptional Housekeeping team led by Mish Holmes, who ensure all areas of our Inpatient Unit are clean to the highest possible clinical standards.
Sam White, our Chef Manager, and her specialist Catering team provide our inpatients with delicious tailored meals and snacks based on their nutritional needs, as well as providing food for visitors, staff, and volunteers.
Our Maintenance team, under the guidance of David Whiles, maintain not only the Inpatient Unit building, but also our fleet of vehicles, our Trimar House headquarters in Weymouth, and our chain of charity shops across the county.
We asked them to take some photos of what they were doing across a typical day:
Lin is first to arrive, at 5am each morning. She does all the Inpatient Unit laundry, which includes all the linen from the beds, and uniforms.
Mish is in at 6am, and cleans all of the offices and communal areas before the majority of staff arrive for the day.
Jane is first in from our Catering team at 7am, and begins by preparing breakfasts and doing early lunch prep. All of our meals are made from scratch.
At 7:30am, Leila from Housekeeping starts her rounds, ensuring that the wards and clinical areas of the Inpatient Unit are spotless, and clean to the highest standards.
8am – and Paul from Maintenance begins his day with a check on an appliance in the Visitor Kitchen and Lounge area of our Inpatient Unit.
It’s now 9am, and Louise prepares food for the Grab & Go service, which means that staff and visitors have access to meals and snacks around the clock.
Over in the Maintenance office at 9am, Christy begins her day by prioritising the jobs that have been requested by all of our sites across Dorset.
It’s vital that our patients staying at the IPU remain hydrated, so Peter heads to their rooms at 9am to refresh their water jugs.
After taking a delivery of fresh stock for the kitchen at 9:30am, Sam joins Jane to discuss the menu offering, and the individual needs of each patient for the day.
We’ve got a new marquee for our meadow at the Inpatient Unit, which will be up for the summer months. At 11am, Paul and Arpi from Maintenance begin building the staging area for the forthcoming Annual Volunteers Celebration event.
…and there are preparations for the Annual Volunteers’ Celebration in the kitchen too, which begin after lunch is served to patients, visitors, staff and volunteers at 12:30pm.
More cooking from scratch as Kath prepares delicious evening meals from 4:30pm in the kitchen.
We want to say a huge thank you to all members of our Housekeeping, Catering, and Maintenance teams. They are a vital part of Team Weldmar and we couldn’t do what we do without them!
