HOSPITAL STAFF GET AN EXTRA DAY OFF
10,000 NHS heroes rewarded for work during pandemic
AROUND 10,000 NHS heroes at Staffordshire’s two biggest hospitals are getting an extra day off work – to thank them for their efforts during the coronavirus pandemic.
The wellbeing day – an extra day’s holiday – is being given to staff at the Royal Stoke University Hospital and Stafford’s County Hospital in 2021.
It comes as the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust – which runs the two hospitals – has been left reeling by 1,370 deaths since the pandemic began.
But thousands of other patients have been discharged from the two sites after surviving coronavirus.
Royal Stoke chief executive Tracy Bullock said: “The welfare of our staff has been our top priority since the start of the pandemic.
“We have worked with partners at North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust to provide a package of staff support and counselling and, in addition, we wanted to recognise the extraordinary efforts all our staff have demonstrated in 2020 and 2021.
“I am delighted to announce that all staff will be awarded a gift of a wellbeing day. This is an additional day’s leave for them to do something positive to support their own health and wellbeing.
“Whether that is simply spending time at home with family and loved ones, exercising, relaxing or simply whatever they choose, I hope our staff really do make the most of it when the time comes to take it.
It is so important staff look after themselves and each other.”
Health campaigner Ian Syme has welcomed the gesture – after the national furore over nurses’ pay.
The North Staffordshire Healthwatch leader said: “It’s well deserved for the staff - it’s going to be really needed. Frankly it’s going to take more than a day for the staff to recover from what has been the most intense situation they would ever have faced in their lives but it’s a step in the right direction. It’s more generous than what the Government is offering.
“It shows that the Royal Stoke does follow up with actions when they say they are proud of their staff.
“People who have been working through this pandemic really do need these kinds of acknowledgements and they have to be real, not just words that turn out to be empty rhetoric.”