LOROS Internal Communications

Welcome

May has come around and we are still in lockdown. For some of you, little may have changed in the last month, whilst others will have undergone huge changes in the way you work. Whether you are furloughed, working from home or keeping our Ward running at the Hospice, the Pin Board is here to keep you all informed, up-to-date and maybe even make you smile.

Please don’t forget that all staff news and information is also available via the Staff Internal Homepage and important information about COVID-19 and LOROS is here.

These pages are updated daily and are packed with information. If you have a question, it will likely be answered by the information on these pages.

Stay safe, Sophie x

Good news

Despite our challenging current state of affairs, we have been inundated with good news stories about our staff, patients, their families and our supporters. John shared a particularly poignant one:

'A gentleman came to collect his mother’s belongings. He is a groundsman from Thurmaston and had his mower in the back of his van. On seeing our grass at the reception being long and not tidy, he immediately got his mower out and did the lawns at the front for us. When John went to thank him he said his mother would be proud that he’d done them and it was the least that he could do for us'.

Staff smashing it

A few examples of LOROS staff really helping out, raising money and being brilliant:

· A group of normally non-clinical care services staff are helping the Ward by working one day a week, including weekends in a support role. They will also be supporting the HCA workforce on the Ward over the coming months. This is in addition to their normal day jobs which have been affected by the pandemic.

· There was a hair-brained idea for a sponsored staff head shave which formed part of our Twi-Night In. Thank you to everyone who took part, you are all so brave. It was all caught on camera below and all I can say is, I hope lockdown doesn’t end too soon for their sakes!

· A number of senior nursing colleagues who do not normally work at LOROS have offered to volunteer on the ward as HCAs.

· Our remaining chaplain, Stephen, has offered to reduce his hours to three days a week to support the current financial situation.

· The LOROS Voices Wellbeing choir hasn’t been silenced by coronavirus. Leisha, the Musical Director, has continued to donate her time and practices have continued via zoom, with some new members from our Ward teams joining. Plans for a single are even afoot! If you are interested in joining then please email Angela.

PPE Donations

· PPE equipment has been thoughtfully created donated by Printvision (UK) Ltd, Manor High School, Wigston Academy, Dunelm for our doctors and nursing staff to use. Rawlins Academy in Quorn have made pretty scrub bags and headbands. And this is just a few!

We are very grateful, thank you for thinking of us.

Supporters getting crafty for LOROS

· Fred the Frontliner bear, looking super in his PPE, was knitted by volunteer Katrina Satchwell and donated to the Hospice.

· Aisla Pope, is nine years old and has autism. Her Grandad died at LOROS and during lockdown she has been busy making keyrings, each with its own hand-drawn LOROS card, to sell for us. So far she has raised £187, check out her JustGiving page!

Yummy donations!

· Some enormous, like massive, chocolate eggs from Business in the Community and SafeStyleUK were donated to the ward.

· Samiya, Community Champion at Tesco dropped off some tasty treats for us from the Beaumont Leys store!

Ducklings

Finally to round up our good news, although lots has changed, there are some things that haven’t. The ducklings didn’t get the social distancing memo and are back at the Hospice, being cute and cheering everyone up.

A message from John

It seems odd now when I reflect back, that COVID-19 had occupied the news for so long all around the world but still seemed to take the UK by surprise in the enormity of its impact. When it did arrive it was clear that LOROS needed to act swiftly and decisively.

The ‘COVID-19 meeting group’ was quickly established and, as CEO, it fell to me to Chair those meetings, striving to ensure a consultative environment but one that was also clear on outcome and actions. They have been a joy to convene because everyone has been so focused and collaborative – the ‘can do’ attitude has never been bettered.

Over the first three weeks, many things changed daily – the way in which we delivered services to patients, the radically changing approach to income generation, our speed of financial management to access government support funds, furloughing staff, establishing working from home, the IT demands and all the HR implications that are connected.

As those first weeks past, it felt like we became more in control - perhaps because external events began to slow a little. The daily meetings allowed us to review new patterns of working and tweak them as necessary. The Ward became steady, albeit different, and there was more chance to ‘think ahead’.

Here, in the present and I’m referencing now as week seven, we have shifted to meeting once a week and our focus is turning to the future.

· How will the economy recover and over what sort of period?

· How will our vital income generation be affected in the medium to long term?

· What social habits will change forever and what shape will hospices need to have to match that?

These questions are just the tip of the iceberg for everyone. Myself and other colleagues sit and listen to many online forums about the future – longing to hear some certainties around which firm plans can be made.

The truth is that there are very few and our own planning for LOROS must be built on informed judgements, our experience and a cautious courage to make decisions without perfect information.

I recently heard the William Blake quote “Expect poison from the standing water” – and feel a deep responsibility to ensure that LOROS is not that organisation standing still.

The COVID-19 chapter has much yet to play out. We will need to continue to respond and adapt, anticipating a future that is different from the past and one that may well demand a different LOROS.

What is for sure is that without your support, we could not be positioned as well as we currently are.

I know that some of you will be scared, some will be anxious and you will be worried about friends, family and colleagues. Thank you for stepping up, for finding incredible strength and resilience and for continuing to do a great job. I am so proud of you all.

Whether you are at work, working from home, furloughed or a volunteering - thank you once again for all that you have done for LOROS.

John

CEO Updates and Ask John FAQs

The planned mandatory CEO Update sessions, scheduled to start next week, are now cancelled.

As I'm sure you can appreciate, Coronavirus has presented our wonderful charity with unprecedented challenges. Challenges in how we continue to adapt on a daily basis, how we secure income and then projecting forward to what the future looks like. We know that now more than ever, there is a thirst for knowledge - about our current situation and the future.

Whilst these challenges are being met and worked through, we will be introducing regular video updates from John, and other members of the senior team, along with the opportunity for you to ask any questions you may have.

These questions and answers will then be shared through the regular video updates. We welcome and encourage any questions you may have, and ask that you initially send them to askjohn@loros.co.uk by Friday 8th May.

We have already received some, so please do keep them coming. The questions that you ask will ultimately help us understand and address the things that matter to you, and they are bound to help and inform others too.

The Twi-Night In

We would like to say a huge thank you to all the staff and volunteers that were part of our Twi-Night In that took place on Saturday 18th April. It was something completely brand new for all of us, and we’re extremely pleased to have been able to pull together to create a night of fun and magic reminiscent of the traditional Twilight Walk!

The event was live streamed on Facebook and featured many familiar faces, including LOROS Patron Greg Davies, who set Taskmaster style challenges, LOROS Patron Charlie Clapham helped out with a special ‘Quarantine Karaoke’ segment and the fabulous LOROS Patron Anne Davies who bought a bit of glitz and glamour to the night. We were also pleased to welcome many local acts to get everyone moving, including Clubbercise, Zumba, Tribute Acts, Dance Challenges and more. You will no doubt have seen a number of LOROS staff who also ‘braved the shave’ on the night and huge thank you must go to them as well for their efforts both in taking on the challenge and fundraising.

The event has been incredibly well-received, and from a combination of viewing figures and our feedback survey we estimate that almost 2,000 people were watching us at home. In the run up, the show was also covered by both BBC and ITV news, as well as local radio stations.

As we didn’t cancel the original Twilight Walk, we have had to issue very few refunds, with even more people signing up after the launch of the new concept. These new donations along with JustGiving fundraising has led to a profit of more than £50,000 for LOROS.

With all of us having been working from home for a month or so now, it was brilliant to see so many familiar names and faces joining in on the night. Thank you to everyone who got involved in any way – the ‘atmosphere’ on the night was amazing and you helped us make this happen.

If anyone missed the event or simply wants to relive it, the recorded stream is now on YouTube. Our donation page will also remain live for another few weeks, whilst many supporters continue to collect in sponsorship for their 10,000 step challenge via JustGiving. As you can see from the pics, people really threw themselves into it; you can find loads more photos sent in by supporters here.

Please stay safe and continue to look after yourselves and we hope to see you all soon,br>

The Fundraising and Marketing Teams

Hellos and goodbyes

Photos of all new starters can be accessed via staff profiles on Select HR.

Hellos

Amy Brown	Registered Nurse (Day Therapy and Outpatients Department)
Demi Clarke	Specialist Palliative Care Nurse (CNS Department)
Tina Corner	Specialist Palliative Care Nurse (CNS Department)

Goodbyes

Alexander Hall	E-Commerce Recycling Assistant (Enterprises Head Office Department)
Dain Allford	LOROS Local Co-ordinator/Driver (Community Outreach)
Becky Paulson	Specialist Palliative Care Nurse (CNS Department) Becky has left to work as a CNS in Coventry.

The full list of furloughed staff has been circulated via email, if you would like a copy, please contact your line manager or the HR team. We can’t wait to see you back guys!

Policy and clinical updates

New and revised policies are available to view within Organisation Information on the Common (G) Drive: G:\13. Organisation Information\Policies

Paper copies of polices can also be found on the Inpatient Unit behind the Ward Clerk’s desk but don’t go looking for them at the moment!

Policy Number	Title	Status
1.26	Business Continuity Plan	New
2.29	Supporting Patients to Prepare or Amend a will	Revised
3.6	Restriction of Movement & Restraint in Adult Patients	Revised
3.21	Pressure Ulcer Prevention, Identification, Treatment and Reporting Procedures	Revised
4.21	Fitness of LOROS Premises	Revised
4.30	Management of Latex Allergy	Revised
6.1	Data Protection Framework	Revised
6.5	SystmOne Operational Policy	Revised
7.14	Reserves	Revised
8.9	Fundraising Controls	Deleted
9.31	Collection Handling and Transport of Specimens	Revised

For You – Wellbeing, HR and personal development

We now have a full programme of health and wellbeing events, activities and groups for staff to access whilst working from home. This is updated weekly and is open to all staff, including those who have been furloughed. If you would like to see anything else included in the programme, please email Liz.

There is an extensive HR section on the Important Information section of the intranet and any additional queries should, in the first instance, by directed to your line manager.

Blue Light Cards

It is the perfect time to sign up for a Blue Light card if you haven’t already. The Blue Light Card is a discount card that can be used on online (and on the high street) for those in the Emergency Services, NHS and Armed Forces. There are some especially brilliant discounts at the moment so it is well worth it. To sign up you need to go the Blue Light website then in the sign up section select NHS. As part of the Employers Information section you will then be able to select Hospice (other).

Business development

By Caroline Baker, Director of Income Generation

Despite all of the current projects in the Business Development portfolio being on hold, we are still actively looking at new opportunities for when we come through the COVID-19 situation. To this end we have been working with David Gordon, Associate Professor in Marketing and University Teacher Fellow at DMU, to offer research projects to students. We have submitted three options and look forward to seeing some fresh ideas and concepts of new commercial ventures.

We are also continuing with our marketing plan to promote ‘I Experience VR’ to current and prospective users.

LOROS needs you

Spring into Summer Raffle

A thank you from the Lottery team:

‘As we adjust, adapt and evolve, we realise just how resilient we are.

We never imagined anything like this, but somehow we are subsisting.

Not every day is easy, but some days we look up at the sky and smile.

That big deep breath in and out today, may set us up for a better tomorrow.

We crave for normal, and yesterday and ‘as we were’.

But now that ‘normal’ feels more special than ever before.

We will come back from this stronger, wiser and may be more humble.

So lose yourself in the small things, they may just be the big things.’

We would like to say a big heartfelt thank you to all of our Lottery and raffle supporters. We’re overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of our friends and colleagues. We miss you all!

The Lotteries Team x

In another example of all our brilliant teams supporting each other; Enterprises’ Gary and Mary have been out and about adding raffle displays to our shop windows. They had been printed before the pandemic and it would have been a shame not to use them as they look lovely. This one is in the Queens Road book shop.

The raffle is open until 7th June so you can still support us. Tickets cost just £1 and can be purchased online from the comfort and safety of your own home or by calling the Lottery Office on (0116) 231 840.

Players must be aged 18 or over. Be gamble aware.

Pamper yourself for LOROS

Angela Knight, our very own CEO's lovely wife, has set up a Tropic e-pamper so you can treat yourself and support LOROS! Just click to visit the e-pamper here and 10% of each purchase goes directly to LOROS.
Not sure what to choose? You can watch Angela sample some of Tropic's fab products on her Facebook page.

My Team Spotlight

As you can imagine it has been quite hard to pin someone down to write about their team at the moment. Some teams have been furloughed, some have been moved to different areas of the Hospice or even into a UHL hospital and everyone else is just really, really busy trying to get on.

So I thought I’d quickly share my current team and questionable colleagues with you; there is me, Sophie – Marketing Coordinator at LOROS Hospice, Jordan, my fiancé and Regional IT Manager of four schools in an Academic trust, Rex, my oldest who is four today (4th May). He is best described as busy and his daily calendar includes snacking, digging up his Daddy’s garden, snacking, running (everywhere), snacking, getting bored of fun and educational activities that take me ages to set up in about 15 seconds, oh and some more snacking. Finally there is Reuben, 15 months old, usually very smiley but currently teething some molars and not in the mood.

We have great, fun, productive days where we smash Joe Wicks’ workout, Mummy and Daddy do simultaneous video calls in relative calm, we work and play outside in the sunshine, dinner is made from scratch and the boys do amazing things – Rex learnt to ride his bike without stabilisers on the first go last week!

We also have days which are so, so hard - where everyone is still PJs at 3pm, Rex watches way too many episodes of the Go Jetters, dinner comes right out of the freezer, it’s a struggle to complete one coherent email and I seriously could just cry (so please forgive me if this Pin Board isn’t my finest work!). But I try to be kind to myself and shrug these days off, then get up and try again for another good day.

We are living through crazy times and all just trying to do our best, and sometimes our best is doing a team meeting in your dressing gown with a good supply of kiddo snacks in the pockets and Peppa Pig on the tv!

I’d love to hear about your ‘new normals’, what have you learnt, and any interesting new ‘colleagues’ you have. How you have adapted to the current situation and overcome the challenges you’re facing. Drop an email to the marketing inbox.

Heads of Department meeting – in brief

Thanks to the power of Teams, the six-weekly HoDs meetings have restarted, with the latest one being held on Tuesday 21st April. As you can imagine it was a mostly Coronavirus related agenda but there were some other interesting items shared:

Refurbishment of the dining, kitchen and social area

The refurbishment plans for these areas have been reviewed to ensure this is developed within a tight budget. Caroline Baker shared some funding had been secured, but an additional £65,000 received last week from Leicester City Football Club give us enough money to definitely proceed.

Polytunnel project

Planning permission has been received for the Polytunnel project in the grounds. This will be for Day Therapy and other patients and their families to access and use to grow flowers, plants and vegetables . Work will commence on this in due course.

Fire Training

If you are non-clinical member of staff due to complete face-to-face fire training in the near future, please now complete this online via e-learning here.

Mobile numbers on email signatures

With the majority of staff home working, it was suggested that email signatures could be updated with mobile numbers rather than Hospice extension numbers. If you or a member of your team would like to have your mobile number on your email signature please send an email to IT support [itsupport@loros.co.uk] who will action this.

The Hospice Pin Board deadlines

The newsletter will be released monthly as per the dates below. To make it as informative and useful as possible we need your stories, content and information share.
Please email anything you would like to go into the newsletter or come and speak to Sophie in the Marketing office (ext. 8472).

Content Deadline	Release Date
Tuesday 26th May	Monday 1st June
Tuesday 30th June	Monday 6th July
Tuesday 28th July	Monday 3rd August
Tuesday 1st September	Monday 7th September
Tuesday 29th September	Monday 5th October
Tuesday 27th October	Monday 2nd November
Tuesday 1st December	Monday 7th December

Thank you from Lady Gretton

To sign us off this month we have a lovely thank you from our LOROS President.

To everyone working at LOROS,

I wish I could come into LOROS to see what you are doing and to thank you all individually so much for everything. These are such difficult times and I know how brilliantly you are all coping. Even in normal times you are faced with so many challenges, but life is so much more difficult now. I’ll say it again – thank you, thank you, thank you for everything and do please keep yourselves safe and well.

Love to you all,

Jenny