LOROS Internal Communications

Welcome

Welcome to the November issue of the Hospice Pin Board.

This issue lands at a very challenging time, with the all the Pin Board content being supplied before the news of the second national lockdown this coming Thursday. We've decided to publish the content, updated where appropriate. There is also an update from John relating to COVID-19 and the impact on the Hospice as of today (Tuesday 3rd November). You can read this below.

Throughout this period of lockdown, we will revert back to all Hospice communications being sent by either John or Jo. So please forward anything you would like to circulate to John Knight or Louise Lowman.

You can also forward anything that you would like promoting to all staff to marketing@loros.co.uk or to me directly, for inclusion on the staff homepage.

In a bid to lift spirits - this issue does introduce Christmas! I figured its OK because it's November already and you can get the shopping start whilst supporting LOROS! Our brilliant volunteering team is in the spotlight this month and we have some exciting updates from the Research team. We need your support for Care for Christmas cake and the Health and Safety Champions roles; I’ll let you decide which one you go for!

As we move into lockdown once again, please remember that all staff news and information is also available via the Staff Internal Homepage, important information about COVID-19 and LOROS is here, and information about the future of the Hospice is here. These pages are updated daily and are packed with information. If you have a question, it’s likely to be answered by the information on these pages.

Happy reading, Sophie

November COVID-19 Update by John Knight

I have no doubt that you’ll be wondering what impact the most recent ‘lockdown’ announcements will have for LOROS and how we are planning to implement all necessary changes across the organisation.

This email is first and foremost to reassure you that the COVID-19 group has now met twice and have started that planning process with some urgency.

Clearly there will be a raft of necessary actions and I will come back to you as quickly as possible to confirm exactly what we will do and by when. That said I am able to confirm that the following changes will be essential for the coming period of time;

• The closure of all shops and many associated furlough decisions.
• Reshaping many of our services to patients.
• Restricting visiting to the hospice for patients.
• Suspending volunteering in almost all areas.
• Restricting education activity to purely on line sessions

This is just an indicative list and not in any way meant to be seen as all encompassing.

You will no doubt appreciate that we must reinforce the ‘working from home’ rule as widely and robustly as possible and with immediate effect – please only come to the hospice if it is essential and your job requires you to do so. Liaising with your Department Manager or Team Leader will be vital in planning this. If you have a VPN connection that you are not using for work then do please let Justin Taylor know asap as we require these connections for other staff if you are not using the one allocated to you.

Once again we are in challenging times. The month’s lockdown will create another spike of losses for the charity which we will need to recoup through swift access to Government schemes. Thank you in anticipation of your help and support once again to maintaining LOROS both now and for the future.

I will write to you again before the end of tomorrow, Wednesday 4th November.

Good news

Boots Christmas goodies

The Fundraising team were given some Boots children’s Christmas PJs, jumpers, knitted stockings and woolly hats (ages new-born to 3-4 years) at the beginning of the year, which they have squirrelled away until now! Boots stipulated that we couldn’t sell them in any way but we could use them for either raffles or to gift to staff/volunteers.

The Fundraising team felt they normally have lots of 'asks' from everyone at LOROS and it would be nice to gift them to staff. There is obviously a limited amount of stock and these will be given out on a first come, first serve basis and for collection only. Please email fundraising@loros.co.uk if you are interested, letting them know what age you’d like and whether you’d like boy/girl/neutral items, and if you want a knitted stocking including.

The items will be sorted and then left for a week for infection prevention.

Christmas shopping with LOROS

Have you started thinking about Christmas presents yet? Believe it or not, there are just 51 days to go until Santa makes his way down our chimneys!

LOROS has a range of beautiful gifts available this year, so you can give whilst giving back.

For the garden-lover in your life, our stunning, limited edition LOROS Butterflies are sure to land well. With rainbow-coloured wings crafted from weather-proof resin, they'll keep your loved ones garden shining bright all winter long.

With our shops being forced to close their doors once again, launching very soon is our Online Christmas Market where you can buy all of your Christmas goodies and we have a lovely range of cards, festive ornaments and delightful decorations for you to discover.

Amazon Smile donations

And while we are talking about Christmas shopping I thought I’d remind you about Amazon Smile. Amazon Smile donates 0.5% of your eligible purchases at no extra cost to you to a charity of your choice (hopefully LOROS!). All you need to do is start your shopping at smile.amazon.com rather than the normal Amazon site.

Thank you cake!

Look at this! This beautiful cake was dropped off by a grateful family, for the wonderful Green team nurses who cared for their lovely mum, Julie.

What a touching and lovely treat for all our nursing staff! Thank you so much! It looks amazing!

Allied Health Professionals day

On 14th October we celebrated National Allied Health Professionals Day.

What are AHPs? Allied Health Professionals include Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists, who play an important role in the care of patients at LOROS, helping them to be as independent as possible for as long as possible.

We are celebrating the great work of our AHPs and helping people to understand a little more about what they do.

To find out more and see some of our team check out this Facebook post.

LOROS 2021 Calendar

Remember our photography competition to create the LOROS 2021 calendar? Well it’s in the shops now!

A few months ago we picked our twelve beautiful winning images, from an urban canal towpath and a very inquisitive cow to more traditional images of a snowy park at dusk, and a beautiful baby deer.

The twelve winning images were submitted by local amateur photographers who wanted to use their talents to support LOROS and now the calendar has been printed with the glossy gorgeous pictures, and you can purchase them online in our Online Christmas Market.

Huge thanks to our photographers whose images we used in our calendar:

Brian Winfield, Vicky Wells, Joanne Page, Brad Smith, Chris McKeown, Dave Cappella, Jon Pearson, Robert Bent, Mark Smith, Scott Cooper, Stacey Barnes and Mark Phillips.

LOROS needs you

Health and Safety Workplace Champions

LOROS are looking for representatives from all departments to be Health and Safety workplace champions for their teams.

Who are we looking for?

We would like to hear from you if you have an interest in health and safety and a desire to ensure your team is working safely and effectively. The champion will provide advice and support to the HSE Officer and their department on a range of Health and Safety issues. They will be a representative of employee safety for their department and promote health and safety through information, instruction and training. They will identify gaps within the management of health and safety within their department and assist with risk assessments, workplace inspections and accident investigations.

What the role can offer you?

The role is an excellent opportunity for career development, in-house training is provided and there will be further opportunities for accredited Health and Safety Training (IOSH/NEBOSH) in future. With your line managers agreement you will be given the time and resources to perform the role effectively, and you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are helping to create a safe working environment and a positive health and safety culture.

For a full role description and training programme, please click here. If you are interested in the role please speak with your line manager in the first instance, if you have any queries about the role please contact Michael Bridge HSE Officer.

Light Up a Life

Whilst we won’t be able to welcome everyone to the Hospice in person this year, we are delighted to be able to invite you to join us for an extra special, virtual Light up a Life service, streamed online on Sunday 6th December at 5pm. The new online service will last around 40 minutes and will include readings, carols and the switching on of the LOROS Christmas tree.

We will be streaming live from Facebook and YouTube and we would love for you to join us. You do not need a YouTube or Facebook account to watch the service. You can watch on a computer, laptop, tablet, smartphone or smart TV. Simply follow the steaming links shown below to the LOROS Hospice YouTube or Facebook pages. Then simply click the Light Up a Life video and sit back and enjoy the service. The live stream video will appear at the top in our list of videos approximately 20 minutes before the service is due to start at 5pm.

• To watch on Facebook: facebook.com/loroshospice

• To watch on YouTube: youtube.com/loroshospice.

This event is free open to all, we hope you can make it.

If you would like to donate to the LOROS Light up a Life appeal, this year when you donate you can leave a message in memory of a loved and light up a light on our brand new virtual Christmas tree.

To donate please visit: loros.co.uk/lual

We will also acknowledge your donation in the traditional way by placing a light on the LOROS Christmas tree here at the Hospice, which will shine throughout the Christmas period in memory of your loved ones.

Care for Christmas cake

Do we have any bakers in the house? Our 'Care for Christmas Cake?' campaign has just launched, and we want to see as many of you as possible embracing the joy of baking and hosting your very own bake sale, afternoon tea or coffee morning this festive season.

As we all know, our Snack Bar, which normally sells around 20 slices of cake a day, has remained closed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. We might not be able to sell cakes, but you can! We're asking you to pull on your aprons, dust off your rolling pins, and bake up a storm for LOROS this festive season.

Whether with colleagues, friends or family, it's the perfect opportunity to make memories whilst doing your bit for LOROS this Christmas - after all, there's not much that beats good company, a nice cup of tea and a slice of cake!

For more information, and to download your free fundraising kit, head to loros.co.uk/christmascake.

LOROS Winter Warmer Raffle

“LOROS was our happy place…..”

If you haven’t yet read Chanel’s story, ‘My Mum’, visit the raffle web pages to read more about their journey. Debbie was just 43 when she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Having never smoked, and being fit, well and of a young age, this came as a devastating blow to Debbie and her family. Sadly, Debbie passed away last Christmas Day at home, age 45.

Chanel wanted to support the Winter Warmer Raffle in memory of her mum, and to help us raise as much as we can for the Hospice. Chanel is so passionate about LOROS, she is working incredibly hard to ‘make this raffle count’, not just for her mum, but for other patients and their families, who may need LOROS one day.

We’re at the half-way point of the Winter Warmer Raffle 2020, and have had a phenomenal start to the campaign. Raffle ticket sales and donations currently stand at a whopping £63,000. We still have a way to go to meet our target, but we’re confident that with the support of our lovely colleagues, shops, families, friends and supporters, we’ll smash it!

If you’ve purchased tickets, thank you, if you haven’t yet, or would like more, visit loros.co.uk/support-us/raffle and buy online.

It’s not always about the winning, it’s the taking part that matters, but actually, £10,000 would be a wonderful Christmas present to end the year of all years. So, good luck to you and yours.

Raffle players and purchasers must be 18 or over. Be gamble aware Begambleaware.org. All participants of LOROS Lotteries Limited games must be a resident of Great Britain.

For more information about our raffle, how it supports the Hospice and our terms and condition, please follow this link to our Gambling and you page.

Plan on a Page

Here is Karen Ashcroft talking about newly developed 'Plan on a Page' which outlines LOROS's short-term strategic priorities up to March 2021. It is an addendum to our 2020-23 Strategy which will be revisited in Spring 2021. The Senior Management Committee will be responsible to ensure that the outcomes are achieved and regular updates will be shared with staff.

You can view the ‘plan on a page’ here.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Karen.

Business Development

by Anna Shutt, Income Generation and Business Development Co-ordinator

Following on from John's email and discussion in the last staff Zoom meeting, I thought I would pick up on project funding. As I mentioned in last month's update, we are looking into schemes that enable charities to raise funds needed for specific projects.

There are lots of schemes out there, but not all are suitable. We have been working with the Good Finance Company who specialise in social investment. If you have a few minutes their website is very informative. https://www.goodfinance.org.uk.

Crowdfunding, which I am sure many of you have heard of or even taken part in, is very popular. Crowdfunding allows you to ask the public for investment on a smaller scale in return for benefits relating to the project. It is an online based fundraiser which also helps to create a buzz around your project.

Social Investment Tax Relief is a scheme that gives a tax break for individual investors choosing charities and social enterprises. Investors get 30% of the cost of their investment off their next income tax bill. This would be used for larger investment projects.

We are looking into some specific projects that we will be able to utilise these funding schemes for. Once we have completed our background checks, we will to be able to bring you more exciting updates next month

If you have any questions regarding business development please feel free to email me.

Hellos and goodbyes

Welcome to our one new starter! If you fancy having a look at who they are then you can access staff profiles via Select HR.

Hellos

Sheila Watson	Deputy Shop
Francesca Rudkin	Shop Manager
Aparna Linton	Clinical Quality and Patient Safety Lead
Matt Gale	Media Shop & Online Sales Manager
Gail Randle	Deputy Shop Manager

Goodbyes

Amber Washington-Collins	LPDC Cafe Supervisor
Bhanu Mistry	Lottery Fundraiser
Brooke White	Registered Nurse - Blue Team
Tammy Bale	Lead Nurse Infection Prevention
Linda Daley	Deputy Shop Manager
Meeta Lodhia	Therapy Assistant
Sarah Bell	Fundraising Co-ordinator
Deborah Burdett	Domestic Assistant
Tom Price	Fundraising Co-ordinator - Challenge Events
Minaxi Patel	Volunteering Manager
Evelyn Thompson	Deputy Shop Manager
Louise Hemmings	Business Manager - Education Department

Policy and clinical updates

Update on Infection Prevention mandatory training

With immediate effect all staff now need to complete face to face Infection Prevention mandatory training, except for the following groups:

· Enterprises

· Enterprise Drivers

· Finance

· HR

· Lotteries

· Marketing and Comms

· Non Clinical Management

There have been two additional sessions adding on Thursday 5th November at 10.30am and 12.15pm, held in the LPDC Cafe. Please email Helen Perkins to book your place.
Further dates will be released in due course and online options are being considered for those not required to do face to face training.

Important update to Outlook Email Retention

by Naomi Lunn, Information Governance Lead

Emails are a form of communication and, and Outlook should not be used as a filing system. Essentially emails have replaced faxes, letters and ‘phone calls, and should be treated in the same way as they always were. A recent incident showed that we are retaining more data than we need to, and that Outlook is being used by many people as a filing system, which is not its purpose.

Recently a revision to the Data Retention Policy was agreed by SMC. From 1st January 2021, an auto-delete rule in Outlook will delete any emails within your Outlook that are three years old, or over. Once messages have been deleted, they’ll be permanently removed and will not be recoverable.

Please ensure that between now and 1st January 2021, you save any important emails that are over three years to your files, and delete everything else.

It won’t be acceptable to just blanket save a mass of emails to the network, as this will take up vital server capacity, so only save those emails that are essential to keep. Please also note that emails should NOT be archived to a pst file

Ultimately, we aim to reduce the retention period of emails to one year only; this is the first step towards that.

More guidance, and reminders, will come out in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, if you need any help with deleting or saving emails, please log a call with the IT Helpdesk.

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 Ward behind the Ward Clerk’s desk.

LOROS Research

National study about bereavement experiences in the time of COVID-19

Many of us and our families and friends have experienced bereavements in the past eight months. The restrictions of COVID-19 have made this a very different experience and I personally am glad that research has been funded to help learn more about that. Taking part in this survey may be of interest to you. Please do feel free to share it with you own family and social groups too. It is open to anyone that has been bereaved in this time from any cause. Information on the study is below.

If you find that the survey raises any issue for you or you need support in anyway, please do feel free to talk with the counselling or chaplaincy teams who are here to support you.

Thank you

Christina Faull

‘The grief experiences and support needs of people bereaved during the COVID-19 pandemic'

Have you lost a loved one since 16th March 2020? Researchers at Cardiff University and the University of Bristol are conducting a survey looking at the grief experiences and support needs of people bereaved during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The aim of the research is to give voice to those bereaved during the pandemic – as well as the survey we will be conducting in-depth interviews via phone/Zoom with some participants. We will be feeding back the findings at regular intervals to inform national policy and service provision so that we can maximise benefit to the bereaved and those supporting them. As well as these briefings we are planning a website and regular newsletters.

If you would like to take part or find out more, you can find the survey here or please e-mail harrope@cardiff.ac.uk to be sent further information about the study.

Dr Lucy Selman - Senior Research Fellow and project lead’

PROSEC3 Study update

The LOROS Research team has now completed recruitment for the PROSEC3 Study. (A multi-centre evaluation of excessive saliva management in patients with motor neurone disease). Chief Investigator Professor Christopher McDermott at the University of Sheffield led PROSEC3.

The study aimed to assess how saliva problems affected patients with motor neurone disease (MND). They also wanted to develop an acceptable and effective way of measuring the severity of the saliva problems that MND patients experienced.

LOROS was one of many recruiting sites for the study across the UK. The study commenced at the Hospice in January 2019 and ran until August 2020. Overall, the LOROS team successfully recruited eight participants to the study. Thank you to all those that participated. The data will now be analysed by the study team in Sheffield and eventually go on to be published.

East Midlands Palliative Care Audit and Research Event

This year’s annual East Midlands Palliative Care Audit and Research Event was held virtually using Echo Zoom on 29th September 2020 with great success.

The event, with seven presenters, was open to anyone involved or interested in research in palliative care and usually attracts around 35 people when held face to face. We are delighted to say that 65 people attended the event remotely, many of whom, interacted via the chat facility.

The Clinical Research Network (CRN) supported event attracted a range of professions including; doctors, colleagues from other hospices, colleagues from University of Hospital Leicester, the community and Universities and received excellent feedback from those who attended.

Thank you to those involved and who attended this interesting and inspiring research event.

For You – Wellbeing, HR and personal development

Support during November COVID-19 lockdown

A revised programme of health and wellbeing support for all staff we be available very soon. This includes staff based at the Hospice, out in the community and those working from home.

LOROS Vacancies

Fancy a change or a new challenge? You can view all the latest LOROS vacancies and new opportunities on the website. Lots of us aren’t in the Hospice at the moment so won’t be seeing the jobs on notice boards around the Hospice so we want to make sure you don’t miss out.

LOROS Education and courses

If you are looking to improve your knowledge and skills then visit the LOROS education pages of our website to have a browse of upcoming courses.

It is important to keep up to date with your clinical mandatory training; speak to one of the wonderful practice development team for upcoming dates.

SMC Update

Capital projects update

The poly-tunnel is nearly complete in the garden and the foundations have been laid for a garden house next to it which will allow patients to spend time outside more easily.

The refurbishment of the dining, kitchen and social areas is still on course to start early next year.

Risk Register

SMC is undertaking their annual review of the Risk Register. The Risk Register is a comprehensive table which identifies risk across all areas of LOROS including financial, reputational, HR, operational. It is reviewed yearly to help minimise risk and reported to board. If you fancy a look you can find it on the Common drive here: 13. Organisation Information\Policies\Section 1 - Organisation\1.14 Risk Management

East Midlands Hospice Group Forum

At the meeting, which was well attended, the bulk of local Hospices are now following LOROS’s difficult decision to make redundancies and restructure elements of services. There was confidence that our early action to protect LOROS’s future was the right decision and reassuring that we are leading the field in reopening services; our Day Therapy reopening was well ahead of other hospices. More information about the current operating of other care services can be found here. COVID-19 meetings to constantly review the Hospices processes and services are now held fortnightly.

Time to Think session

The most recent SMC Time to Think session covered LOROS’s role in the wider local healthcare system. LOROS is very much part of this system and is developing a more joined up approach such as considering who, why, how and where LOROS is represented at UHL, LPT and CCG meetings.

Ward COVID-19 feedback

John and Jo recently met with teams from the ward, domestic and catering teams to hear feedback on the impact that COVID-19 has had on the ward and its practices. It was a positive process for the teams to share their feedback and observations which has resulted in several changes to help ease the workload on staff – such as amending visiting hours.

Team Spotlight – Volunteering Team

This month we are focussing on the Volunteer Co-ordinator team who are now all fully back from furlough and working hard to support those volunteers who have returned to their work.

For the past three months we have been going through a process of screening every single volunteer in order to assess their viability to return to volunteering. This has involved a phone call with all 1,300 volunteers! Jo Elliott completed this task for all Income Generation, whereas Suzann Chantrill took on ALL Hospice based volunteers – no mean feat I’m sure you’ll agree! Then further Risk Assessments have been completed for each volunteer who falls into the current high risk categories for COVID-19.

Out of those deemed safe to return, we have welcomed back volunteer Shop Assistants, Gardeners, Receptionists and Drivers as they have been deemed ‘business critical’ for the running of the Hospice and charity as a whole. This has involved a mammoth task of rearranging rotas, re-training on PPE and delivering inductions on new working practises all whilst ensuring volunteers feel supported, safe and welcomed. Sadly all other volunteers are still on hold at least until after Christmas when we hope to review the national situation against Hospice needs. We miss having all of our volunteers bustling in and out of the Hospice and shops and look forward to the day we can welcome them back with open arms!

Due to this stoppage, we have paused actively recruiting volunteers in all areas other than Enterprises (shops) as we need to ensure we have role for people to return to. We are still encouraging people to express their interest in volunteering and are keeping their details on file until we are ready to open up all areas again.

With Minaxi’s departure from the organisation, it has required us to think differently about the way the team operates and we are currently trialling a rotational team leader post. This means that each of the coordinators will ‘take the reins’ for four months of the year and will be the ‘go to’ person for any day to day issues that may need escalating. Suzann Chantrill is first in the chair! This new way of ‘self-managing’ will be an interesting journey, one the team is looking forward to. Currently we are focussing on writing a new ‘Plan on a Page’ strategy for the immediate future of volunteering at LOROS and will be taking a look at our Action Plan to see how we can adapt volunteering roles in these current climes.

Gemma, Suzann and Paul

We’d love to hear what all your department and team is up to. Please do have a think in your next team or project meeting whether you can share what you are up to – we’d can’t wait to hear about it! Please email marketing@loros.co.uk with your spotlight.

Heads of Department meeting – in brief

Here are the highlights from the HoDs meeting held on 6th October.

IT Home working survey

Justin is collating the results of the home working survey that was conducted across the organisation and will be progressing this by talking to HoDs in more detail.

Finance update

Forecasting remains on track at the present time, however it remains difficult to forecast for the future, but HODs should remain vigilant with spending. WM gave thanks to the income generation teams for their support and how they performed against the forecast. The figures for October may indicate some good news in terms of legacy income received.

Patient Stories

Patent stories have been absolutely crucial to support our promotion of the Hospice and to support all of our income generation activities. They are a key driver of our successes to date, and it’s vital that we continue to be able to share the amazing work we do in this way. Now, even more than ever.

COVID-19 is an incredibly challenging time, but please can I ask that you continue to consider patients and families that may want to share their story or experience of our work. Competition amongst charities is really tough right now, and we need to do all we can ‘open the doors’ of the Hospice and showcase the difference we’re making to people’s lives, every single day.

Please email marketing@loros.co.uk if you know of any potential stories.

New LOROS website

This project is now underway. Many thanks to those of you that have taken part in research and content mapping exercises to support its development. The current LOROS website is no longer fit for purpose and is operating on a very old, unsupported platform. We are rebuilding and redesigning a whole new site. The project will take approximately 9-12 months and will take up a significant amount of Jamie’s time whilst it is happening.

We need to undertake a further workshop to focus on clinical/care services and referrer routes to information and access. Ideally, we’d like two members of care services staff to support this work, and you will be needed for two hours next week. Please contact Jamie Jamie Sheahan if you can help with this work.

Fundraising update

The Fundraising team continue to work hard on reformatting and replacing activities with positive outcomes. Below is a summary of finances at the end of August:

26% UP on COVID-19 target

-22% DOWN on ORIGINAL target

2020-21 Actual Income Received - £1,753,170

Hospice Pin Board deadlines

The dates and deadlines for 2021’s Hospice Pin Boards have been added below. If you have anything in the pipeline then let me know – it’s never too early to give me the heads up!

Please email marketing@loros.co.uk anything you would like to go into the Pin Board.

Content Deadline	Release Date
Tues 1st December	Mon 7th December
Tues 29th December	Mon 4th January
Tues 26th January	Mon 1st February
Tues 23rd February	Mon 1st March
Tues 30th March	Mon 5th April
Tues 27th April	Mon 3rd May
Tues 1st June	Mon 7th June
Tues 29th June	Mon 5th July
Tues 27th July	Mon 2nd August
Tues 31st August	Mon 6th September
Tues 28th September	Mon 4th October
Tues 26th October	Mon 1st November
Tues 30th November	Mon 6th December