News

The way in which the hospital is delivering outpatient care has rapidly changed during the coronavirus pandemic.

Covid-19 has brought challenges to our outpatient capacity – because our clinics both on and off-site must now be socially distanced and as a result have less capacity.

Over the last few months we have been rearranging a significantly large volume of face-to-face outpatient appointments and we are therefore asking our patients to bear with us.

The changes we have adopted allow us to:

• Facilitate face to face appointments for those patients that require it
• Facilitate telephone and video appointments
• Keep you safe and only bring you onsite when it is absolutely necessary

Work has been completed on a £1.2m extension to Kettering General Hospital’s Cardiac Investigations Department.

The expanded department – which carries out 22,000 investigations each year – will now provide quicker care in a more spacious and well-equipped environment

Kettering General Hospital is thanking more than 400 people who applied for jobs at the hospital during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Between March and April the hospital successfully recruited to 186 posts - including 84 healthcare assistants, 39 porters, 24 housekeepers, 31 nurses and eight doctors.

They played an important role during coronavirus when the Trust’s staffing levels were impacted on through staff self-isolation, shielding and coronavirus itself.

Kettering General Hospital has completed the first stage of a significant refurbishment of two of its wards to make them more suitable for older people and patients living with dementia.

The two wards – Lamport and Twywell – are being upgraded with new colour schemes, floors, artificial skylights, and a wild flower mural scheme to run across both wards.

It will cost £190,000 to refurbish both wards including an £8,000 donation from the hospital’s Dragon’s Den competition for staff held in February.

A mum whose teenage daughter died unexpectedly has described an emotional meeting with a young boy who received the gift of life from her daughter through organ donation.

To mark Organ Donation Week (7th -13th September 2020) - Nicola Lee –  who is a member of Kettering General Hospital’s Organ Donation Committee – is speaking about the moment on March 14, this year, when she met four-year-old Ollie Jolliff, from Poole, and his family. Ollie is alive today because of organ donation by Nicola’s daughter Miriam.

Miriam Lee, a pupil at Brooke Weston Academy, died aged 17 of a sudden and totally unexpected cardiac arrest in 2016. Miriam strongly believed in donation and therefore her family had no hesitation in enabling donations which have gone on to save or significantly improve the lives of four people.

Kettering General Hospital has won a prestigious national HSJ (Health Service Journal) Award for the way it collects and records data about patients to support clinical care.

The award was announced on September 4, 2020, and was one of five KGH initiatives which had reached the finals of the HSJ Awards in a number of different categories.

KGH entered its Clinical Coding Transformation Programme in the Operations and Performance category of the awards under the title - Getting it right for our patients, staff and the Trust.

KGH staff are showing their support for organ donation and having a walk to boost their wellbeing,

On Monday and Tuesday (September 7-8) they are invited to our Pocket Park to take part in our Virtual Walk event as part of national Organ Donation Week from 10am-4pm on both days.

The walk has been organised by KGH’s Organ and Tissue Donation Committee and will be around a short heart-shaped course (or around the Pocket Park generally) to demonstrate our staff’s strong support for organ donation during the national week.

There is a free raffle to win a £899 top of the range Whirlpool washing machine, free coffee, tea and juice and cakes and biscuits, and some freebies and giveaways.

Leaflets will be on hand to help staff join the national register and understand more about the importance of letting your relatives know about your decision and the recent change to the law. Leaflets will also be available throughout the week at a stand in main reception.

Staff are invited to come along and spend a few minutes at the event – it will be a good short break in the day and has been supported by the Trust as a way to promote staff health and wellbeing.

A big thanks from the KGH Organ and Tissue Donation Committee to our Estates and Facilities team AND Astley Signs for the lift wraps and banners around the site (pictured) which promote organ donation awareness.

• Staff at Kettering General Hospital have been involved in major research studies into Covid-19 to help make the world a safer place.
• Respiratory Consultant, Dr Nasir Siddique, Consultant Anaesthetist, Dr Dhinesh Sundaran, A&E Consultant, Dr Adrian Ierina, and Interim Head of Research, Dr Ajay Verma, and their teams, have supported the important work.

• Research into Covid-19 within the NHS is crucial to help find the most effective treatments for it and to better understand the development of the pandemic. KGH has been involved in four important studies: