News

Kettering General Hospital is thanking its dedicated volunteers for their support during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Many of the Trust’s regular army of about 250 volunteers’ were unable to continue working during this period because their age, or underlying medical conditions – a great frustration for them.

  However some of our volunteers – including many new volunteers – have been able to continue to work during this difficult period in different ways as we adapted to meet the Covid-19 challenge – and we are urging all volunteers to keep in touch with us.

A five-year-old KGH patient who has been shielding during Covid-19 has secured Paw Patrol toys for our children’s ward – with a little help from Boris Johnson and Prince William.

Kaydyn Mcveigh, from Corby, was born with cystic fibrosis (CF) –which means he is vulnerable to infections of his lungs, hence the need to shield during the pandemic.

As part of the shielding process mum Leanne and grandmother Jackie received food parcels through the post.

Kaydyn naturally asked who they were from and Leanne told him ‘Boris Johnson’.

She said: “Kaydyn wanted to say thank you to Boris so he sent him a thank you video from himself.

“Boris Johnson was delighted and he, Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Robert Jenrick, tweeted the video.

“The next thing we knew we had a call from the Palace to say Prince William wanted to speak to Kaydyn to give him a boost – as we had been shielding from a week before lockdown began on March 16.”

This resulted in a one-to-one video call with the Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, on May 22, for half-an-hour from the Sandringham estate to the Mcveigh’s Corby home.

People living in the Kettering General Hospital catchment area are being urged to get involved in shaping the future of their local hospital.

The hospital is holding an engagement event to enable people to share their views on what they consider important to include in any new development.

The aim is to make the most of an opportunity for major Government capital investment in the Trust through the national Healthcare Infrastructure Plan (HIP2) and plans for an Urgent Care Hub.

A chance to find out more about how Kettering General Hospital coped during the Covid-19 pandemic – and learn about our other achievements over the last year – will be available online on September 30.

For the first time in its history the Trust is having a virtual Annual Members’ Meeting that anyone with internet access can attend.

After that we are holding a private virtual Thank You event for staff for their work during the coronavirus pandemic along with our normal annual Employee Excellence and Long Service Awards.

As part of that internal celebration the Trust is airing a short video we made to demonstrate how staff worked through Covid-19. While our internal Thank you event is private the short film will be available to the public on our Facebook page from 4pm on September 30. It will also be included in our virtual Annual Members’ Meeting which is being held from 3pm-4pm.

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.