Special deliveries for inpatient wards

Boxes filled with small items intended to make a big difference to patients are being delivered to inpatient wards run by Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT).

Games, playing cards, stress balls, face masks and fruit teas are among the items being delivered in boxes known as ‘distraction’ and ‘pamper’ boxes.

The special deliveries follow feedback from service users that items like these would support and improve their time on the wards.

The boxes were put together and delivered by the Trust’s Patient Experience Team and funded by EPUT’s Charitable Funds, a charity that seeks to enhance patient experience through projects, specialist staff training and the purchase of medical equipment funded by voluntary donations. Specifically money from the tuck shop money raised by Business Support here at the Lodge.

This week the boxes are being delivered to the Linden Centre, Chelmsford, Derwent Centre, Harlow, St Aubyn Centre, Colchester and the Landermere Centre, Clacton.

Gabriel De Souza, Patient Experience Manager, said: “Patients are at the heart of everything we do. These boxes offer patient-led enhancements, which our patients tell us, although small in size, are of huge benefit to them.

“I hope they go some way to providing comfort during what is a difficult time for our service users and their families.”

The Patient Experience Team is also hoping to send ‘distraction’ and ‘pamper’ boxes to our secure and community health services in the New Year.