On Monday 3rd of July we started with the launch of our Staff Celebration Photo Competition – a fun chance to get our staff involved in some of the fun and to include patients who would be with us during the week. On Wednesday 5th, we were delighted to host our first-ever NHS Big Tea Open Garden event at the beautiful Englefield Estate to bring together local communities to celebrate the 75th birthday of the NHS, and to raise vital funds to enhance the care and experience of patients and staff at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust – did you come? We’d love to know what you thought! Email us: [email protected]
We were joined at Englefield by hospital teams MEET PEET, Building Berkshire Together and Voluntary Services along with local businesses, the Silky Hide, Loddon Brewery, Tutts Clump, Maurices’ Ice Creams, Tropics and the Sweetie Heaven to bring a day of fun and celebration to the usually private gardens of Englefield House. And, as the sun shone over the stunning grounds, Bluebell Catering provided freshly baked cream teas for attendees, who also enjoyed entertainment from the Glee Club, Englefield CE Primary School Choir and Reading Male Voice Choir – we were blown away at the success of this event!
Thursday brought another day of celebrations when we were joined by our event sponsor, Ridge who hosted a fantastic cake sale at the Royal Berkshire Hospital. Ridge have very generously sponsored the NHS Big Tea Week for the second year running and it was great to have them onsite getting involved and chatting to the staff and patients as they bought their cakes.
On Friday, we were lucky enough to be able to thank our amazing staff, across all seven sites by holding an open day in the Staff Health and Wellbeing Garden. Special thanks go to local business IQVIA, thanks to them we were able to invite staff to come and see us for some downtime by giving them some donated freebies, including some very welcome cupcakes from Reading Chronicle – it was a brilliant way to round off the week.
So far fundraising has exceeded £13,000 with funds still coming in! This amazing amount will help us continue work on the Staff Health and Wellbeing Garden, a safe space for staff to step away from their busy wards and departments and take a break.
A huge thank you to everyone who has supported our NHS 75th anniversary Big Tea celebrations, if you’ve got any feedback on what went well, or what we could have done better please email [email protected].
