Message from the chair

We are delighted to present our annual report to you for the year 2021-22, which has seen many challenges and opportunities for the NHS as the country begins its recovery from the pandemic. For our Lincolnshire NHS Charity, we have seen much success, some of which we have illustrated in the following pages of our report. Enhancing the health care experience of our patients and our communities in Lincolnshire is our primary objective, alongside enhancing the health and wellbeing of our fantastic NHS staff, whose commitment throughout the pandemic has been tremendous.

Despite the demands, the tiredness and the unknowns, our staff and supporters have once again pulled out all the stops and raised significant funds to be put to good use in our services or in support of our staff. Our grateful thanks go to all those people.

The money raised for Lincolnshire NHS Charity does make a real difference to the patients, service users, and NHS staff at Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust and Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Over the past year donations have been used to purchase a range of items and services including new physiotherapy equipment for paediatric patients at Johnson Hospital in Spalding, walking aids to help patients under the care of the community Parkinson’s team, and funding several staff sports groups to meet outside of working hours.

It would be remis of me not to also mention our highestprofile piece of fundraising and spending of this year. The team at Scarbrough Ward in Skegness Hospital blew us all away with their fantastic fundraising efforts in aid of purchasing a therapy dog for their ward. In August 2021 the team had raised enough money and purchased a lovely Labrador puppy that they have chosen to name Rammie after animal-lover Dr Ram who works on the ward.

In addition, we have been fortunate to begin spending Stage 2 of the monies raised by Captain Sir Tom and have chosen to use that for the purposes of improving the care of people suffering with long-covid across the county. At the time of writing, the project is in the early exploratory and co-production stages of working with people that have lived experiences of long-covid with a view to improving services available for them.

We are proud of the work the Charity has done largely due to its supporters and donors in the last year. Looking forward, we hope to focus even more on spending the money we raise for the benefit of patient, carers and staff, in the way that donors have expressed their wishes.

I know I speak on behalf of all members of the Charitable Funds Committee when I say THANK YOU to all of those who have donated, left a legacy, raised money and simply given up their valuable time to help our charity have yet another successful year.

My personal thanks also go to the Committee members who all have full-on roles in either the Community or Mental Health/Learning Disability Trust and still find time to work with me, ensuring that we raise and spend funds in the best possible way.

With best wishes,

Gail Shadlock

Chair