Celebrating the NHS birthday and raising money for charity

In July we celebrate the NHS ‘birthday’, this year marked 74 years since the foundation of the National Health Service in 1948 and a chance to say thank you to all our NHS workers.

We’ve had another challenging year in the NHS, coming out of the pandemic, restoring services and dealing with the issues the pandemic has caused. COVID-19 continues to impact on us all as we live with the virus.

However, this time last year, I said I hoped we’d be able to celebrate the NHS birthday by coming together face-to-face in 2022 and I’m delighted to say we could!

It’s been quite exciting for staff to meet colleagues in person that they haven’t been able to see since 2020. As you can appreciate NHS staff have to be more cautious with infection prevention measures and staff continue to test regularly for COVID-19. In fact, at the start of the month LCHS reached a milestone with 100,000 lateral flow tests recorded by our staff.

NHS birthday celebrations included a successful family fun day in Boston for an NHS Big Tea Party. There were live music performances, a bouncy castle, and food and drink stalls. Over 200 people attended, NHS staff and members of the public. Thank you to the companies who kindly donated food and drinks for the event.

We’ve held a big raffle with generous prizes from local businesses such as theatre tickets and cinema tickets, plus a beauty box and hamper. Approximately £1510 was raised for Lincolnshire NHS charity and United Lincolnshire Hospitals charity from the raffle and the NHS Big Tea Party.

Smaller events included cake sales and tea parties- all to raise a cuppa to the NHS and donate a bit of money.

Lincolnshire NHS Charity is an independent and dedicated charity that plays a vital role in supporting community, mental health and learning disability services to make a difference to our patients.

All the money raised from the birthday celebrations is going to the Lincolnshire NHS and United Lincolnshire Hospitals Charities to support the health and wellbeing of NHS staff across the county.

This will assist a range of health and wellbeing activities including help towards paying for facilities for football groups, netball groups and improving wellbeing spaces for staff.

You can donate to our Lincolnshire NHS Charity, via the official ‘Just Giving’ page: www.justgiving.com/lincolnshire-nhscharity, all the funds raised here will go towards our charity, Lincolnshire NHS charity .

For more information about our Lincolnshire NHS Charity, please visit our website: www.lincolnshirecommunityhealthservices.nhs.uk/join-us/charitable-funds or follow @LCHSandLPFTCharitableFunds on Facebook and @charitablefunds on Twitter.