A great big thank you to all Pennine Care staff

Daniel Benjamin (centre), non-executive director at Pennine Care visits the team at John Elliot Unit, Rochdale as part of the Great Big Thank You week

Staff at Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, which provides mental health and learning disability services for children and adults across Rochdale, took part in the Great Big Thank You week (7 to 13 September).

Throughout the week staff from across the trust, including doctors, occupational therapists, porters, administrators, nurses and cleaners, took time to celebrate, recognise and reflect on their own personal and collective achievements during what has been the most challenging year ever for the NHS.

Evelyn Asante-Mensah, chair at Pennine Care, said: “Saying thank you is such a small and simple gesture. With this in mind, we wanted to do something special to thank our staff; while acknowledging that it has been a difficult time.”

Highlights of the week included a personal thank you message to all staff from the trust’s board with a commemorative rainbow badge; a special thank you message from Coronation Street and Broadchurch actress Julie Hesmondhalgh, an online thank you board with generated hundreds of personal thank you messages, plus every member of staff received an extra day’s holiday.

Patient Phil Thomas at Prospect Place, Rochdale wrote a special poem for staff for the Great Big Thank You week.

Chief executive Claire Molloy added: “In the face of so many challenges and worries, the help and support our staff have given to patients, carers, families, our wider communities and colleagues is inspirational. Every single person has played a vital role in helping to keep essential services safely running.”

During the Covid pandemic, staff at Pennine Care have continued to deliver critical mental health and learning disability services ensuring the most vulnerable people in society received the care and support they needed both in hospital and in the community.

Since March 2020:

• 526 new colleagues joined Pennine of which 131 were as a direct response to Covid-19
• 42,929 temporary shifts were filled
• Over 350 video and 10,500 phone appointments took place each week at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic
• 91 existing staff were redeployed to a new role
• There were 19,468 visits to the trust’s website wellbeing pages
• Nearly 1.8 million pieces of personal protective equipment were delivered across trust sites.

To end the week, staff also joined in a moment of reflection at 12pm on Friday 11 September, to pause and pay tribute to those who have tragically lost their lives or been devastated by Covid-19.