Fundraising Appeal To Help NHS Frontline Staff From Official Charity For Ashford & St Peter’s Hospitals

Ahford & St Peter’s Hospitals COVID-19 Support Fund

Why we need your help

In these worrying times, the generosity of people and businesses from our community has been truly amazing. We are so grateful for all of the contributions and donations that have been made to support our staff.

We are making arrangements to ensure these donations reach the team and vulnerable members of our community; so that you can be sure your generosity is really being put to good use.

We don’t want anyone to put themselves at risk in order to support us, so here are a few pointers if you want to help:

1. Donations can be made to our ASPH COVID-19 Virgin Money Giving page. This is the simplest and safest way of making a direct contribution to us, which ensures staff can get basic supplies as well as access to a range of other health and wellbeing services.

2. In order to protect our patients, colleagues and community; we must ask you not to bring food or other perishable items to the hospital.
If you want to donate food, your donations to foodbanks will be of huge benefit to the NHS staff who use them as well as vulnerable people in our community which in turn helps to reduce pressure on the NHS. You can make these donations safely through the normal routes.

3. If you want to volunteer, you can help by doing simple tasks like: delivering medicines from pharmacies, driving patients to appointments and regularly calling people who are on their own. Sign up today for NHS Volunteer Responder register.

5. The best contribution you can make is to keep yourself safe and prevent spread of the virus. Stay at home so we can continue to work for you. #StayHomeSaveLives

UPDATE ON FUNDRAISING APPEAL

Our focus is for fundraising is to provide:

· Front line staff with groceries and additional food on their shifts

· Purchasing enhanced PPE (Personal Protection) items

· Purchasing additional equipment such as ventilators, and other Covid 19 related equipment – if indeed it is available.

I would like to make you aware that we are limiting the number of people allowed to enter the hospital to parents of a child in one of our wards, or one birthing partner in maternity.

The best help you can give is to give St. Peter’s a wide berth and to share our fundraising page (currently raised £3,745) on social media and all your friends, family and clients.

I hope that you and your families are staying well and I will keep you posted with any developments as they arise.

Thank you again,

Nicola and the staff at St. Peter’s Hospital

CANCELLED – REQUEST For Drivers To Deliver Food From Weybridge To St Peter’s Hospital For Frontline NHS Staff

Unfortunately we weren’t able to take up Rob Navarro’s generous offer to buy groceries from Waitrose. It was simply that the NHS can only make a purchase using an account system, and Waitrose can only accept cards/cash in store. It is a shame, but going forward we will be using donated funds to purchase items for our staff via our procurement system. Therefore I need to stand down all of you who so kindly offered to collect and deliver items to St. Peter’s, thank you very much for offering,

THE MESSAGE BELOW IS THE ORIGINAL REQUEST, WHICH AS YOU CAN SEE FROM ABOVE IS CANCELLED. BUT THE REQUEST FOR DONATIONS TO THE FUNDRAISING IS STILL VERY MUCH NEEDED. PLEASE USE THE BUTTONS ABOVE AND BELOW FOR THE HOSPITAL CHARITY’S OFFICIAL FUNDRAISING PAGE.

“I wonder if you could help me with delivering food essentials to our front line NHS staff?

I am sure that many of you would have seen television clips showing exhausted nurses, queuing up in supermarkets after a tiring shift, only to find out that the essentials have run out. It’s heart breaking.

I am hoping to put a plan together to help get the right food to them at the hospital so that they can go straight home, avoiding any cross infection in the supermarket. I have been in touch with Robert Navarro at Waitrose and suggested that once we can determine what the 5 main items to make a meal are he will put them on one side to be delivered to St. Peter’s. In his usual generous way he said yes immediately. I can’t ask Robert to do these deliveries, but if you might like to help deliver items to St. Peter’s we could we set up a rota amongst the community in Weybridge.

I must stress that nobody will be required to enter the main hospital as the groceries will go to our admin block Chertsey house at the bottom of the car parks with easy parking outside.

We received a very generous donation of £2,000 yesterday to purchase the items and I am confident that more funding will come in to sustain this programme, so please spread the word where you can, as I fear it could be a long haul. Donations can be made on the Virgin Money Giving page for the charity (button below).”

Nicola Oliver – Fundraising Manager
Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Email: n.oliver@nhs.net  
Phone: 01932 72 6585