PYB Health Hero – The NHS Kindness Wish List

PYB Health Hero – The NHS Kindness Wish List

Sara Platt - PYB Health Hero - The NHS Kindness Wish ListFor those of you who regularly follow us on social media, you will know that we like to recognize local health heroes. Our last article told the story of Sharon Brawn who overcame loneliness whilst recovering from injury

This month we wanted to highlight the fantastic work of a local resident who has gone above and beyond to say Thank you to the NHS.

Our PYB Health Hero this month is 29 year old Sara Platt – a mum of four from Llanharan who created the NHS Kindness Wish List to allow people to give back to their local hospitals by donating items through an Amazon wish list to provide wards with the items that they require & have requested.

We caught up with Sara to find out all about the NHS Kindness List.

Sara what inspired you to set up the NHS Kindness Wish list?

I created the NHS kindness wish list as a thank you for the care that my 11 month old received after being rushed into the isolation unit at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital with suspected Coronavirus.

The Doctors and nurses in the A&E department were absolutely amazing so I wanted to give them a treat. I created the Kindness wishlist as a way to say thank you to the department and my post just went viral! I had over 300 messages from people asking for help.

With the help of my sister Hayley and my best friend Kate, what started as a way to show appreciation to the staff turned into a way for NHS staff to ask for patient essentials for their ward or department. We started adding tablets and phones to the list and the response was amazing.

So how does the NHS Kindness Wishlist work?

It’s quite easy. An NHS staff member can private message me their nhs ID, home address and phone number along with a list of items that they would appreciate. I then go onto Amazon to create a wishlist. I post the link to the wishlist to a facebook page and then the 24k members can help to contribute and buy items which are sent directly to the staff, who in turn can then take the deliveries in to share with their colleagues.

We also have a PayPal Poole which we use to get staff take-aways and deliveries of essentials like tea coffee sugar snacks drinks etc. This account has raised over £11k of which we have spent around £10k so far.

Donate to PayPal Poole

How many wards/clinics have you helped so far?

I am proud to say that so far we have helped over 220 wards/units/stations and centres and this number keeps going up – As well as providing 75 tablets and 32 phones to help patients connect with their families at this difficult and scary time.

What has the response been like from the public?

The generosity of the facebook group has been overwhelming! So many people wanted to help but didn’t know how. A lot of people have send that they are thankful for the facebook page as they feel like they can be helpful and give back.

 

Join the Facebook group

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Thank you Sara – You are a local PYB Health Hero!

Thank you, as well, to Hayley, Kate and everyone else in your facebook group!