SELFLESS

Primary Care Director Operose Health
What I found the most challenging was keeping frontline services going during the pandemic. Dealing with uncertainty for staff and patients and rapidly changing guidelines and directions.
I am truly grateful that I could use my skills and expertise as a doctor and senior leader. It is a privilege to be a doctor - to be able to meaningfully serve.
Since then time has flown by. Life challenges continue. I am in a good place. Proud of my team and organisation and the NHS.
The lasting memory I have is of my team and organisation stepping up to provide a service at extremely short notice to serve patients with COVID. The risk to staff was unknown yet we did it.

For the first six months as a community nurse during the pandemic it was arguably the most challenging time of my career due to only being with the trust seven months and having moved to England for the same duration. The challenges of the uncertainty of how this virus spread and also the personal isolation from my family and the isolation of my patients from theirs, contributed to this. However, I have also never felt so much pride in being a community nurse as I do at this time, continuing to support our patients and their families. I have also been overwhelmed by the courage and strength of my colleagues for their care to our patients and the support we give to each other.

I found the isolation from friends, family and colleagues the most challenging. It was hard to maintain the drive to continue during what felt like Groundhog Day. Work, shower, eat, isolate and repeat. Being involved with the care of the worst affected patients on Critical Care made you feel as though you were constantly contagious, carrying the virus wherever you went, fearful you could pass it on and be responsible for the consequences of that.
It was a terrifying time; we knew so little and could only hope ourselves and our loved ones would survive. We showed determination and courage in the face of an invisible enemy. I feel dramatic writing that now, but that is how it felt. We placed the care of our patients first, they needed help and we rose to the occasion, no matter the risk. My NHS family = Selfless.
I was involved in the rehabilitation of a gentleman in his thirties with my fellow Critical Care physiotherapist David Rowe. The patient had required a lengthy stay sedated and ventilated, a period on ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) in Leicester and back to us. He was unable to speak due to a tracheostomy in place as part of his weaning from the ventilator. Following his first stand in months using our standing hoist he was placed into a supportive chair. We asked if he felt up to trying a speaking valve on his trachea. When he agreed I asked his nurse if she would FaceTime his family. His first words to his wife and young children were ‘Love you’. The squeals of delight and ‘I heard him! I love you’ were amazing. I was crying, David was crying, his nurse was crying. Tears of joy during dark times.

By far the most emotionally exhausting part was juggling childcare and family life. My partner maintained our family life and initial home-schooling, he dealt with the kids’ emotions as I drove off to work and then wasn’t home for bedtime. A few weeks in, the reality hit that my 7-year-old daughter was petrified I would catch COVID and die; for days after that I cried driving into work. An emotion in my daughter that would reoccur and manifest itself in different ways in all subsequent waves.
I definitely overcompensated on my days off at home! Trying to be an amazing Mum and give our family as much fun as we could. I will look back fondly on those days though where we had some of our best ever family times despite the constraints of the pandemic. I contracted COVID in December 2020. I narrowly avoided hospital admission, but had nearly five months off work. I have long Covid. Every day for me is a challenge of balancing my symptoms with normal life. I have grown and life has changed as a result of long Covid.
In those early days when this photo was taken I look tired, but that was because I had just finished a 13-hour shift. But I had energy, I had vigour and I could embrace everything that was thrown at me, and I think I did.
My strongest memories will be around everyone just rallying and getting stuck in. The small things got set aside and we worked together as teams to do the best we could in the situation we faced.

I had worked in the NHS for 1 month by the time the photo was taken.
The way I coped with feeling inexperienced and overwhelmed at times, was relying on my wonderful colleagues. Despite varying levels of experience between us, COVID was new for everyone. All of us entering uncharted territory brokered a special bond between all members of the team.

There was more emotional and mental challenge than physical - people’s desperation, fear and helplessness were very apparent when triaging them over the telephone and on video. Trying to reassure them and comfort them while trying to assess them clinically to decide what level of care they needed was challenging.
Some of the elderly, frail and isolated patients were very anxious and at times feeling somewhat helpless. Not being able to do more for them was emotionally taxing
The most emotionally challenging time for me was when both my parents, my son and my husband became quite unwell with COVID and unfortunately, I lost my father to COVID during the second wave. While isolating at home taking care of them and calling the hospital daily to get updates on my dad, I had to provide support to the hub remotely as they were so desperate and overwhelmed with the sheer number of cases coming through. The even more challenging part was not being able to mourn the loss of my father and returning to work just after a week. Although it was difficult, I went back as I felt that patients needed me more than I needed the time to grieve.
Looking back the COVID Hub Team was simply amazing. The teaching, the caring, the efforts, the tears, the fears and the laugher will stay with me all my life.

Anthony Gravel, Senior Respiratory Physiotherapist: I remember first hearing of the ‘Clap for the NHS’ on social media and thinking it to be nothing more than a modern daisy chain letter. Social media platforms weren’t a nice place at the time, with conspiracy theories rife. On the evening of 26th March 2020 I heard noise in the street and opened my window. The sound of the streets around me confused me at first. When I realised what it was, I felt such gratitude for everyone involved. I realised people understood, they were thankful, and they were doing the only thing they could to support us. It filled me with such a pride that it will stay with me for a very long time.