Your stories…

Hi, my name is Lorraine. I work as an Expert by Experience for the CCG. I have Learning disabilities. My Job role is to speak up for people who cannot do so themselves. I use my lived experience of having Learning disabilities and Cancer to help others and improve health services in Lincolnshire. I started working at home in March 2020. I found it very difficult to adjust to being out of the office and having little contact with people. I live on my own – I felt very isolated from the…

My name is Jane D and I am PA to the Director of Operations, Lincolnshire CCG and I love my job. I work with amazing colleagues across the CCG, ULHT, LCHS and LPFT. It’s a busy job but it is rewarding like any job within the NHS. My COVID story is very mixed – some good and some bad days. Initially, I was working in the Response Centre working shifts with several CCG colleagues but I needed to go into hospital for an operation on my leg due to sepsis from a bite I had received. The staff…

My shielding journey began on March 23rd, 2020, the words ‘Clinical Extremely Vulnerable’ resonated! I did not want to belong to this VIP club. Just weeks before, I had presented at Trust Board celebrating the benefits of flexible working arrangements and lived experience of working with a long-term condition. Flexible working had allowed me opportunity to study for a master’s degree and Margaret Attwood’s Year of the flood was never more real. The COVID pandemic was here. Uncertainty and…

I was asked by the regional team about my experience of the pandemic and specifically who I would like to thank. Whilst my colleagues and friends in the NHS have continued to be a godsend, for me it was really clear who kept me going the most and so below is my summary of that. “As a single parent to three children, who I have 100% of the time, being an NHS director of comms and engagement as a global pandemic kicked off has sometimes felt fairly tough. My regular support network (my mum and…

My name is Russ O-C and I’m the Designated Clinical Officer for CYP with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, Lincolnshire CCG and I love my job! I work with fabulous colleagues in ULHT, LCHS, LPFT, the local authority, parents and carers and young people. It’s a huge job; challenging, methodical, exhausting, frustrating, chaotic, and crazy – but rewarding. Suits me to a tee! My Covid story was very bewildering for me. From dark monotonous days and insomniac nights, from feeling safe…

Over the course of the pandemic I have provided admin support to a number of teams between LPFT and LCHS that have faced multiple struggles in order to adapt to the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic has raised in everyday processes and service delivery to patients. I have been really proud to help adapt to these changes and to assist in implementing digital ways of working to keep services running consistently, and I am especially proud of my clinical and professional colleagues who have kept…

At the time that the pandemic first hit, I was Operations Manager for NHS Lincs Wheelchair Services. It felt a little like living through one of the many disaster apocalypse type movies I had watched so many of. Who knew this would ever happen in our lifetime and yet here we are, two years down the line, and it's almost normality. It was a very challenging time balancing my own fears for my highly vulnerable parents, sending my young child into school whilst trying to reassure him and…

So many things come to mind when thinking about what we, as a work unit, have experienced during the pandemic. However, the main thing is the overwhelming support that I felt from friends, family, and public. Leading up to the pandemic being declared, in the first few weeks when we were all wondering whether or not the UK would be impacted by COVID-19 it was very scary. I think that was actually the worst time throughout, the unknown, and the uncertainty of what might be ahead of us. There was…

Although I was not personally redeployed during the pandemic, the breast unit continued seeing patients throughout. It was a challenging time as we as staff were scared and worried about family and colleagues, but our patients had the double worry regarding catching COVID and maybe having a cancer diagnosis. This tree would be planted at the Breast Unit Lincoln Garden where myself, my colleagues and our patients enjoyed spending time outside during the pandemic, surrounded by nature, which…

My dad died at the beginning of the pandemic. I just remember the fear. The fear of becoming ill. The fear of bringing it home. The fear in my women's eyes. The fear that life would never be the same. But the support from friends, colleagues, ULHT and the country made me feel safer. When the vaccination program started, I became involved and I have to say it was an incredible experience and gave me something that had been missing …..Hope and amazement at what people can do when we pull…

During the pandemic, I worked on our inpatient wards helping mental health patients cope with isolation in their rooms, and feeling really poorly from the effects of COVID-19. I also worked alongside our wonderful research team, to support the research team at Lincoln county to collect and record patient data for the ISARIC research project. This research project was one of the first research projects launched to tackley COVID-19 and much of the data contributed to finding better ways to treat…

I had to go into shielding and worked from home throughout the entire pandemic. I have tried to support other staff in my position by becoming co-chair of a staff network, which meets virtually twice a month. I have benefitted from lots of aspects of working from home and I have developed relationships with lots of colleagues.

During the first few waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was employed by ULHT working in the Radiology department at Pilgrim hospital, Boston in diagnostic imaging and often x-raying COVID positive patients. In May 2021, I joined the Lincolnshire Living With Cancer team as a Community cancer care coordinator, supporting people affected by cancer in Lincolnshire. I was re-deployed from this post in December 2021 and January 2022 to support the COVID vaccination effort across primary care in…

I remember how all the teams within the trust pulled together, front line and behind the scenes, to ensure that services were covered. Many people were put outside of their comfort zones but rose to the challenge.

For all its bad points I believe the pandemic has created more of a "team spirit" throughout the hospital as well as within departments. I hope this will continue into the future. Whilst I never want the trust to be in the same situation ever again, I and many of my fellow workers took the opportunity to help in unfamiliar departments. I hope those I helped gained as much from the experience as I did.

Having worked for the NHS for over 25 yrs, I have never been more proud of my colleagues & myself, for what we been achieved as a Lincolnshire system over the past 2 yrs. My role has been mainly to support primary care/GP workforce to navigate national guidance & respond to the challenges of continual support to their patients throughout the covid period & support the rollout out of the hugely successful covid vaccination programme at a PCN/locality level.

I worked throughout the pandemic and in March 2020 we were told to stop all visits and undertake telephones calls in order to protect our most vulnerable service users. We all worked from home, where I am still working today. It was so difficult to manage our own mental health as well as that of our service users, but my service users at that time were fantastic and supported me as much as I did them. I went back to visiting but I and my service users made a decision that if any one of us had…

My excitement at a new career direction in research, and returning to LCHS in April 2020, was not the envisaged transition due to coinciding with the Pandemic; incurring redeployment to the frontline: back in uniform, working shifts on a ward, and wearing PPE was a culture shock after 20yrs+ in the community, albeit an opportunity to refresh or develop new skills. Consequently, the bespoke training package for our study was delayed and required innovative approaches to counter challenges that…

I joined LCHS 6 months into the pandemic. I had relocated to the area and knew no one. I took a fixed term post with LCHS and began by working remotely. While all around confusion in society was widespread, my team endeavoured to make me feel welcome and valued. We did our best to introduce new ways of learning to staff who had historically been accustomed to face to face training, and now in some cases, struggled with technology. Supporting others while being new to an organisation at any…

The pandemic was a gruelling time. Our frontline staff were absolute heroes and putting themselves at risk every day, but as a corporate colleague, our work was directly affecting decisions about front line services and the pressure to get things right for them was immense, because we knew the accuracy of our data would have a life or death impact to staff and patients. I remember the first time I drove into work to support the Incident Command Centre I had a bit of a cry in the car park…