Your stories…

Working on the medical wards with a fantastic team of staff. Changing our working patterns to cover 7 days more effectively. Missing members of our team who were shielding at home or moved into non-patient facing roles. Learning to don and doff PPE in the correct order. Learning to prone patients and treat them in ITU. The challenges we faced not knowing who would be isolating the next day due to their own cough, or a family members cough and if it was even COVID. Balancing work with…

I was redeployed during the pandemic due to the Butterfly Hospice closing. I was redeployed to Welland Ward, Johnson Hospital in Spalding with lots of other redeployed staff from various clinics. I met some lovely people and patients. I looked after end of life COVID patients and supported their families through this difficult time. I am proud of working for LCHS

I have participated in initiating first COVID-19 vaccination centre in December 2020. It was long hours - 3-4 days a week, 8am - 6pm. At the same time, I was on a Clinical Pharmacist CPPE course that was quite intense itself. Lots of work, lots of patients, but it was worth it. I was proud to be diluting the first batch of Pfizer vaccine.

COVID was the nightmare and the dream. And no, I am no crazy. COVID, although it required to keep people apart, also brought people together! Families, couples, "bubbles". The world had gained life even when part of it was dying. We all found new ways of working, of connecting, of socialising... and now that we are beginning a new life with COVID, life will never be the same as it was. But I guess that's how evolution occurs, right? We're all the same, and yet so different! Hand sanitiser and…

I live alone, so working from home and not being able to see my family and friends proved to be quite isolating at times. It was at this time that I found a degree of comfort in my garden. I decided to lay a second patio in order to make the most of the sun at both ends of the day. I built raised beds to plant both flowers and edible produce, which provides much-appreciated colour from my living room window. Accepting the Dogwood tree as my recognition and reward as an NHS worker reminds me…

Throughout the pandemic, our unit remained open to allow patients to continue to received disease management and life saving medications. Our capacity was greatly reduced due to social distancing, our patient numbers dwindled, not due to non attendance, but due to medications being provided in a safer home environment and new plans were developed to see as many patients as possible in fewer chairs. Our patient groups would have potentially required hospitalisation if their treatments had…

I want to plant a tree to show there are new beginnings for life after COVID. We all need to remember the last two years but also need to learn to live again and enjoy our precious family.

During the pandemic, I spent 4 months working on one of the COVID wards at Lincoln County Hospital. It was a scary time and I missed seeing my parents and friends a huge amount. My work family became my 'everything'. We watched lots of people die, many more than normal. These patients were without their families. We held their hands as they slipped away. It was tough. However, we also watched people get better and go home. These successes made all the sad, tough times worthwhile. The friendships…

I joined Healthy Minds Lincolnshire in the height of the pandemic and quickly realised the impact the pandemic was having on young people's emotional well-being. The support emotional well-being services like Healthy Minds Lincolnshire has been able to offer over the pandemic is incredible. Thank you to all the team in Healthy Minds Lincolnshire!

As the virus took hold we were so worried about taking the virus home to our families and a lot of members of my NHS team got sick with the virus...and some of them got very ill. Not knowing what happened to some patients who caught COVID when they were moved to another area of the hospital for treatment...and my neighbour David was one of those patients. I did not find out he had died from COVID 19 until his son told me some months later. David had planted a tree in his garden just before he…

I joined my team after all the lockdowns. I didn’t work through the toughest times with them. This whole experience has highlighted to me the absolute astounding resilience that NHS staff have. The ability to stand shoulder to shoulder and just keep going for the greater good. Even when they were running on empty, scared and shattered, they just carried on for the good of the patients they served.

I have worked for the whole of the pandemic at Grantham Hospital, Lincoln County and Pilgrim Hospital. It has been very hard work, but I tried to help as many patients as I can.

I didn’t work in the pandemic, but I know people who did. I would like to plant this tree for all the hard-working staff.

I would like my tree to be planted in the memory of my wife's father, Laurence. He went into hospital suddenly during the pandemic and we were unable to visit him, and unfortunately, he passed away. Not being able to visit him was very hard, but we were lucky that one of the nurses remembered him from a previous stay and was kind enough to sit and talk with him for a while on the night before he died.

I remember vividly the first conversation we had when we had two symptomatic people in Lincolnshire that had flown in from China. We decided to swab them in their own home rather than asking them to come to hospital, and this set the Lincolnshire model for a community response swabbing team to swab people in their own homes that had returned from holiday and also people in care homes. It wasn’t long before we were so busy we didn’t have time to do our own roles, mainly after the February…

I joined the Trust midway through the pandemic and was blown away by all the staff. The professionalism and compassion shown were inspiring. It was a difficult time to join the NHS - I left teaching to do so - very much out of the frying pan into the fire, but it is a move I'm so glad I made.

From during the height of the pandemic, I will never forget how everyone came together within our health and social care services in Lincolnshire to support others. Colleagues I have the pleasure to work with at the CCG went above and beyond to directly support the swab testing, vaccination programme, redeployment and awareness-raising. I have never been prouder to work for the CCG, who simply supported employees to do what felt right. I have Long COVID and have been supported so much by NHS…

My pandemic story is with the CCG. I was an immuniser at the showground. Three weeks prior to starting, my mother died of COVID. The team helped me with this with compassionate leadership. I became my stepdad's carer but was able to still work. Sadly, my stepdad then died four months later. I wouldn’t have gotten through that very difficult time without the team. COVID grief is complicated. There is no escaping it. And being a vaccinator meant I felt I was doing my bit, but each one was a…

I always try to look for the positive, and from this situation, myself and my colleagues became even closer as friends and we will now be linked for life due to what we went through during the pandemic.

I've been working from home since March 2020. One of the bright sides of the lockdown and working from home was the extra time I got to spend with my wife, Cesca (as in Francesca) and son, Wilf. Wilf was only 4 months old when this all kicked off and my wife was still on maternity leave. Wilf is now at nursery so I can crack on and Cesca is back working full time and has changed career. So much has changed! My funniest memory during this time came as a result of seeing so few people in…