Hospital heroes to enjoy better breakrooms, thanks to £1.2m staff spaces programme
Hospital heroes to enjoy better breakrooms, thanks to £1.2m staff spaces programme
28 January 2022
The interior-designed ‘rest nests’ have been handed over to NHS staff in the intensive care, pharmacy and acute medicine teams at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
The refurbishments are part of a major programme of improvements to staff facilities at the Trust’s hospitals in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. On top of the rest nests, the programme includes improvements to more than 50 other staff spaces – from basic redecoration to better changing areas, showers, toilets, and new furniture and kitchen equipment.
“Ensuring high-quality staff spaces is the start of a wide range of sustainable developments to improve our staff's working lives.”
Professor Tim Orchard, Chief Executive of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
Professor Tim Orchard, Chief Executive of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “Ensuring high-quality staff spaces, together with expanding our counselling services and transforming our food and shops offer, is the start of a wide range of sustainable developments to improve our staff’s working lives.
“The rest nests – and the wider staff spaces programme – have demonstrated our organisational values brilliantly, benefiting from the fantastic collaboration, aspiration, kindness and expertise of all involved.”
Thanks to the many generous donations we received towards our Covid-19 Relief Fund at the peak of the pandemic in 2020, we awarded a grant of £1.7m to support the Trust’s staff support Covid-19 legacy programme.
Around £1.2m will be spent on these initial improvements to staff facilities, with the remaining funds put towards an expanded counselling service to support staff mental health and wellbeing.
The improvements to staff spaces began in December 2020 with showers and changing rooms that were in urgent need of refurbishment.
Further work has taken place during 2021, with the rest nests – designed by interior design agency Taylor Howes - transforming the breakrooms with new furniture and enhanced equipment and facilities.
The first teams to benefit are the pharmacy department at Hammersmith Hospital, the intensive care unit at St Mary’s Hospital and the Marjory Warren ward at Charing Cross Hospital. The three rest nests will act as pilots before a planned rollout of improved breakrooms across the Trust.
Charlotte Jaye, Lead Nurse for Acute Medicine at Charing Cross Hospital, said: “Our breakroom was really crying out for an overhaul. The space is now light, airy, calming and welcoming - a fabulous place to unwind during our breaks and ensure our team feel valued.”
“The space is now light, airy, calming and welcoming - a fabulous place to unwind during our breaks.”
Charlotte, Lead Nurse for Acute Medicine
Ian Lush, Chief Executive of Imperial Health Charity, said: “Throughout the pandemic we have been proud to support our remarkable NHS staff every step of the way, and we have witnessed first hand the enormous personal contribution they have made to maintain exceptional patient care during a period of such extraordinary pressure.
“I’m delighted that we have been able to work in partnership with the Trust to fund the staff spaces programme, and I hope our hard-working hospital teams will enjoy using these new rest nests to take a break, relax and unwind during stressful moments.”
To help our hospitals respond to the pressures of the Covid-19 pandemic, we awarded a total of £3.1m to fund a range of projects to support staff and patients. You can read more about how our support has made a difference over the last year in our Impact Report 2020/21.
