Wellness is not a 'medical fix' but a way of living - a lifestyle sensitive and responsive to all the dimensions of body, mind, and spirit, an approach to life we each design to achieve our highest potential for well-being now and forever.When we look at the patients in our wards it’s not unusual to see people who not only medically unwell but feel emotionally unwell too. But when we start to look at the bigger picture we can see why hospital stays occasionally have grown longer and why some patients overall wellbeing has taken a downward turn. This is not the result of poor care, but the fact that we could be doing more to meet the full needs of our patients.
Our teams have continued to find ways where we could be doing more to make a difference to the our patients overall experience. This is where the idea for the wellbeing library began, to create a library within a large hospital to provide the tools and resources needed to really ensure we are looking after our patients, above and beyond what has become the norm.
From using iPads to educate and empower our patients to use apps or to listen to their favourite music to the more low-tech idea of using reminiscence boxes to evoke our patients most cherished memories from the past.
Even though activities have always been available to patients on our wards, w
e knew we needed to deliver this to staff and patients with a fresh approach. This began by giving our wards a “Fun box” which is full of interactive items which patients and staff can use to engage. The items can be used around their bedside or together in our patients day rooms. Since the very recent rollout, we have received great feedback from staff and patients : -
- 'This is very important work. We need to embrace and make good use of this service'.
- 'Even though the fun box is fairly new to our ward it has already been proven to have a positive impact'.
- 'It gives me something to do and it passes time. I like it'.
Our items that are available in the wellbeing library will come with facilitation guides as well as the option of personal assistance when delivering to patients. As this is a relatively new resource in our hospital we are constantly striving to improve the service and will be using QI framework to not only evaluate the current offering but to gain inspiration for further resources.
Resources have up to now been provided by our hospital HVS charitable funds who have kindly offered their full support in future plans or developments. Our vision is to build on what we currently have. The wellbeing library is already very popular amongst our teams and we aim for the use of the resources available to become an integral part of a patients hospital stay.
We believe the vision of the wellbeing library will help to bring our wards together, to create a community within our hospitals and to help us build a caring future. “Smile and the ward smiles with you”