With the growing momentum of the SWAN scheme at United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Matron Marie Beck put out a local plea for donations to create SWAN care bags across all hospital wards.
Recognising that families understandably prioritise their loved one and have little resources to “freshen up” themselves, particularly if they have been alongside a dying patient for several hours, Marie launched an appeal during Dying Matters week 2018.
The appeal called for miniature toiletries to make up SWAN care bags for patients, friends or relatives to extend a gesture of compassion as part of our continued drive to enhance our end of life care provision.
The bags are made up with items such as;
• Deodorant
• Toothbrush
• Toothpaste
• Tissues
• Lip balm
• Soap
• Wipes
With a fabulous response from very generous staff and friends Marie has made over 200 bags now and distributed bags to all wards on all sites. The collecting still continues to make even more swan care bags.
She’s completely and utterly overwhelmed at staff’s thoughtfulness and how they have embraced the idea.
The impact of the staff’s generosity will be enormous to relatives/ friends of our end of life patients.
One chance to get it right!