|
HISTORY OF THE FRIENDS OF BARNES HOSPITAL |
The Friends of Barnes Hospital: a history
Collated by Kathy Sheldon, Chair, Friends of Barnes Hospital
When the Mayor of Barnes, Cllr Percy Young, Visited Barnes Hospital in 1948 he was dismayed to find that patients were not given presents at Christmas. He contacted the local Catholic Women’s Guild to ask for help to provide presents and they in turn recruited support from other local churches, organisations, and local individuals. This help was forthcoming, grew year by year eventually becoming the League of Friends of Barnes Hospital!
The Friends have flourished for nearly 70 years and continue to enjoy excellent support from the local community and our membership. Generous legacies over the years have added to local fundraising ensuring we are in a very comfortable position.
We support care outside of the hospital through the hospital staff and local organisations. We continue to give direct support for services provided within the hospital. Barnes and Mortlake Neighbourhood care Scheme (FiSH) have been given £6000 4 years running to provide a befriending scheme and the Retro café . We gave £3000 towards a tea party for 200 older people =- organised through FiSH – to celebrate the Queens 90th birthday. We still give Christmas presents and cards to over 200 Barnes Hospital patients each year!
Our team of volunteers that run the tea bar at Richmond Royal Hospital help to contribute to our funds and we do support services there through this funding stream. However with the closure and sale of part of the Richmond Royal site we have now decided to close the tea bar in December 2017.
The use of site will change soon - but we’ve been waiting to see in what way for a decade. Our enthusiasm to support patients and add to their quality of life has not changed and we will continue to identify patient’s needs and use our resources to bring some pleasure to their lives in different ways regardless of what the future of this site is. (Several new projects are in the pipeline to support patients in the Ham Mortlake and Castelnau areas through organisations based there)
We do hope that in 2018 we can celebrate the 70th anniversaries of the NHS and formation of the Friends of Barnes Hospital 2018 alongside an achievable plan for the regeneration of NHS services on this site!
The Friends have flourished for nearly 70 years and continue to enjoy excellent support from the local community and our membership. Generous legacies over the years have added to local fundraising ensuring we are in a very comfortable position.
We support care outside of the hospital through the hospital staff and local organisations. We continue to give direct support for services provided within the hospital. Barnes and Mortlake Neighbourhood care Scheme (FiSH) have been given £6000 4 years running to provide a befriending scheme and the Retro café . We gave £3000 towards a tea party for 200 older people =- organised through FiSH – to celebrate the Queens 90th birthday. We still give Christmas presents and cards to over 200 Barnes Hospital patients each year!
Our team of volunteers that run the tea bar at Richmond Royal Hospital help to contribute to our funds and we do support services there through this funding stream. However with the closure and sale of part of the Richmond Royal site we have now decided to close the tea bar in December 2017.
The use of site will change soon - but we’ve been waiting to see in what way for a decade. Our enthusiasm to support patients and add to their quality of life has not changed and we will continue to identify patient’s needs and use our resources to bring some pleasure to their lives in different ways regardless of what the future of this site is. (Several new projects are in the pipeline to support patients in the Ham Mortlake and Castelnau areas through organisations based there)
We do hope that in 2018 we can celebrate the 70th anniversaries of the NHS and formation of the Friends of Barnes Hospital 2018 alongside an achievable plan for the regeneration of NHS services on this site!
|
Registered Charity Number: 290489
|
|
To find out more about our Data Protection and Privacy Statements, please click here