Tonight’s run saw us returning to the Royal London Hospital for a couple of really great tasks!

Plenty of planning had been undertaken by the brilliant Barts Volunteers team to ensure we were distributed throughout the hospital as efficiently as possible, tackling the most time-sensitive tasks.

Why were we here?

Resources are as stretched as usual at this huge, much-loved hospital, and so pruning the roses and litter-picking outside the Dental area proved a great bit of activity catch-up in these hospital grounds.

Meanwhile, the newly established Patient and Family Contact Centre had mountains of content to be made up for the new, soon-to-be-renamed Dignity and Activity Trolleys for the wards.

(This department was established during the pandemic as a vital resource for friends and families to stay connected to loved ones in hospital.

Having proved effective and popular, this service is set to stay, and the new activity packs we were preparing are to ensure patient needs are met as much as possible.

Impromptu stays, longer stays, admissions far from home all mean that patients sometimes need access to additional items, such as sanitary products and razors, or even art and craft activity to help them remain occupied and stimulated).

And so to work…

Teams were promptly dispatched out to the John Harrison with Barts Volunteer team member, Mbemba, while the team making up the hospital packs headed ‘round with Tom to meet the dynamic Emma.

The preparation was second-to-none, as always, and Emma wasted no time in assigning each member a task, leaving no stone unturned when it came to briefing (including the interesting fact that as this was an office, and not a clinical environment, face masks were optional).

Toothpaste tubes were stuffed into bags of 20; ditto shower gel and toothbrushes. Felt and glitter were sorted into piles; activity cards bagged up or filed. It was go, go, go.

Meanwhile the gardening team were busy attending to the roses, cutting back the grass and seeing off any rogue litter. Once finished, Mbemba brought the team inside and so we finished up a 12-strong team racing to get as much as we could done in the final few minutes.

Until next time

Despite having run over, the time had flown by!

We said our goodbyes to Emma, Tom and Mbemba, and headed out to the sunny, warm streets of Whitechapel, where we formed two groups: The Sporty Squad, who chose to run straight back to base in Bethnal Green, and The Thirsty Squad, who headed home at a more leisurely pace, via the London Hospital Tavern.

What a great night – well done, everyone.

Next week...

...we’ve been asked to head to the Hollybush Estate to offer some serious weeding help...

Until then.