Chair’s Report January 2021

The Chair reports the following activities from March to January 2021. This has been a busy, exhausting and sad year for many. The Charity has had to alter our ways of working to ensure our trustees and volunteers are safe. at least two of our trustees returned to practice during the first wave of the pandemic. Some of us have volunteered to be vaccinators in the 3rd wave.

We have therefore had some interruptions in our service as the office was only visited twice during the pandemic. Our Secretary and a volunteer went into the office and carried office materials home to be able to carry on the Charity’s work. The post has been difficult to collect however. We are hoping that this will be redirected as the disruption will obviously continue for some time into 2021.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, a decision was taken in March 2020 to ensure the safety of Trustees and associate members:

1. To cancel the Study day and Charity meeting April 2020, Autumn lunch October 2020 and Study day and charity meeting in April 2021.
   1. Pat Edmunds has notified the Grafton hotel and our bookings have been transferred to 2021/2022. A note was posted on the website, in the Magazine 2020 and a message on the office phone. Trustees informed as many associate members as they could by phone.
2. To hold the April trustee meeting and Benevolent Fund meetings remotely. Chair Helen Allan was unable to attend as she was sick with Covid-19 and has subsequently had 6 months off. Her thanks to the trustees especially Shirley Warwick, Wendy Nowell, Theresa Wiseman and Wendy Knibb for ensuring the business of the Charity was conducted. Thanks also to our new administrator Kate Warwick who has supported the work of the trustees during this difficult time. We have held two trustee meetings remotely now in September 2020 and January 2021.
3. Ongoing business:
   1. Website continues to attract users
   2. There has been a problem with the link to new members’ and renewal of membership which is being sorted out by the website developer and manager.
   3. Secretarial supported by an administrative assistant which is working well.
   4. Kate will attend Trustee meetings to take action notes to replace Minutes Secretary.
   5. Database – Kate has begun to update the 2018 database and move to using online database which is stored in UCH LNC OneDrive. Each function has a folder on the OneDrive.
   6. Fellowship with UCHLNC to fund 6 month secondment of a band 7 UCLH nurse to conduct focus groups with nurses and midwives at UCLH to develop a membership model for the future. This work has been on hold due to Covid-19 and Helen’s sick leave.
   7. Archive work has been on hold due to Covid-19.
   8. Helen and Wendy Nowell were working with Walter Burog at UCLH to contribute to the Florence Nightingale celebrations in the Year of the Nurse 2020. Helen has submitted an abstract to Nursing Now 2020 on our work with the trust. All this work is on hold due to Covid-19. It will be cancelled as Nursing Now 2020 will no longer run due to Covid-19.
   9. Preceptees awards – another award event was attended by Hilary Baker and Helen Allan in October 2019. This was postponed due to Covid-19.

At our most recent Benevolent fund meeting, it was decided to make a donation for the relief of nurses working at UCLH looking after Covid patients. Helen is in contact with the nursing leadership to take this forward.

Helen Allan

January 2021