Sleaford Medical Group bring Christmas cheer to patients

The staff at Sleaford Medical Group decided to do something different for Christmas this year, and have been busy making hampers for some of their most vulnerable housebound patients.

They asked staff and patients to donate Christmas-type foods – mince pies, shortbread, selection boxes, Christmas puddings – and were overwhelmed with contributions, which included donations from Spar, the staff and customers of Iceland, Lidl, Tesco and Ruskington Co-Op.

They selected 90 patients, and spent a Thursday evening creating special Christmas hampers. “It was like a production line,” joked Debbie Taylor, Practice Manager. "It took us about 2 hours to divide everything into boxes, and then the wrapping began!”

“We really wanted to do something to give back this Christmas, and we considered a lot of options, before deciding that the people we would most like to help were our own patients. We know some of them won’t see anyone on Christmas Day, so we wanted to make sure they were thought of.”

Debbie added that they had been “overwhelmed by the response from everybody. We know times are tough for everyone, and we were just bowled over by everyone’s generosity”.

The PCC team at SMG started delivering the parcels last week. “We’d like to make this a regular thing,” added Debbie, “and are already planning what we can do for Easter.”