Many of us have been touched by the fantastic work by the staff at our local hospitals during the pandemic this year.

Hannah in Year 12 wanted to show our gratitude by encouraging as many girls and staff as possible to write thank you letters to all the staff at Ealing Hospital.

Here’s Hannah’s story:

Where did you get the idea from? 

Hannah: I was reading an article on BBC news that highlighted the large spike in cases of depression and anxiety among health care workers and read a testimony about how terrified a nurse was to return to the front lines for the second wave. It made me want to somehow communicate to every staff member in our local hospital just how grateful we are, and how much we all see them as the heroes this country is so lucky to have. I acted after speaking to a psychiatry trainee, who spoke about seeing her colleagues in massive amounts of stress, and the struggle of coronavirus in all specialities.

How did you manage to get the whole school involved? 

Hannah: I emailed Miss O’Connor, the Head of Charities, and she has been wonderful in helping me arrange everything and knowing all the little things I would have completely skipped over. We then emailed the Head of Years, and the form tutors, who were fantastic in getting all the classes involved, and emailed the Junior School, where Miss Pitt was so helpful and accommodating! I’m really excited for the letters they’ll write, since there’s something so special and wonderful about how younger children write! I think they’ll make brilliant letters with things us older students wouldn’t even think of. 

Who are the letters going to?

Hannah: We have now managed to get together over 650 letters which will all be going to Ealing hospital. There is such a wide variety of staff that have done so much during the crisis, and we wanted to thank everyone involved, no matter their role.

We have had a brilliant variety of letters – I believe Dr Li put up math jokes on the board for her class, which was very popular, and some people also wrote personal stories of how the NHS has helped them or a loved one at some point. We hope to show the hospital how much we appreciate them.

We are arranging to drop off the letters to the hospital shortly and hope that they show how much we appreciate all that the staff there do.

Miss O’Connor, Head of Charities, said “Hannah is a star! Not only did she come up with this lovely idea, but she has worked really hard to bring it through to fruition.”