At St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester, dedicated volunteers have been hard at work, turning the hospital gardens into vibrant, welcoming spaces. These budding botanists have been busy weeding, trimming, chopping, and planting, making remarkable progress over the past few months.
Their efforts have breathed new life into several gardens, including the historic 18th Century Garden, the Staff Wellbeing Garden, and patio areas stretching from the Munro Unit to the Ford/Boxgrove wards. They’ve also spruced up the areas outside Main Reception, the Outpatient entrances, and Donald Wilson House.
Charlotte Freeman, Hospital Director at St Richard’s said: “The grounds of our hospital sites are really important for both our staff, patients and visitors to the hospital to enhance healing and boost wellbeing. Unfortunately, for various reasons, some of our gardens were not in a great shape and needed some attention. I know many colleagues have been raising concerns about this over the last few weeks, and this was a point of discussion in our recent Hospital Forum, and I am both pleased and grateful to see action to care for our gardens taking place from our wonderful volunteers.”
Gayle Dixon, Voluntary Services Manager said: “Our staff are hugely grateful to the volunteers who generously give their time to make a difference to our hospitals, going above and beyond for patients and supporting our hard-working colleagues.”
“The green spaces at SRH are cherished by everyone, including patients and visitors, it’s wonderful to be able to share the hard work of our brilliant volunteers with colleagues. Their green efforts are making our hospital look and feel calm, welcoming and serene.”
The Voluntary Services team is reaching out for additional support. If you have any spare gardening tools (non-mechanised) such as shears or garden forks, your donation would be greatly appreciated by the volunteers.
If you know of any areas around St Richard’s that could use some attention from our green-thumbed team, please get in touch with the SRH Voluntary Services team at: [email protected].
