Karen Weites – Unsung Hero Awards

Nomination

Award Category:

Volunteer of the year

Individual or Team Nomination?

Individual

Qualifying Qualities

In these challenging times, nominators were asked to show how the nominee had demonstrated the following qualities:

Exceptional work ethic - going above and beyond their job description, especially in the past 12 months.
Outstanding achievement/s in work or outside of the organisation where relevant.
Drive for innovation and proactive leadership in these challenging times.
High level of interpersonal skills, such as kindness, empathy, loyalty and thoughtfulness to staff and patients.
A resilience considering Covid to their role and to the health and wellbeing of their colleagues.

Nominators Answer

Nominee's story :

Karen Weites joined our volunteer team in 2019 – she wanted to start volunteering at our NHS to give something back to her community. Over the last year she has volunteered in our café, meeting and greeting , buggy driving along with two other seasonal roles we had through the pandemic. Within the vaccination Karen’s role was to: • meet staff attending the hub, • guiding the way to the clinic, • make sure people stayed for 15 minutes after the vaccination. Within this role and with others in the volunteer team Karen was instrumental in assisting over 29,000 staff/community vaccinations. She met everyone with a smile and the feedback from the staff was very positive with comments such as ‘the volunteers have been amazing, thank you so much. Karen thoroughly enjoyed this role as she felt part of the team and was doing something essential. We also piloted a role in outpatients and Karen stepped up to volunteer here. This role was temporary and freed up our Band 3 healthcare assistants so they can carry out patient facing roles, Karen’s role was to • Meet and greet patients • Take temperatures, asking patients if they have any symptoms and guiding them to their appointment. • Guide them to their clinic • Answering any question Whilst Karen was on shift she would help and guide over 100 visitors to outpatients, again meeting them with a smile, chatting to them and guiding them to their appointment. Karen is currently volunteering 3 times a week but often helps out more if we are if other volunteers aren’t able to make it. The volunteer team believe Karen is worthy of this award as she works hard approachable and able to adapt to any role she is given. Always with a smile.