A heartfelt thank you to our vital services - National Healthcare Estates and Facilities Day 2025
From switchboard to housekeeping, to portering, catering, maintenance, and so much more - we'd like to take a moment to recognise our dedicated colleagues across Estates and Facilities, who continue to show up for their colleagues and service users, making a difference, together.
We'll be celebrating our third National Healthcare Estates and Facilities Day (18 June) at NHFT, with over 300 colleagues making up our Estates and Facilities service. Across the NHS, Estates and Facilities colleagues make up around 8% of NHS staffing, with the national day marking an occasion for us to celebrate the work of our dedicated Estates and Facilities heroes. In 2024, 633 healthcare organisations from all over the UK registered to support the day - this totalled up to an impressive 294,000 estates and facilities staff.
Joanne Fitzgerald, Hotel Services Manager who played a key role in organising this year's Estates and Facilities Day said, We offer our deepest thanks to every member of our Estates and Facilities teams - including our hardworking domestic staff, dedicated caterers, helpful porters, our welcoming receptionists and reliable transport staff, to name a few. You make it possible for all clinical and non-clinical teams in delivering safe, effective care for our service users, during some of their most vulnerable moments.
Kevin Westrip, General Manager for Hotel Services, echoes Joanne's sentiments, sharing, "We're incredibly thankful for our various teams across Estates and Facilities, without you, all other services would be unable to continue. Patients must get 3 meals a day, areas must be kept clinically clean where needed, calls enquiries, and wayfinding support are all what keep wider services moving. We also have an admin team that hold us all together, including the managers, supervisors and team leaders managing the services."
Paula Tomkins, Transport Service Manager added, I'd like to say a personal thank you to all of our Transport team for being a vital part of the day to day running of NHFT day in, day out they respond to the needs of each and every service, in a kind, caring and dedicated way. You are integral in supporting us to deliver safe and efficient care to our patients.
The faces behind Estates and Facilities
Across the week, expect to see a number of our Estates and Facilities colleagues across our social media, sharing their stories about what inspired their career path, why Estates and Facilities is important to them, and how they support NHFT, to build healthier communities for all.
Read our latest National Healthcare Estates and Facilities forum posts, featuring the people behind the service. Stay tuned across the week via the forums as we share all of our stories.
A little bit about National Healthcare Estates and Facilities Day
In 2022, professional associations across the UK joined forces, to create a national day to celebrate our dedicated Estates and Facilities colleagues in healthcare.
Our colleagues play an essential role in NHFT's daily operations, from the moment a patient enters the building to the time they are discharged. These roles include:
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Domestic teams ensure our hospitals and clinics remain clean and safe. Overall, our Domestic service cleans 3,902 rooms and areas each day across NHFT hospitals and community sites within the county.
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Catering staff provide nutritious meals and special diets tailored to patient needs - sharing creative menus and striving to improve the patient dining experience. Catering provide 945 patient meals per day, breakfast, lunch and dinner - operating 6 Café Vie outlets that serve an average of 9,500 customers per month.
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Porters and transport staff move patients, equipment, and essential items across our sites with care and efficiency. Our porters and reception colleagues handle and frank 27,000 pieces of mail each month.
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Reception and admin teams are often the first point of contact - offering a friendly face, clear directions, and vital administrative support. Through daily operational function with suppliers, on average, we generate 756 invoices per month, which the admin process departmentally and place orders. Chloe Lloyd Business Reception Manager manages 8 reception services across the NHFT hospital sites, including Berrywood reception which is the Trust main 24/7 reception service for the on-call director, doctor, Digital Technology Services and the Facilities team, including a continual presence supporting the Trust communications.
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Estates colleagues maintain our buildings, engineering, equipment, and infrastructure - ensuring everything runs smoothly behind the scenes so that healthcare delivery is never interrupted.
Thank you to all colleagues within Estates and Facilities who make a tangible, positive difference to the experiences of all our colleagues, service users and communities. By valuing our people, you make a huge contribution to life at the Trust, enabling us all to THRIVE.