A Kent hospital has revived a book library trolley service visiting its wards after 25 years.<\/p>\n
The scheme at Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham aims to “help support the wellbeing and recovery of patients”.<\/p>\n
The volunteer-run trolley is to operate in the hospital’s brown zone wards every Thursday and Friday. <\/p>\n
Richard Pemberton, the hospital’s knowledge and library service strategic manager, said: “Reading offers a lot of therapeutic benefits that complement medical treatment, helps to reduces anxiety, and stimulates cognitive function.” <\/p>\n
He said: “Books can also help patients maintain a sense of normalcy by sparking conversations with others, combat isolation, and support emotional healing.<\/p>\n
“There really are lots of wellbeing benefits to reading which is why we decided to bring the service back after discovering the photo in our archives.”<\/p>\n
Patients can borrow books for as long as they wish, with returns collected during the next trolley visit. <\/p>\n
If a patient is discharged mid-read, the hospital said they were welcome to take the book home.<\/p>\n
The trolley has been funded by the Medway Hospital Charity with books donated by the public, volunteers and hospital staff. <\/p>\n
Mr Pemberton said: “The feedback since launching the service has been overwhelmingly positive. <\/p>\n
“Patients express their appreciation for the distraction, comfort, and connection the books provide.<\/p>\n
“We’re hoping to expand the service to red and blue zones, with the long-term ambition of offering the service hospital-wide, five days a week.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Kent hospital has revived a book library trolley service visiting its wards after 25 years. The scheme…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":["post-117641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}