Children of NHS workers make touching plea as their parents fight to save lives

North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust has launched an emotional campaign encouraging people across to keep their staff safe by sticking to the social-distancing restrictions in place as the country continues to battle the coronavirus.

The video and poster campaign features children of staff making the plea to the public to ‘stay home, stay safe and protect our parents’.

Barbara Bright, director of corporate affairs and chief of staff, said: “Our staff are working so hard, in such unusual circumstances. We absolutely could not be prouder of them. We wanted to send out a message to the communities we support to help them, to keep them safe and protect them.

“Our Easter weekend social-distancing message is really a big plea from the people that our staff go home to after their busy day or night at work. The children from different staff groups, from across the region deliver their messages in their own unique way’.

The campaign follows an initiative launched by the Trust in 2018, where children whose parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters asked to keep their loved ones safe from violence.

Ruth Dalton, head of communications and marketing, added: “The Trust is working hard to send out the message about ensuring we all work to protect one another by social distancing. We decided to re-ignite the campaign with a new twist after I had recorded a message from my own son to his school friend, Stanley.

“Cillian, six (featured as a police officer in the video) sent his school pal a message about social distancing in Saltburn. After that, I called colleagues in the office and proposed the idea.”

The Trust has launched a number of campaigns since the commencement of the pandemic, with some interesting facts.

Deepak Dwarakanath, deputy chief executive and medical director spoke about evidence from London about implementing social distancing being able to slow down the doubling rate of cases.

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