This Saturday (13 November) is World Kindness Day, celebrated annually, participants attempt to make the world a better place by celebrating and promoting good deeds and pledging acts of kindness, either as individuals or as organisations.

Why not mark the occasion with a random act of kindness, perhaps you could leave one of our patients or service users a message to brighten up their day.

History of World Kindness Day

World Kindness Day was first launched in 1998 by The World Kindness Movement, an organisation formed at a 1997 Tokyo conference of like-minded kindness organisations from around the world. There are currently over 28 nations involved with this event that isn’t associated with any religion or political movement!

Patient messaging service

Did you know that we have an online patient messaging service that anyone can use? During the pandemic in particular, it has been en extremely difficult time to be an inpatient. Visitors have not been allowed throughout most of the pandemic and so inpatients have found themselves disconnected from family and friends and this of course can make their time in the setting very lonely.

We introduced our patient messaging service during the pandemic as a way for family and friends to send messages to their loved ones who were in our inpatient wards, to ensure that our most isolated patients also benefitted, we opened the service up so that anyone could leave a message for a patient who may not otherwise receive one. This service was very popular over christmas with many members of the public leaving kind messages for patients who were having to spend the festive period in an inpatient setting.

If you would like to help relieve some of the loneliness of our inpatients, you can leave a message or a nice picture using the patient messaging service here.

Ideas and simple ways to be kind

Being kind doesn’t need to look or be extravagant. Sometimes the simplest things make the most significant difference! Here are a few simple ideas and ways to be helpful on World Kindness Day in the workplace, at school, with your loved ones, or even while out running errands. Look for opportunities while you go through your day to infuse kindness into someone’s day. It’ll change their day and yours for the better!

• Smile when you walk by others
• Write positive messages on post-it notes and leave them for people to find
• Call a relative you haven’t spoken to in a while 
• Pick up rubbish you see on the ground outside and throw it in the bin
• Hold the door open for someone
• Chat with a stranger and ask them about their day
• Pay for a stranger’s coffee or meal
• Compliment someone
• Send a positive or encouraging text to five people in your contacts
• Surprise someone with flowers
• Tell a family member or friend you love them
• Write a note on the receipt at a restaurant for your server 
• Offer to help with someone’s errands
• Give a surprise gift to someone you care about
• Send a kind card or note to a friend
• Spend less time on your phone and more time with people you care about
• Practice gratitude
• Volunteer
• Give someone a hug