Fundraising volunteers at King’s Mill Hospital, Sutton, have been praised for their contribution towards transforming the care of dementia patients.

Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s Dementia Care Appeal has raised more than £193,000, with £113,000 coming from volunteers through special events and profits from the hospital’s Daffodil Café.

That has been supported by money from the trust’s general trust fund towards the £325,000 transformation of Woodland Ward, a 24-bed acute medical and mental health ward, which cares primarily for frail, older patients, often with dementia.

The money — including more than £900 donated after volunteers chairman Jill Smallwood asked for donations rather than gifts for her 60th birthday — has paid for a two-year programme of changes at Woodland.

The improvements were recognised by NHS regulator the Care Quality Commission when informal, initial feedback singled out outstanding areas of care, including at Woodland, which was described as amazing.

As reported in the NewsJournal, the 40 nurses and health care assistants were also crowned team of the year in the trust’s Nurse and Midwife of the Year Awards this year.

Ward sister Jackie Simpson: “The ward has a much better feel and has become a much calmer place. Patients are kept stimulated, which helps their overall recovery.”

Ward sister Jackie Simpson and patient Frances Maycock, from Kirkby-in-Ashfield, are pictured remembering cinema greats at the memory wall at King’s Mill Hospital’s Woodland Ward.