Meet Jane Kane Williams. Sixty years on earth and fifteen of those at the hospice

Happy Birthday, Jane

Jane is our friendly and helpful cleaner whom, alongside her colleagues that she loves in the domestic team, is a well-known smiling face around the hospice.

She’s been here for fifteen years now and has a big birthday in February.

For the first eleven years in the hospice domestic team, people knew her as Jane Kane.

It rhymes and rolls off the tongue so people would often greet her with her full name,

“Hello, Jane Kane.” “Here’s Jane Kane.” “The lovely Jane Kane.”

So, when she married one of our hardworking maintenance team members, Pete Williams, in 2022 everyone had to get used to calling her Mrs Williams. HaHa!

She adores working here,

“The hospice is my extended family. I’ve got my two grown up boys, James and Alex, my mum Patricia, my Pete, my FIVE cats, Gypsy, Sparkle, Jess, Jack and Benny and, alongside my hospice friends, they are all very special to me.

It’s a fantastic team of people right across the hospice. It’s so important that as cleaners we maintain the clean and hygienic conditions our patients and their families can feel safe and comfortable in.

I think of the patients, and their families, who come here for care and support as guests. If you were welcoming guests at home you would make things spick and span* for them.”

Indeed!

What a great way to think about an essential requirement of a caring environment.

We asked some of her domestic work colleagues for a word or two to describe Jane and they said,

“Fantastic, helpful, fabulous, brilliant, beautiful, friendly, hardworking and lovely.”

No Way!

On turning 60, Jane told us she’s looking forward to celebrating with Pete and friends and also the holiday they’ve booked, as joint 60^th/4^th wedding anniversary treat, in Crete in June!

She also mentioned getting her Liverpool City Region 60+ travel pass as a big bonus,

“You can only look forward, so it’s even more incentive for Pete and I to get out and about for the upcoming best years of our lives. “

Before working at the hospice, Jane worked for twenty-six years in the catering and domestic team at the old Burton Manor adult education college

She must have been good because when her former supervisor at the manor, Carol Cottrell, came to the hospice as a catering and domestic manager she recruited Jane soon after.

Which was great for the hospice because fifteen years later Jane’s still here with no desire to retire any time soon.

Many happy returns Jane, from all your friends and family at the hospice.

*Wirral Hospice’s domestic team all work towards what is known as an LTP (license to practise) awarded by the British Institute of Cleaning Science (BICSc).

In disciplines like, washing surfaces, dealing with sharp objects, damp mopping, hand hygiene, emptying and cleaning bins, understanding colour coding, damp wiping of surfaces, PPE, cleaning toilet facilities, environmental awareness, cleaning glass and mirrors, what chemical pictograms denote and cleaning washroom facilities the team are assessed by team leader, Jo.

The aim is to ensure the hospice a centre of cleaning excellence and continuous improvement for our patients, their families, volunteers, staff and our many visitors.