Appeal for volunteers to help make life easier for eye hospital patients

Friendly faces are needed to welcome patients through the doors of the region's new eye hospital.

- by Tom Patterson

Sunderland’s new £48m eye hospital is due to welcome patients from next summer - and health chiefs are looking for volunteer ‘navigators’ to help show patients to the right location in the new hospital.

The volunteers will swing into action when services move from the existing Sunderland Eye Infirmary in Queen Alexandra Road.

Among existing volunteers who already help at Sunderland Eye Infirmary is Anne Render, who started as a navigator two and a half years ago. She previously worked for South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust as an assistant training manager and gives two hours of her time a week because she wants to “make a difference.”