When her mother was being treated in hospital after a brain bleed, Jill Fraser noticed how many older patients looked lonely and isolated. As a trained nurse and former television producer, she decided to find ways to engage her local community to improve the lot of older people in healthcare. Here’s her story; the story of Kissing it Better…
“I started Kissing it Better with a friend in 2009, after my mum had a brain haemorrhage and couldn’t communicate. We probably wouldn’t pick that name nowadays, but I stand by it. It’s a universal phrase for how simple acts of kindness can make a world of difference.
Originally, the idea was to start a website, sharing ideas to make life better for loved ones in hospital: simple things that didn’t cost anything but meant everything.
For example, I had put up a poster behind my mum’s bed to say: “This is Olive Fraser. She has two daughters, she spent all her married life in Kingston-upon-Thames, and she loved tennis and walking.”
The next day, a nurse told me she had been looking after my mum that morning. She was barely conscious, but when the nurse asked her if she used to shop at Bentalls department store, she smiled. That was the first time we knew she could still understand us.
The website took off much faster than expected, and Walsall Manor Hospital asked us to put our ideas into action. We weren’t prepared for that to happen so fast, but I couldn’t say no.
I soon realised that we could make a real difference by engaging local groups to lift patients’ spirits in their own way. We started by asking Walsall College’s hair and beauty department if their students could carry out their work experience with us in hospital, doing nails and offering hand massages. At first the students were terrified, but the reaction from patients made them want to return, again and again. One lady looked at the girl who’d done her nails and said: “I feel good now”. Her husband was speechless. He told us it was the first time his wife had spoken since her stroke — he thought he would never hear her voice again. I’ll never forget that moment.
Since then, we have expanded across the country, getting school children and young people into hospital wards and care homes to entertain people however they can, whether that’s through singing, reading poetry, playing instruments or dancing. Sometimes it’s as simple as matching up a child with someone who supports the same football team, or who also watches East Enders, so that they can have a chat.
One of the most powerful moments was watching a man with dementia who could barely walk start to dance when a group came in to sing My Favourite Things, from The Sound of Music. His wife was distressed at first, because he was at a high risk of falls and wasn’t supposed to leave his seat, but the man was so engaged that the consultant said it was fine. I happened to catch it on camera.
We teach children how to communicate with older people: how to speak clearly and be better listeners.
Sharing stories is the very essence of Kissing it Better. Older people feel they still have a valuable role to play when they tell tales of their younger, fitter selves, growing up in a very different world. And young people benefit in a different way. We often speak about a loneliness epidemic among older people, but we’ve realised many children and teenagers are just as isolated. They spend so much time on their phones that many aren’t used to speaking confidently in person. Volunteering with us teaches them vital communication skills and helps prepare them for any job where they have to deal with people.
Crucially, they learn tolerance. We teach children they shouldn’t just cancel an older person if they say something that sounds a bit out of touch, because they grew up in a different time. We’re not saying it’s right, but it’s important to learn that not everybody starts from the same place. I say to the students: I’ll be very interested to know what your great-grandchildren think about you in 60 years.
And tolerance runs in both directions. Older people learn that young people want to do it their own way, just as they did when they were young. That’s the joy of Kissing it Better: the lovely intergenerational friendships, built on curiosity, thoughtfulness and respect.”