NHS worker wins £10k bathroom in local retailer’s competition

Doncaster NHS worker Veronica Maxwell has won a bathroom makeover worth £10,000 in a competition run by local retailer Spinks Interiors.

The retailer, part of local family-run plumbers, builders merchant and bathroom showroom AE Spink, invited NHS workers who live near its showrooms in Doncaster, Leeds and Worksop to enter a competition on its website to win a dream bathroom makeover.

The company was overwhelmed with the response and the many heart-warming stories, “all of which”, said Spinks Interiors, “deserved to win”.

Doncaster Royal Infirmary Researcher Veronica Maxwell sent in pictures of her current bathroom, which she described as leaking the whole time she had lived there, with tiles that didn’t fit the walls and a shower that had to be turned on by an isolation valve under the floorboards. And she was chosen as the winner because the company felt that her story stood out.

Veronica Maxwell’s old bathroom

She helped to set up and run a drive-through Covid swabbing station and was responsible for helping a small team of nurses to contact, comfort, offer support and then ultimately book appointments for and swab members of staff who had fallen unwell with covid.  

Then she joined a team of people fitting out front-line staff with essential PPE, working very long days to ensure that thousands of staff were safe to continue their work saving lives throughout the hospitals.  She then ran many studies into Covid-19, some of which involved going to the homes of people who were suspected Covid-positive.

She also voluntarily delivered food parcels to staff who were isolating on site, having fallen ill at work and then helped clean the wards in times of need, regularly working seven days a week, as well as the occasional evenings.

In addition to her work with the NHS, Veronica has also run her own charity fund-raising appeal for the past six years, The Homeless Shoebox Appeal, which supports many local charities at Christmas, recently raising £4,000.

Spinks Interiors showroom manager Marie Hobson said: “We were overwhelmed by the entries, and they brought me to tears on several occasions. Everyone deserved to win. Veronica’s stood out – not only was her bathroom in dire need of a makeover, but she had really helped the community during the pandemic, with a lot of the work voluntary. She was our worthy winner and we are so pleased to be able to give her a much-needed dream bathroom.” 

Veronica’s chosen bathroom (main picture) featured products were selected from ranges by Roper Rhodes and Merlyn with tiles from Ca’ Pietra.

• Catch the latest episode of our award-winning kbbreview Podcast by clicking below:

Home > News > NHS worker wins £10k bathroom in local retailer’s competition