Help to honour health heroes
NHS trust wants nominations for celebrating excellence
A HEALTH trust is asking people to tell them about their mental health and community health heroes.
Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT) is inviting patients, service users, carers and staff to nominate their staff and volunteers for the trust’s annual Celebrating Excellence awards.
These recognise the exceptional care provided by the trust’s 5,500 staff and 400-plus volunteers.
The award categories recognise the diverse ways in which the trust delivers excellence for patients, service users and staff.
Four of the 13 award categories are open to nominations from members of the public:
■ Delivering Exceptional Care Award, which recognises either a team or an individual who has shown outstanding dedication to the care of his or her patients or service users, as well as outstanding commitment to the NHS and to improving services.
■ Volunteer of the
Year
Award which is awarded to an individual volunteer, team of volunteers or charity that has made an outstanding contribution to helping LPT go above and beyond.
■ Unsung Hero of the Year Award is selected by the chairman and chief executive of the trust, and it recognises an individual for their exceptional practice or contribution.
■ Excellence in Patient or Service User Involvement Award is a new award and recognises teams, patient and staff collaborations or projects that have used innovative or outstanding practice to involve patients, service users or carers in continuously improving their services.
Last year’s winner of the Delivering Exceptional Care award was given to the mental health services for older people’s (MHSOP) functional wards.
They were nominated for their dedication to delivering exceptional care to service users. The team have introduced numerous improvement initiatives, including a carer support group, drama therapy and wellbeing clinics.
The team have also successfully achieved accreditation from the Royal College of Psychiatrists to the
Quality Network for Older Adults Mental Health Services, as well as an improved CQC rating of “good” in their area.
Last year’s Unsung Hero award was given to Helen Dell, who works as a healthcare assistant. Her nominee described her as “kind and compassionate, everything she does is done with a ‘can do’ attitude.”
She was also praised for her enthusiasm in creating activities for the ward in her own time, such as painting, making snowmen or creating peppermint creams, to more sensitive activities such as making poppies of Remembrance, or “things that are important to me” posters for patients to hang above their beds.
The winners of the Celebrating Excellence Awards will be announced at a sponsored evening ceremony on Friday, May 1.
Those who nominate finalists will be invited to attend the event and join in the celebrations.
Nominations close at 5pm on Friday, February 7 so make sure you get your nomination in soon.
More information about the awards is available at: