Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust annual awards celebrate local healthcare heroes

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust (BHT) staff celebrated local healthcare heroes at the annual staff awards on Thursday 13 February.

The ceremony was held at The Gateway in Aylesbury, and the incredible finalists and winners, and their colleagues were hosted by Dez Kay from Stoke Mandeville Hospital Radio.

In a first for BHT, the ceremony was broadcast live on Stoke Mandeville Hospital Radio throughout the evening. There were more than 100 online listeners throughout, not including those listening in hospital and tuned in to the radio.

The atmosphere was buzzing with excitement as teams got together to celebrate being recognised for going the extra mile to deliver safe and compassionate care for patients throughout Buckinghamshire.

Neil Macdonald, chief executive, opened the ceremony and presented the first award of the night, the CEO Award for Leadership to John Abbott, Assistant Director, Surgery and Critical Care. John is very well known and respected across the Trust, and has significantly contributed to making a visible difference at BHT. It was noted that John is an ambassador for the Trust’s expectations of values and behaviours.

The rest of the winners on the night were:

The Partnership Working Award was won by Alison Lewis, Patient Advocate. Alison is a passionate activist who campaigns for the rights of people with disabilities. She volunteers for BHT to support both patients and the Trust.

The Library Team won the CARE Award for Collaborate. This small, supportive and very proactive team is known for being agile and responsive, and for aligning and embedding their service to meet the needs of our clinical services; this in turn enables our clinicians to deliver safe and compassionate patient care.

The Endoscopy Nursing Team & Technicians, Wards 4 & 7 won the CARE Award for Aspire. This is due to all they have achieved in the last five years; including introducing and managing a 24/7 out-of-hours rota to ensure the best patient care for emergency cases. They also introduced a pre-assessment service to improve the experience of patients who have complex needs.

The incredible Miss Sangeeta Suri, Obstetrics and Gynaecology Consultant, won the CARE Award for Respect. She is known for treating patients as individuals and for really listening to them. A patient said: “She recognised me as someone in distress and went out of her way to help me. She did this by helping me to move forward using patience, compassion and reassurance.”

The Respiratory Ward 4 & 7 nursing teams won the CARE Award for Enable. The inspiring teams work across two wards and are known for providing quality care and encouraging team members to continue their professional development. They collaborate across the two wards to provide a consistent level of care for all respiratory patients and share ideas for best practice.

The Paediatric Decision Unit (PDU) won the Healthcare Team of the Year Award. All members of the PDU team demonstrate consistently high quality clinical care and embrace teamwork; they take pride in their work and actively seek to make improvements in their department. Feedback from children and young people about the team is that PDU staff are friendly, and there are ‘loads of lovely things to do like painting and colouring’ whilst they are waiting to be seen.

The Early Pregnancy Unit won the Quality Improvement Award – this was a new award for 2019. The team worked with the Head of Midwifery to develop an improvement plan to reduce waiting times and improve the environment for patients.

Mr Mike Adams & Miss Sarah Maling, Consultant Ophthalmologists won the Outstanding Contribution Award, for their outstanding clinical leadership which led to the safe and successful delivery of 949 cataract operations in twelve weeks. They engaged with the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and NHS Improvement so that their initiative could be used as a model for national implementation – BHT are so proud and delighted.

Cambi Brito, Sodexo Housekeeper won the Support Services Ambassador Award. Cambi takes great pride in his role. He makes sure cleaning does not interfere with work on the ward and he always says hello with a smile.

Anand Pancholi, Pathology, won the Small Change Big Difference Award – this was a new award for 2019. The Small Change Big Difference campaign encourages all BHT staff to make small changes that reduce waste and improve efficiency. The Pathology team have great ideas for efficiency and waste reduction, and have implemented them across the Trust. These include standardising the specimen bags used internally and reducing printer usage and confidential waste across the Trust.

John & Heather Hardy, won the Volunteer of the Year Award, recognising the great work of our volunteers who give their time for free to help our staff and patients. The husband and wife duo have volunteered at the Parkinson’s Speech and Language Therapy Group for the past three years.

Ruth Tyreman, Occupational Therapist, Neurology, won the Lifetime Achievement Award for her dedication to the Community Head Injury Service and brain injury rehabilitation. Ruth is very well thought of throughout the UK’s Acquired Brain Injury Community, and is highly regarded as one of the pioneers of brain injury vocational rehabilitation. Ruth has been noted as a true leader and a great role model, who always goes the extra mile to support patients and colleagues.

Ian Benson, Advanced Physiotherapist, NSIC, won the Patient Choice Award. Ian has been noted as bringing meaningful progression into treatment sessions for all patients with long term ventilation needs. One patient said that Ian promoted their independence.

There was a Special Recognition Award for to The Florence Nightingale Hospice Team. This was awarded to the team by BHT Chair, Hattie Llewelyn-Davies and CEO, Neil Macdonald in light of their fantastic work over the past 30 years, and for being rated as ‘Outstanding’ for caring by the Care Quality Commission in 2019.

Thank you to Dez Kay for hosting, Stoke Mandeville Hospital Radio for their support and to our event sponsors: Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust Charitable Fund, Medirest, NHS Professionals, Sodexo and Enterprise Healthcare Limited.