Congratulations to all our finalists and winners in the 2023 awards.

The finalists for the Partnering Award are:

Lynette Charles, Specialist Nurse

As part of the NHS England children and young people asthma pilot scheme, Lynette has worked closely with GPs, Practice Nurses, Early Years, Housing, Public Health and Education alongside the Integrated Care Board to implement the recommendations in the asthma bundle. Lynette has championed children’s safeguarding following some high profile national cases. Lynette is the epitome of partnership working with multiple agencies to improve the lives of children with a chronic condition.

Clare Walsgrove, Quality Matron

Clare works with colleagues and departments as well as external providers to encourage patients and staff to get well sooner, move more and enhance wellbeing. Clare is great at thinking of ideas and has introduced many initiatives, most recently the reconditioning games. This focuses on making sure patients get the rehabilitation they need through fun activities. Clare has explored many avenues seeking out external partners that will support her ambition, often getting them to provide fantastic support for no cost. Clare reaches out and thinks outside the box, a true example of living the Trust value of Partnering.

Rachel Logan, Lead Pharmacist for Patient Services

Rachel is currently working on a project that was awarded funding to support the prevention of heart attacks. This project involves GPs, the ICBs, Pharmacy and Pathology alongside the Cardiology team. Rachel was instrumental in the creation of the proposal of the project and is now undertaking her own clinics as a non-medical prescriber and providing guidance and support to the GPs to help improve care and access to treatment for patients. This project is a great example of collaborative working across our system and the benefits this brings to our patients.

The finalists for the Ambitious Award are:

Brenda Maxton, Senior Learning from Deaths Manager

Brenda is dedicated to the cycle of continuous improvement whilst ensuring that the patient and family remain at the heart of everything she does. Her influence, collaborative working and wealth of experience has been hugely impactful and the service would not have developed as it is now, without her input. Leading on a successful pilot project within the team to improve notes management to support mortality reviews, the timeliness of completion has improved from 23% within 8 weeks of death to 66%, essential to ensure that learning identified is not only relevant but is also actionable. Her hard work, commitment and dedication to the Learning from Deaths programme of work makes her a very worthy contender for this award in recognition of all her achievements and success.

Poppy Horrocks, Volunteer Project Manager

Poppy successfully delivered a very ambitious project to increase the numbers of young people volunteering with the Trust. The project was funded in a number of Trusts across the country, and SaTH’s figures led the way, recruiting and retaining more young volunteers than any other Trust, by far. These volunteers have gone on to deliver many thousands of hours of volunteer time to the Trust; many will go on to healthcare careers. Poppy was very ambitious with her targets for the project and was able to inspire those around her with her enthusiasm. This project was driven by Poppy’s ambition, and she deserves credit for not only delivering, but leading the way.

The Postgraduate and Undergraduate Simulation Faculty and Clinical skills Team

The simulation faculty has been instrumental in developing and expanding the simulation and skills offer provided to multi professional clinical teams. The work they undertake feeds into the safety and outcomes of our patients. The team has been instrumental in developing and running in-house simulation training days which focusses on the deteriorating patient. Access to the course has provided our colleagues with the skills to help them deliver safe, effective, and compassionate care whilst understanding how human factors affect performance which can lead to patient harm, these skills are practiced within a safe environment with a focus on structured de-briefs.

The finalists for the Caring Award are:

The Phlebotomy Team

The Phlebotomy team goes under the radar providing the vital day-in day-out service for the hospital on wards and clinics. The team providing this service is highly professional, proficient and personable. Patients and their families are supported with empathy and care. Testament to their approachable, caring nature is their loyalty and support to their team of volunteers who are fully integrated into the team to help deliver the care needed for patients. This department gives 100% patient and colleague care consistently.

Karen Breese, Dementia Team Lead

Karen is someone who lights up the ward and trained her team to do so too. Karen always supports nurses, doctors, healthcare assistants, patients, relatives and always goes above and beyond. Karen cares so much about everyone. She works hard to ensure people living with dementia are cared for, understood and supported.

The Emergency Department

It is well known that our emergency departments are under immense pressure due to the demand they are seeing. Despite this, colleagues deliver the highest standard of care possible and they continue to show care and compassion to all of our patients. All colleagues working in ED deserve to be highly recognised for the job they do. Colleagues come to work with smiles on their faces, they listen to their patients, they treat patients with the dignity they deserve and are sensitive to cultural beliefs. The ED team remain professional at all times and they go above and beyond to demonstrate our Trust values every single day.

The finalists for the Trusted Award are:

The Temporary Staffing Team

The team is responsive, committed and hardworking, and certainly a team we can trust. The last year has seen the team work with many partners on a project to reduce agency use and agency spend. The team is forward-thinking and proactive in the actions required of them. There is a commitment to quality from the team in the way they work but also ensuring any member of temporary staff meet the needs of the organisation. Day to day they are a team who respond to current needs, again sometimes working at short notice to cover staffing gaps where there is risk to delivery of care. They do this with a positive working attitude, are always approachable and work with others to ensure we do this in the most efficient way.

Sophia Hallewell, Senior Pharmacy Technician

Sophia does a fantastic job and displays dedication and enthusiasm for her role which involves ensuring our organisation is able to recharge all medicines to our commissioners. She has worked hard to ensure our data quality is of high standard, has been commended for her work by our NHSE colleagues and has worked tirelessly to ensure the staff are supported with their queries regarding anything to do with High Cost Drugs. Sophia ensured the High Cost Drug Service was well led and ensured the patients within our community were able to access medicines approved by NICE in a timely fashion. She is an advocate for her profession and despite working full time she has continued to develop herself by completing and achieving her Biology degree. Sophia makes a real difference to the department and ensures the medicines provided to the patients within our community is the most cost effective and clinically effective through her work.

Deteriorating Patient Specialist Nurses, Teresa Cole and Angela Windsor

Angela and Teresa work tirelessly to improve the care patients receive. They gather evidence-based practice to share with different departments and teach a wide variety of staff disciplines. They have extremely high standards and their unwavering passion and dedication is evident. Most recently they have worked with the maternity and paediatric teams to help share knowledge to develop pathways. They have helped develop a treatment escalation plan for wards to trial and are currently working with the IT teams to develop new training and pathways for the roll out of careflow and update to the sepsis modules on vitals. They do all of this taking consideration of the patients interests at the centre.

The finalists for the Quality Improvement, Education and Research Award are:

Wendy Owen, Point of Care Testing Manager

Wendy has dedicated 25 years’ service to the NHS and spent a large proportion of her career as a well-respected member of the Biochemistry team, delivering high quality laboratory services to the local healthcare systems. Wendy is also delivering significant savings though establishing efficient management systems for reagents and consumables and working with procurement to ensure efficient contracting (blood gas analysers alone, generating a saving of over £180,000 over the last three years). Wendy aims high and always delivers. Quality is at the heart of everything she does and teaches.

The Quality Team

The Quality Team continually strives to improve care within our inpatient wards by providing ward-based and formal training for teams. They undertake audits which underpin our improvement initiatives. For example, they support with monitoring falls within the trust and support colleagues to learn and implement changes to improve patient care and safety. Their work has helped to significantly reduce the number of inpatient falls within the trust. Most recently, they are supporting the Deteriorating patient team to improve early identification and therefore treatment of sepsis.

The Renal Service

The Renal Service, across both our sites and in the community, consistently go above and beyond to create opportunities for their patients to contribute to research. They have done this for the patients and for the future of renal care despite the fact that every trial we set up with them makes demands on them to do extra, this is the context of an already hugely busy Renal Service. The reason they never fail to support new research is driven by their care and commitment to their patients and their foresight to see the bigger picture, knowing that every extra blood taken, sample sent, piece of data collected adds to the evidence needed for robust, ethical clinical trials to create those new treatments/regimes or to improve cost effectiveness in the longer term and ultimately improve outcomes. Creating positivity, hope and the sense of being able to contribute to future care and developments has a huge impact on the mindset of patients who spend hours each week dialysing and staying well.

The finalists for the Innovation Award are:

Adam Farquharson, Consultant Surgeon

Adam led the working group that successfully developed the case for our surgical robot. This required the development of a very strong unified multi-specialty and multi-professional team. There were complex training needs including arranging support from other organisations and also developing new pathways. One of the primary aims of the work was to improve recruitment and retention and we are already seeing more interest in specialist staff joining us in response to the installation of the robot. This required a real eye for the future of surgery for our patients and tenacious approach to getting things done through many ups and downs along the way.

Cancer Services

The Cancer Services team continually strives to provide innovative solutions for patients. The team identified the need to deliver information on a digital platform, empowering anyone to find the help, support and information at any time and in any location as part of the NHS Long Term Plan for Personalised Care agenda. An app was developed, which has improved access to information, accessibility, and patient empowerment. Since launching, the app has had 550 downloads and over 60,000 interactions.

Kerry Davies and Sarah Childs, youth worker and mental health nurse

Kerry and Sarah have been working in paediatrics for just over a year. Both roles were new to the department and over the past 12 months have both worked incredibly hard to make huge improvements to the mental health of the children and young people on the ward. Offering 1:1 support to patients, helping to implement paperwork and procedures to ensure these patients are closely monitored and sharing information. Both have received positive feedback from patients and families. Both have worked collaboratively to make positive change on the ward and continue to work together to make improvements to the service and raise awareness of mental health including the importance of talking and providing a vast amount of coping strategies.

The finalists for the Sustainability/Green Award are:

Royal Shrewsbury Hospital Library

The Library Assistants at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital library have managed the uniform library which enables colleagues to easily get uniforms without purchasing new ones, thereby reducing the amount of waste generated by the hospital. By reducing the number of waste, they have contributed to a reduction in the hospital carbon footprint. The uniform library is an innovative solution that can be replicated in other hospitals, thereby contributing to the wider culture of sustainability within the NHS.

RSH Volunteers

The sustainability team has been working with Rebecca Baker and Paul Baskerville to introduce recycling of walking aids as a trial at RSH. The first recycling bin has saved 260KG of CO2 from entering the waste stream. The walking aids have been re-purposed for reuse saving £160. The pair have really welcomed the training, new recycling initiative and have embraced the positive change and Trust ambition.

Ian Stuart and the Catering Team

Ian and the team work tirelessly to help deliver sustainable solutions for all catering items. A large amount of work has been carried out to improve our carbon footprint and reduce the waste that is sent to landfill. This includes the move from plastic to glass and proper crockery on wards, reducing single use plastic and food waste. The team has lots of exciting further plans for the future and it is amazing to see. It is such a lovely team and Ian works so hard to make things better for our patients, colleagues and planet.

The finalists for the Clinical Leadership Award are:

Annemarie Lawrence, Director of Midwifery

Annemarie is an exceptional leader who makes a difference, both to her midwifery colleagues, and to women and families during a unique and life-changing time. Maternity Services leadership requires outstanding communication skills and an ability to inspire and motivate others. Annemarie has empowered teams, increased morale, and has actively mentored and encouraged colleagues. Annemarie’s vision and innovations are inspirational, she is a positive role model with an interest in developing teams to fulfil their potential and ensuring services are safe and kind.

Saskia Jones-Perrott, Divisional Medical Director for Medicine and Emergency Care

Saskia works relentlessly hard to provide the best possible care for the patients in the Medicine and Emergency division. She is dedicated to supporting her teams and the doctors to the very best of her ability. Despite having an incredibly pressured role she continues to provide supportive appraisals for colleagues and provides wellbeing support to the junior doctors. Saskia demonstrates passion and integrity in everything she does and works tirelessly for the organisation to improve the care that we provide and support the teams that work with her. She demonstrates the Trust values in her daily work making sure she thanks everyone for their contributions, however small.

Phlebotomy Supervisors at RSH

The Phlebotomy Supervisors at RSH have been nominated for their hard work and determination. They ensure the smooth running of the department in between several managers, all this alongside training new team members, making sure the wards and Outpatient departments are adequately staffed, often stepping in when required.

The finalists for the Non-clinical Leadership Award are:

Dale Callingham, Renal Secretary

Dale is extremely professional and experienced and is such an asset to the team. She gives her team members unlimited patience, kindness and time and nothing is ever too much trouble. Her team are extremely grateful for all the help, guidance and support she has shown.

Trish Purfit, Head of Catering

Trish is not only an exceptional leader for the Catering Team, she goes absolutely above and beyond every single day. Trish is often seen at both sites, not in the office but out there supporting her team when times are really busy. Often Trish is called on last minute to source and deliver food and drinks to colleagues and patients at very short notice. This has been evident in recent months throughout various strikes and heat waves, making sure our colleagues and patients are fed and watered. Nothing is ever too much trouble.

Julia Palmer, Head of PALS and Complaints

Julia is an excellent manager as she cares deeply for her colleagues and ensures that even in the most demanding of times she offers reassurance and support where required. This comes naturally and colleagues are made to feel valued. This is hard to come by and makes the biggest difference to an employee’s working life.

The finalists for the Health Equalities Award are:

The Lingen Davies LiveLife Cancer Awareness Service

Lingen Davies has been leading on a county-wide health project to raise awareness about the signs and symptoms of cancer amongst those communities less likely to engage with health screenings. The Cancer Champions project was launched last year as part of a move by NHS England to address health inequalities. The Cancer Champions project is intended to encourage people to engage in more conversations about health and cancer among their peers, helping to normalise cancer conversations, and work towards encouraging people to take up health screenings – a vital part of the fight to catch cancer early and bring about the best options for treatment and overall outcomes. To date more than 125 volunteers have been recruited. The Cancer Champions team has been delivering training in the county since December 2022.

The Community Engagement Team

During the pandemic, the Public Participation Team applied for funding through NHS Charities Together to address some of the gaps in engagement with Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and other seldom heard communities. A grant of £50,000 was received which meant we were able to establish links and build relationships with seldom heard community groups and organisations and individuals across Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin, and Powys. The team has ensured that we continue to have an open dialogue with those individuals and groups in our community who may not necessarily come to us to give their views.

Blossom Lake, Specialty Doctor, Surgical breast cancer

Blossom has been working hard over the last 18 months to build a seldom heard voices community with voluntary partners in order to address issues around stigma and isolation of breast cancer diagnosis, treatment and survival. Blossom has gone above and beyond, working hard to engage with different communities to provide education and help identify gaps in services to support communities. Blossom is committed and passionate to ensuring equal access to treatment and identifying barriers that can contribute to less favourable outcomes after breast cancer diagnoses. This is the start of an exciting career for Blossom with the area of health care inequalities in Breast Cancer and research. She is a truly deserving finalist for the amount of effort and hard work that she devotes to this cause outside of her working hours.

The finalists for the Learning and Development Award are:

Sue Rutter, Obstetric Consultant

Sue has done a lot of work as labour ward lead and the education lead to get our maternity department to where it is today. Sue has set up a labour ward forum which runs monthly bringing together midwifery, anaesthetic, theatre, governance, and obstetric staff to manage issues pertaining to the running of the labour ward. She has helped develop the handover process for the labour ward, written guidelines pertaining to care of women on labour ward. She is regularly flagged within incident review meetings as demonstrating excellent practice in patient care, staff debrief sessions and reflection sessions. Her trainees speak very highly of her for teaching, reflection, educational and clinical supervision.

Joanne Carswell, Senior Pharmacy Technician for Education and Training

Jo has made a huge difference in her role. Jo has led on new development opportunities available to colleagues which has created opportunities for people who were previously unable to apply. The team now has nearly 18 individuals training within the department to become Pharmacy Technicians. Jo has also started some work to develop an education strategy for our Pharmacy Technicians to create a programme of automatic progression based on experience, development and competency assessments. This is an exciting time for Pharmacy Technicians within our organisation and Jo has been pivotal in creating that change.

The Core Skills Team and our Post Registration Practice Education Facilitators

This team is involved in supporting the international nurses from the end of their objective structured clinical examination preparation through transition into the clinical environment, and supporting them pastorally in the clinical environment. The programme has evolved and developed under the expert guidance of Gill Johns, Senior Practice Education Facilitator, and takes an enormous amount of organisation and facilitation but the team do it with passion and enthusiasm. As a result of their hard work, our international nurses receive the right level of support, assessment and guidance, ensuring they start their qualified lives in SaTH on a very positive footing, with confidence and competent skills.

The finalists for the Rising Star Award are:

Nick Jones, Haematology Unit Manager

Nick has worked in Haematology for a number of years, starting off as a HCA, then completing his nurse training and working as staff nurse, clinical nurse specialist and most recently taking on the role of Unit Manager in the Haematology Day Unit. Nick always prioritises patient care and support for his colleagues and team. He works extremely hard and is highly regarded by his peers in all teams. He has a positivity which shines through in whatever role he is working. In recent months he has stepped up almost seamlessly to support another ward where he received hugely positive feedback. He instigated positive changes during this short time and made a big impact.

Laura Westcott, Health and Wellbeing Lead

What is evidently important to Laura is her passion to invest in colleague health and wellbeing. She is a real advocate, championing and strengthening health and wellbeing support across the organisation. She is always researching what else we can do to support our colleagues to be the best version of themselves, which of course, is also great for our patients. Over the last year she has grown the service, enabling over 2,500 colleagues to receive the support they need and promoted the service continually through roadshows and other routes.

Janine Laming, OD and Leadership Co-ordinator

Janine’s contribution to the OD team has been exceptional, in the short time she has been with the Trust, having joined just over a year ago. She has made a huge impact coordinating a wide range of programmes including SaTH 1-4 programmes, STEP and Galvanise, which would not run as smoothly without her. Her dedication and commitment to supporting others in the team shines through as she works tirelessly behind the scenes to support so many colleagues across the Trust to access and benefit from development and training.

The finalists for the Volunteer of the Year Award are:

Peter Hicking

Peter has volunteered for the last three years mainly within the Phlebotomy department where he does not one shift, but four, a week. These hours prevent the usage of a member of staff taken away from duty and accommodating more appointments for patients. Peter consistently meets and greets patients with a professional welcoming attitude. He is adept at putting patients and their friends or family at ease. Always going the extra mile to locate a wheelchair when someone is struggling, or escorting them back to their transport.

John and Judi Anderson

Ant & Dec, Little & Large, Morecombe & Wise, and of course John and Judi Anderson! When it comes to double acts they don’t get better than the Andersons – according to their nominator! John and Judi have contributed a combined total of over 1,000 hours of volunteering to PRH over their time with us. They truly demonstrate our Trust values in the roles they play. John and Judi are regular volunteers in Phlebotomy and the Discharge Lounge as well as helping out in the Plaster room and the Response desk. As well as their regular roles, they both often step up at times of need to help during critical incidents and at short notice. John and Judi are often seen around the hospital together and their smiles and positivity radiate wherever they are.

Mel Amor

Mel is a great advocate for volunteers at the Trust, she is passionate and dedicated. She volunteers every week in the emergency department and always shows Trust values on what she does. She takes time to chat and show compassion to every patient. On another level, she is really involved with the volunteer team, she mentors new volunteers, promotes volunteering at the Trust and works with the team to improve the service.

The finalists for the Partner of the Year Award are:

Lynne Pickavance, Patient Representative

Lynne plays a pivotal role as patient representative for the Independent Complaints Review Group which aims to provide objective, impartial, and constructive insight into complaint handling. Lynne provides a degree of assurance to external assessors and stakeholders that the complaint process is transparent and actively seeking to learn and improve the service in response to feedback, and provides unwavering support to those who need it.

Malcolm and Rufus, volunteers

Malcolm and his therapy dog Rufus bring constant joy to the staff and patients in our Orthopaedic department. It makes a real difference to our rehabilitation patients and their visits have had a long-lasting effect on our staff. They provide a truly excellent service and long may it continue! Even the most distressed patients have a smile on their faces when Rufus visits. He is happy to say hello and receive fuss from anyone available to give it. The most difficult days can be up lifted from a quick visit from these two.

Lingen Davies

The Lingen Davies charity has been enhancing and supporting the work of our cancer services for more than 44 years. It exists to ensure the people of Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin, and Mid Wales can access excellent care and support locally. Fundraising initiatives, investment in the team, and forward planning mean they have now reached the £1,000,000 income point and are able to deliver a raft of services, technology, and equipment to our partners working in the Lingen Davies Cancer Centre. In the last few years they have delivered projects to support our continued delivery of excellent cancer services including a CT Scanner and creation of three new clinic rooms in the Centre. They also fund additional support services for people to maintain fitness and wellbeing – enabling them to respond as well as they can to medical treatment.

The finalists for the Shropshire Star Public Recognition Award are:

Karen Kirton, Sister and Urology Specialist Nurse

Karen Kirton was nominated by one of her patients who told how she had “changed her life” and given her a “quality of life she never thought possible.” Her nominator said: “Sister Karen was relentless at trying to find a treatment that worked. She got consent to try a higher dose of the medication. Since then, mine, and my family’s lives have changed. We can now go away for the weekend, and even managed my lifelong dream of a music festival this year. These all seem like small things, but they are life changing to me. She has fought for me to have a quality of life I never thought possible. I’m forever grateful.”

Ward 22 Short Stay

The team on Royal Shrewsbury Hospital’s Short Stay Ward 22 was nominated for going “over and above” as they cared for a patient at the end of his life. The citation praised the efforts of the “whole team on Ward 22” as they looked after a 90-year-old man, describing them as ‘hospital heroes’. It stated: “All of the staff, without exception, committed to dad’s care, from shuffling patients late in their busy day to finding a quieter side room; to ensuring he was made comfortable. He received constant, meticulous care. Their dedication and compassion extended to us as a family, moving chairs in for overnight, leaving snacks, offering tea and meals and even words of kindness. We were on their radar as well as dad. He had, in a very short time found that bond that can only happen if you know someone really cares. This team went over and above. They asked and listened to his wishes and managed to engage with him, right up to the very last moments.”

Ward 25 Colorectal

Staff on Ward 25 at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital have been praised for their “exemplary” care. Ward sister Roxy Guarin and the rest of the team on the colorectal ward were actually nominated by the family of a patient who had been undergoing general surgery and was moved onto the ward due to a lack of space. They described how the staff had gone “above and beyond anything that we could ever have expected”. They said: “Nothing was ever too much trouble for any of the staff. Whenever we visited they would always take the time to listen to myself and my family about anything we needed to talk about and occasionally it was just to listen to us so we could offload how we were feeling. We would like to thank all the staff from the bottom of our hearts and in particular Roxy, Gill Joseph (matron), Jessica Pugh (HCA) and Julie (staff nurse). Roxy, who had been singled out in the nomination, joined the Trust several years ago after being offered a job in a recruitment drive in the Philippines.

The finalists for the Unsung Hero Award are:

Steve Doley, Medical Engineering Technologist

Steve has been an instrumental part of the process in the bed roll-out scheme. He was heavily involved with the entire process from tendering, bed road shows from multiple companies, procurement and implementation of the beds. This was all done in conjunction with his primary role. Whilst organising the decommissioning and retrieval of all old redundant beds, Steve worked alongside the manufacturer to train clinical staff in the safe operation of the beds for best clinical practice and patient experience. Steve is a huge credit to Medical Engineering and the Trust.

Mahmoud Elshehawy, Medical Registrar

As the junior doctors’ representative, Mahmoud has shown exceptional leadership skills. His role in leading the medical registrars’ camp in Shrewsbury underscores his commitment to education and training. Dr Elshehawy’s punctuality, dedication, and provision of valuable resources are truly commendable. His style of leadership, which is focused on both patients and colleagues, pushes teams to do their best. His ideas affect how we do things every day, producing a culture of hard work and kindness. Dr Elshehawy’s unwavering dedication to making patients’ lives better and motivating his colleagues to go above and beyond makes him a great choice for this award.

Deborah Taylor, Midwife

Deb is our longest serving midwife having started her training in 1978. She currently works in the Maternity Outpatients Department in PRH and is an extremely valued member of the team as she has a wealth of knowledge and experience, as well as being friendly and approachable and always willing to support and help her colleagues. She remains patient-focused and goes above and beyond to ensure her patients receive excellent care.

The finalists for the Lifetime Achievement Awards are:

Deborah Wharton, Practice Education Facilitator at RSH

Debbie Wharton has been a nurse at the Trust for 25 years, and throughout her years of service, she has ensured that she has upheld the highest standard of nursing. She is loved and respected by her colleagues as she is genuinely kind and compassionate, always making sure that colleagues around her are well supported. She has been instrumental in the delivery of gold standard nursing education. She is also core to the implementation of the Healthcare Support Worker ‘Buddy Scheme’, to ensure new starters have the right support. She has trained over 70 buddies since the launch of the scheme in 2021. She is the epitome of care, compassion and lifelong service to the NHS. A trait that all new healthcare professionals should aspire to.

Sanjeev Deshpande, consultant neonatologist at PRH

Dr Deshpande has been a driving force in improving neonatal care both locally and nationally for decades. He arrived in Shropshire when there were only a handful of paediatricians and developed the neonatal unit into what it is today. He has led on the expansion of the consultant and advanced neonatal nurse practitioner workforce, oversaw the move from RSH to PRH and supported the team during the Ockenden enquiry. During this time, he was also Programme Director for Paediatrics in the West Midlands and provided mentoring and career guidance for hundreds of paediatricians. As a colleague, he is unfailingly supportive and good humoured. His appetite for knowledge and teaching is widely admired. He is always available to his colleagues, even when not on call, for advice and support.

Anne Borley, Sister on Ward 23, Oncology and Haematology

Anne is an inspiration to so many patients and colleagues whom she has cared for and worked with for 50 years. She always goes the extra mile for the ward and her patients. One of her nominators states “Anne has been the back bone of the haematology ward for several decades. She is totally patient-focused and goes above and beyond to ensure their experience through such traumatic events is as smooth, supported and well-informed as possible. She has provided a gold standard care to thousands of patients. She has devoted much of her life to this specialism and to the ward and thoroughly deserves to be recognised for her invaluable contribution.”

Chief Executive Award

Emma Jones and the Advanced Clinical Practitioners

Our ACPs have become an increasingly important group of professionals. They are all regulated health care professionals who have had several years of additional training so that they have the knowledge and skills to carry out work that was previously carried out exclusively by doctors.

They work throughout the organisation in assessment areas and on the wards. They have been very active and supportive during the spells of industrial action and have been a key focus of continuity on many wards. The future plans of the Trust in terms of caring for patients across two hospitals now have ACPs as a prominent provider of clinical care and this is a reflection of their strong commitment to learning, care of patients and inspirational leadership from Emma.

Chief Executive Award Highly Commended:

Clinical Site Team

This team operates across our two hospitals. We all know that our frontline colleagues are fundamental in looking after our patients, but we also know that there are many areas behind the scenes that are also critical in ensuring we provide excellent care for the communities we serve.

We all know how hard it has been in recent years. Our hospitals have seen unprecedented demand, and the pressures our teams face on a daily basis, are immense.

The clinical site team have an extremely tough job on their hands. The team work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Every day and every night they strive to support our clinical teams to ensure our patients are safe and are being looked after in the right place at the right time.

It is no mean feat as we all know how highly pressurised our hospitals are. We recognise how difficult it has been the last few years, coming out of a pandemic, and we are so incredibly grateful for everything the team has done, and continue to do, for us all.

Chief Executive Award

Dr Victoria Walton

Compassion is shown across our organisation every single day, but Victoria is particularly special. She has seen medical staff being discriminated against because of the colour of their skin, whilst they are trying to deliver care and compassion. Out of this came a desire to empower those individuals and to ensure that they were supported and awareness was raised. She brought Galvanise to our Trust. Galvanise is an ethnic minority leadership programme. The programme’s goal is to ensure that black, Asian and ethnic minority colleagues have a space to come together and share challenges and opportunities. As a result of this work it has now grown its own legs and become bigger than she ever imagined it to be. 20 colleagues at our Trust have taken part on the Galvanise programme and from the Board’s perspective we recognise the importance of ensuring that everyone can thrive working at our Trust. Victoria has been fundamental in reaffirming our commitment to our equality, diversity and inclusion agenda to ensure we live by our people promise and to ensure inclusion and belonging for all.

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