This award is an opportunity for patients, families, visitors, and Trust colleagues to say ‘thank you – you made a difference’ to a member of staff or a team for anything (however small!) that helped make their experience of our services better.

We have joint winners for March 2024.

Our first winners are the Mental Health Support Team - Norwich First

Norwich Practitioners: Melissa Bartram (Senior Wellbeing Practitioner), Katie Thompson (Senior Wellbeing Practitioner), Beth Earl (EMHP), Clare Lambert (EMHP), Georgia Miller (EMHP), Rachael McCarney (Senior Wellbeing Practitioner), (Senior Staff - Rebecca Hume and Jayne Clark).

Holly Evans nominated the practitioners in the Norwich team for consistently going above and beyond to support the needs of their school communities, wider service, and new trainees to the service.

Providing high-quality, person-centred care to the children, young people, and families they support. On top of their high workloads, they continue to impress professionals they meet and 'step up' to help meet service needs at external events.

Each member of the team could be recognised for their individual efforts, they have faced significant challenges and continue to be the first to offer support to others. Their positive, attitude, high morale, and focus on person-centred care truly embodies the Trust’s values.

Brilliant nomination well done everyone!

Our second winners for March are Katy Stockley and Bennie Award, Sister / Senior Sister, Luton

Katy and Bennie were nominated by Leila Daniel after they were allocated a patient from the 999 Stack. On arrival at the patients home they were presented with complex family dynamics. Katy and Bennie arranged for the patient to be taken to hospital for further medical assessment. The patient was assessed and later admitted to the local hospital.

Both Katy and Bennie acted in a non-judgmental and tenacious manner, ensuring the safeguarding concerns regarding both family members were raised and shared effectively. This highlights the staff member’s excellent professional curiosity and ‘Think family’ approach.

Another outstanding nomination, well done ladies!

Other nominations this month included:

The Improvement and Transformation team
Nominated by Lucy Colley for holding a brilliant 'Quality Improvement Roadshow' event at the Poynt, in March. Lucy said: “This was a fantastic event and the team were engaging and enthusiastic and were great at promoting the work they do and they were great to talk to and learn from. The interactive games were great fun and made you think, and the whole team were supportive and informative.”

Emma Sweetman, Community Nursery Nurse, Luton
Emma was nominated by Lisa Goodridge for demonstrating strong leadership skills when she supported with the implementation of a service change.

Lisa said: “Emma made suggestions of new ways of working that have been trialled in the running of the clinics, she worked tirelessly, going above and beyond that of her role looking at ways to maximise the use of available rooms and clinical time to deliver this service to the local population. She advocated for her colleagues and thought outside of the box when thinking about usual clinic running times and schedules.”

Sarah Munroe, Luton Blood Services Team Lead
Karen Fell nominated Sarah for being instrumental in the introduction of a new process supporting the occupational health clearance for new volunteers within the Trust who live in and around the Luton area.

Trust volunteers undergo the same recruitment checks as staff, in line with NHS Employers guidance. When volunteers will have social contact with patients, this includes providing evidence of immunity to illness such as measles, rubella, and chickenpox to protect them and our service users. This may mean that the volunteer needs to have a blood test to show immunity.

Karen said: “Volunteers used to be offered appointments for blood tests in Luton but this option was withdrawn and they had to travel as far away as Cambridge. Sarah was contacted to see if volunteers could attend the Phlebotomy Clinic at Luton Treatment Centre to have their blood test. She readily agreed and made sure that her staff were briefed on the new process.”

This has made the experience of volunteers undertaking recruitment checks much more positive, with the first volunteer to attend the clinic writing: “Thank you very much for finding another way to complete my occupational health clearance. The clinic is just few minutes away from my home. It’s perfect.”

Grace Swann, Specialist Speech and Language Therapist, The Oak Tree Centre, Huntingdon
Catherine Allison nominated Grace after the safeguarding team described Grace's recent work in supporting a service user following a disclosure as 'absolutely outstanding'. Grace did 'everything she possibly could', was open to suggestions and was honest about what she could do and where she would need support. Grace's record keeping has been 'incredible' and she has been excellent at highlighting and documenting the voice of the child throughout the process. Grace has managed this challenging situation exceptionally well with great support from the safeguarding team.

Alison Wardley, Nikki Kenmore, and Rachel Lawrence
Bedfordshire Community Children's Nursing team, Continuing Care team and Specialist Nursing team
Nominated by Jennifer Russell, the Bedfordshire Children's Community Nursing Service team, Children's Continuing Care team and Children's Specialist Nursing team at the CDC were nominated for all pulling together to offer a quality placement to a learner at very short notice. Between the three teams they were able to offer high quality learning experiences to a learner which met their university learning outcomes as well offering a supportive and friendly environment.

Jennifer said: “It was a real credit to CCS how welcoming, positive, and supportive all the teams were of this learner and how they rose to the challenge of offering placement at such short notice.”

Erin Gibson, Clinical Assistant, iCaSH Peterborough
Erin was nominated by Jo Stott, Jackie Wigglesworth, and Mandy Renton for always going above and beyond in her support of patients and staff. Erin is kind, thoughtful, and works so hard in challenging times when the team has been short staffed. Erin volunteers to do extra shifts, she is adaptable, and upbeat all the time. The team would be lost without her, and she is appreciated so much.

Mandy said: “Erin is a consistently high performer and is a pleasure to work alongside. She is always keen to assist even when out of her comfort zone. She is equally valuable helping staff as well as supporting service users.”

Suzi Dyson, Senior Nurse, Community Paediatrics, The Oak Tree Centre, Huntingdon
Suzi was nominated by Rachel Bower for bringing enthusiasm, ideas and a smile to the Down Syndrome clinic and the whole Community Paediatric team. Rachel said: “Suzi produces lots of ideas to improve the experience of families attending and to support their needs. She has introduced a monthly health promotion activity which is fun and creative for children and families to improve overall health in this vulnerable group. She has also helped the clinical staff with the efficient working of the clinic. Her can-do attitude and approachable nature are benefitting the children attending clinic greatly.”

Lisa Bond, Tissue Viability Nurse, Adult Nursing, Luton
Victoria Marsh nominated Lisa after she raised concerns about a patient. Victoria said: “Lisa worked heroically to get people to stand up and notice and completed the best MCA the trust has ever received.

“She has put hours of hard work in to make sure this patient has been safeguarded and has done everything the safeguarding team has asked to a high standard. The safeguarding team are very grateful for her hard work and really think she deserves a Shine a Light award.”

Shining examples of our wonderful staff going above and beyond - well done to everyone nominated this month!