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.

Our January 2020 winner is:

Joy Beck, Health Visitor, 0-19 Healthy Child Programme, North Locality, St Neots, Cambridgeshire

Joy was nominated by her line manager Alison Murray for successfully building a working relationship with a local GP, resulting in improving services for the children and families in the St Neot’s area.

Alison said: “Joy has worked on building a relationship with one of our GP practices and is now successfully having regular safeguarding meetings with the GP's in place. This has been a significant piece of work for Joy and she has promoted the benefits of multi-agency working, broken down previous myths, explained the service and built a trusting relationship. This collaboration has also led to improved communication in general with the GP's who are now regularly making contact with the service to follow up any concerns. This has resulted in an improved service for the children and families in the area and will help to keep children and families safe.”

Well done Joy!

Other nominations this month included:

Jody Fox, Complex Needs Staff Nurse - Norfolk Healthy Child Programme

Jody was nominated by Pamela Singh for working closely with the team at a short stay school to improve outcomes for children and young people with additional needs.

Feedback from the pupils and staff said:

“Jody has 'become a familiar face within our school and the pupils describe her as 'smiley, nice and kind’ and someone who ‘always listens.”

“Jody has supported several of our pupils through the school nurse referral system and it is fantastic that we have a link person who can support with this.”

“Jody has been flexible and accommodating in her approaches with us ensuring the best outcomes for out pupils. For example our flu vaccine uptake was very low last year so we asked Jody to explain what happens and why we have it to the pupils. As a result we had 100% uptake for eligible pupils this year.”

Pamela said: “Jody has been instrumental in developing the continence pathway in the Healthy Child Programme and has co-facilitated the continence workshops across the county. These have all been evaluated very well; one participant reported that this was the best training they had ever received in their long career of NHS service.  Jody is a quiet, diligent member of staff who deserves this recognition.” 

Michelle Leon, Dietetic Assistant Practitioner, Family Food First – Bedford

Michelle was nominated by two members of the public as follows:

“I attended the nutrition and physical activity training by Michelle and it was really good. She did brilliantly at communicating all of the information in an easy way. I often liaised with Michelle as part of the FFF program and she was supportive and always had great ideas about how we could promote healthy lifestyles for children and families.”

“I work for rise and shine nursery in Luton. It's being great to meet Michelle and her enthusiasm encouraged my setting to join the Family Food First program. It has been more challenging than expected to get the ball rolling with visits and training for the program. I would like to thank Michelle for being so helpful and patient.”

Jennifer Wagner, Assistant Practitioner, South Locality, Cambridgeshire

Jennifer was nominated by Skyler Moulder  for working exceptionally hard over the last few months supporting the team with tools and resources for the 5-19 practitioners. Skyler said: “She has helped to implement processes in the 5-19 duty desk and developed the assistant practitioner role there. Specifically over the last two weeks she has shown her dedication and fantastic team spirit for the 5-19 team.

“We had a member of staff expectantly absent from work and Jen has covered all of the planned Enuresis clinics in her absence. This means Jen has been travelling all over the county, often finishing much further away from home than she would have. She has stayed late to cover the appointments that are booked in after school hours so that the appointments were not cancelled and the families were not disappointed. Jen prevented the cancellation of over 20 appointments. She has ensured that the children who would have been seen have been reviewed and supported and has ensured the best outcomes for these children and families.”

Jane Whatling, Administrative Assistant, Norfolk School Age Immunisation Team

Jane was nominated by Margot Smith for being amazing in the midst of a very challenging school flu immunisation program.

Margot said: “Jane has contacted libraries around the county and arranged with them to host clinics in order to vaccinate as many children as possible. Since November, this has enabled us to vaccinate over 1000 children in clinics who have missed the vaccination in school. As well as liaising and arranging with the libraries, Jane has compiled clinic lists and checked each child's vaccination record prior to the nurses seeing them, reported to GP's the children we have seen and completed spreadsheets for PHE to ensure all records are up to date. On top of the huge unpredictable clinic workload (which is far bigger than expected this year), she has continued to complete her regular school preparation and reporting and to top it all, moved house in the middle of flu season! We are so grateful for all she has achieved through her hard work and are amazed that she has managed to keep her sense of humour intact.”

Fantastic nominations for the New Year, well done everyone!