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 June 2020 winner is:

Karen Loft, Catheter Lead Nurse, Luton Community Nursing 

Karen was nominated by Tracy Fitzsimmons for going above and beyond the call of duty as was described by a patient she saw last month. Karen received praise from a patient in a letter with a donation of £50 to charitable funds, his letter reads: “Hi, thanks for all the help, beyond the call of duty, thanks to you I am back on my feet and back at the flat. My hands and feet are working almost properly. Once again thanks very much.” 

Tracy said: “Karen's colleague Beverley Green explained to me that Karen went to visit a gentleman for the first time to change his catheter, where she found him unable to mobilise due to a swollen knee. He has a tracheostomy so cannot speak. He had no food and had not been able to go shopping. He had been prescribed pain killers but they had not been delivered, and he had no-one who could immediately help him. 

“Karen responded quickly, she collected his medication, went to the shop and bought him food, cleaned up his flat, ordered a commode, contacted other services and managed to get everything in place for him to move into respite care the following day. He is now recovered, back home and able to get out and do his own shopping again.  
“Karen has worked for community nursing for many years, she is passionate about her work and is committed to always deliver the very best for her patients - this is such a great example of her commitment to her patients but also of her compassion and caring which we are all very proud of.” 

What wonderful feedback, well done Karen!

Other nominations this month included:

The Attend Anywhere team - Cynthia Yates and Kate Allan (health visitors) and Julie Hazell (service redesign delivery manager) - 0-19 Healthy Child Programme, Cambridgeshire

Jo Smith nominated these three members of staff for working tirelessly in an extremely limited timeframe to ensure practitioners are able to access and use the Attend Anywhere video conferencing platform in order to provide a face to face consultation with service users. This has meant that they have been working on days off to fit around staff working patterns to ensure test calls have been made, and that staff are happy with the process before they go live with clients. Julie has provided a weekly team support meeting for staff which again has been incredibly supportive and allowed staff to discuss experiences and concerns. 

Jo said: “They have all done this with the utmost professionalism and with patience and humour and the feedback from staff has been incredible. During this time our staff had to adapt to the use of new technologies and not all staff are IT confident. The feedback has been that these members of staff have been nothing but supportive and compassionate in their approach. As a result staff are now able to have face to face consultations and this has been positively greeted by service users. Some practitioners are even confident enough already to use the platform whilst taking calls on our single point of access desk - this will change the way we deliver our service forever. 

“This team deserve a massive thank you as we would not be this far forward on this project without their time, patience and dedication, and being able to offer face to face contacts to our service users has been such a benefit to them.”

Emily Martin and Georgia McNamara, Mental Health and Wellbeing Champions with the Complex Care team, Bedfordshire 

Glenda Hall nominated Emily Martin and Georgia McNamara from the Bedfordshire CCN team recognising the fantastic initiative that they have set up to support their colleagues - Mental health and Well-being Virtual Drop-ins.

They recently undertook a Mental Health First Aid course where they learned techniques and ways to support colleagues who may be struggling with their mental health. During Mental Health Awareness week they offered everyone a weekly virtual drop-in service for anything they may want to talk about regarding Mental Health and Wellbeing.

Glenda said: “Mental health applies to everybody and it is as important to look after your mental health as it is your physical health. In light of the recent pandemic, it is so important to support each other the best we can and this is why they decided to run these weekly sessions for people to be able to talk to them about any concerns or worries they may be having. They also had many resources and information available in order to guide people seeking further help if required.”

Graham McKinnon, Consultant, iCaSH Peterborough

Katie Good and Poppy Reynolds nominated Dr Graham McKinnon for his inspirational leadership of the iCaSH Peterborough team during the COVID-19 response. At the very commencement of the pandemic the iCaSH Peterborough Leadership team was significantly impacted by several of its members being mandated to work from home, soon after this they experienced a change in Service Manager and latterly the redeployment of another medic. 

They said: “Throughout all of this Graham has been the consistent face of the leadership team on the ground in Kings Chambers, however far from undertaking simply what was necessary Graham has gone and continues to go above and beyond in his efforts during this time. We have collated just a few examples:

• “We have a daily team briefing over teams; Graham chairs this meeting in a professional but also humorous manner giving the whole team a real boost each morning. He has implemented ‘this day in history’ as a way of starting off meetings and, for example, when the reflection included some information about a classical composer at the end of the meeting he has played us a piece of their music, read us Shakespeare and much more!”

• “Graham has the respect of his colleagues and has recently been highlighted by members of the team as always being ‘positive and approachable’ both in his clinical role but also in his current role as operational lead for the team on the ground, a significant change and increase in workload that we have never once heard him grumble or complain about. He has gone above and beyond in proactively encouraging social distancing, measuring every room in the building, cascading appropriate changes and completing our building risk assessment.”

• “As with all teams during this time we’ve had our fair share of bumps along the way, Graham is always ready to impartially listen to the concerns of the team and advocate for colleagues as appropriate, his calm and measured manner has held the team together during some particularly rocky times.” 

“In summary we would like to say a huge ‘thank you’ for everything Graham has done and does for the iCaSH Peterborough team; we would be lost without him and want to recognise the significant difference he makes each day.” 

Luton and Beds School Nurses – ChatHealth - Mel Hayes, Karen Williams, Lydia Rosseter, Tabassum Mirza, Ginny Lomax, Vicki Calter, Emilie Jolliffe, Jane Paris, Tina Charlton, Glenda Hall and Jacky Syme (with support from Debbie Manning and Emily Loud, Communications team)

Glenda Hall and Simon Harwin nominated the Luton and Beds school nurses (with support from the communications team) for recently relaunching the ChatHealth confidential text messaging service for young people aged 11-19. The decision came after the initial uptake for the service was encouraging but then numbers appeared to be falling away.

Young people were invited to join a forum with the ChatHealth teams and coproduction to discuss the service to let them know what they liked about the service and its promotion and where they could improve. During these discussions, the team discovered that the young people thought the ChatHealth promotional material - which drew on a nationally preferred colourway and design - could be improved to reflect the individual and diverse areas of Luton and Beds.

Glenda said: “It was decided to launch a competition for young people across Luton and Beds to design a new poster to advertise the service with a £50 voucher for the winner. Thirty posters were submitted for the competition and a panel of 34 young people was set up to judge the entries.

“The panel chose a design by Andrea, aged 10 because they felt her poster captured the feel of ChatHealth from a young person’s point of view. Her winning poster is now being used as the face of the Luton and Beds ChatHealth campaign and is being displayed across our social media sites.”

Video of the competition entries: https://vimeo.com/user93371153/review/430017702/9b05c2a784

Congratulations to everyone who was nominated this month, outstanding nominations once again!