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 Winner for May 2021 is:

Shafy Hafiz, SEND Faciliatator, Edwin Lobo Centre, Luton

Shafy was nominated by Sarah Burke-Jacobs after seconding to her role during mid pandemic! Some of the proposed activities for Shafy to be involved with were unable to happen.  For example running information sessions/support groups for parents of children under the age of 5 years old (with a suspected neuro-disability) who had been referred to the Edwin Lobo Child Development Centre.

Sarah said: “Shafy was very creative and continued to do lots of joined up working with her colleagues from Luton Council and Flying Start. She was quite isolated at times, due to the recommendation that we work from home as much as possible.

“Shafy is always bright and cheerful when she is in the office or on MS Team meetings. Shafy gives lots of telephone advice to parents of children (Luton only) who are on the waiting list to be seen by a paediatrician, where a referral has come from a health visitor or nursery. She sets up packages of care to address, for example, sleep, behaviour, and toileting and diet issues. She has undertaken (covid-safe) home visits and sits in at appointments with children when they see the paediatrician. Her role includes referring onto the SENS team for placement at a nursery or special needs school, refers for Flying Start for hearing tests and eye tests (when available). In addition, she refers to food banks and other valuable organisations who offer support.

“The feedback she has received (from Friends and Family feedback) has been amazing. Flying Start have been so amazed with her work and results that the 18 month contract has been extended for another 12 months! My wish now is that we can have another 'Shafy' to care for the children of Central Beds.

What a lovely nomination, well done Shafy!

Other nominations this month included:

Leticia Belzunce, Community Staff Nurse, Luton

Leticia was nominated by a member of the public for great work and professionalism whilst caring for patients at home.

Nicky Minnett, Finance Officer, The Meadows, St Ives

Nicky was nominated by Anne Foley for working many hours extra to get the people on the vaccination programme on payroll correctly and paid. Anne said: “She deals sympathetically with all staff queries and has worked very hard to fix issues. We do have a number of outstanding pay queries, mainly due to the volume of new staff we have employed in a very short space of time.

“She has developed a close working relationship with the payroll team to ensure we can fix problems with the minimum of bureaucracy whilst ensuring we still comply with audit requirements. She also supports other teams in the Trust to change their processes to deal with the volume and short timescale. The problems are not all solved yet by Nicky deals with them with attention to detail, patience, respect, empathy and honesty in the face of some difficult circumstances.”

Niamh Robinson, (Mandatory Training & OLM Co-ordinator) and Nancy Packham, (Mandatory Training and OLM Administrator), ESR team, The Meadows, St Ives

Niamh and Nancy were nominated by Abbie Davis for taking on so much extra work the past year.  Abbie said: “Not only do they do a fantastic job of managing ESR and mandatory training but they also provide amazing service helping with Mass Vacc queries.

“They took on a whole other inbox and managed to get the emails from a really high number to low in a matter of days. They are also polite, friendly and the most helpful people - never is anything too much and they do it with a smile on their faces. Working with both of them brings joy into my days and they have answered my queries so quickly despite being up to their eyes in work. They show what CCS is about and I know they have made a difference to many people in the organisation. It is a pleasure working alongside them and seeing them in action. They deserve to be acknowledged for their outstanding work in these hard times.”

Gemma Farrand, Special Needs School Nurse, Children’s Community Specialist Nursing Service, Cambridgeshire

Gemma was nominated by Maria Nowshadi who said: “Gemma has been with our team for just over a year, having started at the beginning of the COVID break out. Despite it not being the easiest circumstances to join a team she has made an amazing difference.”

Gemma's role is to look at and deliver the Universal offer in our Special Schools a role which had been very under delivered before she arrived. Gemma initiated a newsletter to go out to all the children in the special schools. These have been running bi monthly since September. Gemma received this lovely feedback from a parent: "Hi, I’m the mum of a child at Meadowgate and I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see your newsletter. Many years ago a team of healthcare professionals were based at Meadowgate and since they left it felt like we didn’t really have much support in the way we had. It’s so good to have these details and support once again many thanks."

Maria continued: “The children and families at the special schools often feel neglected and Gemma has made them feel like a priority.”

Kirsty Younger, School Nurse ( SCPHN) Professional Lead - Practice Learning coordinator, Luton School Nursing Team

Kirsty was nominated by Debbie Manning, Lesley Innes and Michelle Hill.  Debbie said: “Over the past few years Kirsty has been an instrumental part of the ChatHealth team with Luton School Nursing Services. Kirsty has been involved with ChatHealth since it was introduced in Luton, and now takes the lead on co-ordinating the licence holders, and the training of staff, and regularly mans the ChatHealth text messaging service helping young people with their concerns and worries.

“Over the past few months Kirsty has gone over and above and willingly stepped up to help with several radio interviews. Most recently, she was filmed by ITV Anglia along with a Luton schoolboy who wrote and performed a rap song to promote our ChatHealth service. The rap was the winning entry in a competition we launched to find a new way to spread the ChatHealth message to young people in Luton and Beds.

“We discovered after the interview that Kirsty has stepped in to help with the filming despite it being a very special day for Kirsty who was celebrating a big birthday. Kirsty is also mother to six children, and she manages to juggle her family responsibilities along with finding time to stand in for here team lead, who has been off long-term. Kirsty joined the service as a community staff nurse (we don’t know when!) and then started as a SCPHN school nurse student in 2015, taking up a school nurse post in 2016. She was then promoted to professional lead and learning co-ordinator in 2019.”

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