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 July 2021 is:

Laura Gould, Children's Community Nurse, Children's Community Specialist Nursing Service, Oak Tree Centre

Laura was nominated by Kirstie Lynn after attending a family’s home to undertake a routine community visit for a baby who had complex health needs. Whilst in the home the baby became expectantly unwell and the mum handed the baby over to Laura to assess. Kirstie said: “The baby had a cardiac arrest and Laura immediately started full CPR and saved the baby's life. She was breathing and responsive by the time the ambulance crew arrived. She is now recovering in hospital.

“This event is incredibly rare in the community with many nurses never experiencing this in their careers. Laura acted fast and without hesitation and started CPR. She was a lone worker and had no support in the home. What Laura did showed bravery and outstanding professionalism. We are all so proud of her!”

A truly well-deserved winner, well done Laura! 

Other nominations this month included:

Alyson Chastell and the Dental team: Hazel Byatt, Joanne Cope, Nicola Benton and Trudy Stocker - Peterborough Dental Access Centre

Alyson and the team were nominated by Coral Hillafter the Peterborough Dental Access Centre suffered a flood very late in the afternoon. The entire dental department had flooded due to bad weather and a storm drain failure. Alyson and members of the team acted instinctively and alerted the appropriate services and senior staff.

Coral said: “Alyson and staff stayed selflessly into the night to deal with the aftermath. Over the weekend Alyson and colleagues mopped floors cancelled and rebooked patients for the following week. Special thanks also goes to Hazel Byatt and Joanne Cope from the Cambridge and Huntingdon service who also spent their weekend supporting Alyson to relocate services and staff, and cancel/rebook patient appointments. This was a real team effort.

"This is the second time this year that the Peterborough team have had to deal with flooding which has caused chaos and disruption for both staff and patients. The service lead and I are extremely grateful for their support, team work, and above all their resilience and can do attitude when dealing with a crisis such as this. They are all winners in our eyes!”

Alyson Chastell, Dental Nurse team lead, Dental HealthCare Peterborough

Alyson was nominated by Julia Hallam-Seagrave afterPeterborough Dental Access Centre experienced a flood which saw water surge through the building into all the clinical areas. Julia said: “Even though it was Alyson's non-working day she responded to the call from the team. She spent Friday evening at the clinic with estates getting the water out and making the building safe, she was there until late into the evening.

"On Saturday she went back to the clinic to let in electricians and estates as well as starting the clear up operation. She also redeployed clinical and admin staff to other sites and worked with other dental leads to ensure patients were kept informed. The clinic will be up and running again one week after the flood but this is only possible due to the hard work Alyson has put in over the last few days. Thank you Alyson.”

Karen Spencer, Specialist Nursery Nurse, Children's continuing Care Team, Bedfordshire

Karen was nominated by Alison Wardley who has been the Departmental Equipment Controller for many years, volunteering for a role which has grown into managing an army. Alison said: “We have just had our annual equipment servicing visit and it’s just highlighted how fantastic she is. Karen keeps meticulous records of 85 individual medical devise spread across 3 clinic sites, 3 special schools, 12 community nurses’ car boots and 20+ patients homes. She has a photographic memory to know the status of every piece of equipment, its service history and parts that have been replaced and always finds a way to resolve the panic colleagues have when they've "lost" a wire/ connector and need it replacing QUICK!!!

“Karen has developed excellent working relationships with clinical engineering and makes sure the most effective way of repairing/servicing and resolving problems is achieved. She has trained colleagues in how to manage the systems and processes needed to keep our most clinically vulnerable patients safe. Karen plans and orchestrates the operation of getting all the equipment to the clinic over 2 days with replacements to patients who can't be without their equipment and back to them again without losing an item or needing to cancel any care/support. THANK YOU KAREN - you make it look so easy but we really do appreciate just how much hard work goes into the preparation and planning.”

Lois Harbord, Karen Mustoe, Lesley Allan and Kevin Oregan - Health Visitors and Clinical Nurse Specialist -  Luton 0-19 Children’s Services

Lois was nominated by Gwen Yendell after she took a Christmas lunch to Gwen and her husband, as they were both positive with Covid and not very well. Gwen said: “Karen brought food and took things to hospital when I was admitted.  Lesley went shopping to get new pyjamas and dropped them off at the hospital, and when I was home Kevin did my shopping for a couple of weeks.

“The 0-19 team were lovely wishing us well and keeping in touch, as our family did not live local, we were grateful for the support received from them all. It will not be forgotten.”

Cynthia Yates, Health Visitor, North Locality Cambridgeshire

Joanne Brooks nominated Cynthia after she was involved in a difficult and complex case. Joanne said: “Cynthia continued to raise concerns to protect the children where there had been chronic neglect over a prolonged period which was having an adverse impact on the children's development, growth, safety and emotional well-being. She has been tenaciously and respectfully challenging professional decision making where she has felt this to be unsafe and has sought support and guidance to escalate her concerns several times to the multi-agency partnership.

“Her perseverance in advocating for the children has been amazing and was a significant contributor in securing their safety in very difficult circumstances. She has since complied with a court order to submit a very professional, detailed account of her work with the family and was subsequently called to appear before the court as a primary witness in the case.

“She has acted with good humour, professional integrity and with professional composure to ensure the lived experiences and voices of the children were her central focus and has continued to be their advocate so that they may remain in a place of safety. She was commended by the Local Authority Legal Team acting for the children for her professionalism in the case.”

Grace Vickers, Children's Community Nurse, Luton Children's Community Nursing Team

Lynn Fanning nominated Grace for supporting the Children's Rapid Response team due to vacancies in the team. Lynn said: “Without Grace's support the team would have been unable to continue to provide an effective service and may even have had to reduce or stop the service that they were able to offer.

"Prior to helping our service Grace moved to the Bedford CCN team to support them whilst they also had vacancies. She was able to help train new members of the team and build up the team to be able to provide a 7 day a week service. Since she has worked in the community Grace has been adaptable, flexible and has always provided a high standard of care. She always does this with a smile on her face and without complaining. I would like to say a big 'thank you' to Grace and feel that she is very deserving of a 'Shine a Light' award.”

Alex Hinton, Recruitment Co-ordinator, St Ives

Marta Jurado De Matos nominated Alex who was responsible for processing all of her pre-checks for her employment with CCS as a COVID-19 vaccinator. 

Marta said: “When Alex contacted me in April I had been two months into a frustrating chase for my position since I was offered it in February. Alex was compassionate and a great listener to start with as I was quite upset about the whole process. After listening and showing understanding for my frustration she started to work unstoppably to get my checks done as quickly as possible. Every step forward would bring us two steps back as there were a lot of unforeseen circumstances placing obstacles in my process.

"Alex would call me and would try to give all the possible options to see if we could overcome the barriers and her support, calmness and positive demeanor kept me going. Even in days where there was no news she would email me to let me know that things were progressing but that I haven't been forgotten. She was always available and went above and beyond. I can’t thank her enough for the help, support and professional conduct she demonstrated throughout my recruitment process and I feel that she should be recognised for her amazing work.”

Well done to everyone who was nominated this month!