Congratulations to our first staff award winners! | Latest News

The first HOSCARS (Homerton Outstanding Service Contribution and Recognition Awards) took place on Thursday 28 September, attended by our shortlisted nominees and special guests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a celebration to say a huge thank you to our people for all that they do.

The 15 award categories commended achievements and improvements in areas including: quality and patient safety; equality, diversity, and inclusion; staff wellbeing; sustainability; leadership;  innovation; and education, research, and development.

Our Chief Executive and Chairman also presented two special awards.

The evening was supported by Homerton Hope and was hosted by our very own Dr Ronx, with awards presented by our Executive team.

The finalists and winners:

Improving the health and wellbeing of our communities

Involving service users to improve quality and patient safety

Winner:

• Hackney Captains  - the Hackney Captains are made up of 14-19 year olds who use or have used a service at Hackney Ark. Facilitated by the Health Integration Team, they have advocated for themselves and other children and young people on topics such as 'how to make parks more inclusive and accessible' and improving the experience of GP appointments for individuals with autism and learning disabilities. The judges praised the Hackney Captains for taking as many initiatives as possible to improve service using a multidisciplinary approach to optimise care beyond the clinic and into the community.

Finalists:

• Patient Participation and Advocating for Long COVID within City & Hackney COVID Rehab Service - This team operates a flexible and responsive service that has innovated and iterated continuously through a number of ways including patient participation forums, focus groups and questionnaires.
• Proactive Care Team – Resident Involvement - A new service developed with resident involvement at its core. The team proactively contacts people living with moderate frailty and multiple long-term conditions to provide personalised health and wellbeing support.

Transforming the Lives of Patients and Residents in the Community

Winner:

• The Children's Physiotherapy Team at Hackney Ark - who were successful in securing funding from the Healthier Futures Action Fund to set up a cycling project to teach children, young people and families how to ride a bike. The overall aim was to enable disabled children, young people and NHS staff in Hackney to choose cycling as their main mode of transport. The team really impressed the judges with this initiative, especially as it helped bring independence to children with the added benefit of training for staff as well. It demonstrated a positive experience for patients and residents in the community who require our care and support.

Finalists:

• Superheroes Triathlon! - The UK's only mass-participation sports series dedicated to people with disabilities is an event that the team have supported over the last 5 years, all done outside the team’s work, they’ve raised £1,999.
• Cancer Prehabilitation Team’s - the pre-habilitation service is a new service for Homerton patients who have a diagnosis of cancer. The service is there to prepare patients for their treatment by giving them advice and input from physiotherapy, dietitian, psychology and nurse specialists.  

Delivering outstanding equitable care

Clinical Employee of the Year

Winner:

• Dr Hannah Caller  Hannah is Homerton's longest serving SAS paediatrician. She is extraordinarily dedicated to the patients, their families, and medical students who come through the department and the whole multidisciplinary team. The judges thought Hannah was clearly the glue that holds the department together, an outstanding member of the Homerton community and an example to us all.

^{Mags Shaughnessy accepting the award on behalf of Dr Hannah Caller}

Finalists:

• Christopher Buckley - who after taking over from the pioneer of the HIV social care service a few years ago, Chris has risen to challenge of building a team of peer navigators to deliver ongoing support to patients living with HIV.
• Audrey Wright - who is the longest serving therapist in the Adult Community Rehabilitation Team having worked in the team continuously for over 21 years. She has a vast wealth of knowledge and experience and her experience is invaluable to the team as a whole.

Non-Clinical Employee of the Year

Winner:

• Nurelle Julien - Nurelle consistently goes over and above her role to support the teams in CCS, embodying the core values of the Trust and always looking for better ways of doing things for the benefit of all. The judges were hugely impressed by Nurelle for her dedication and support, something the team clearly value and appreciate.

Finalists:

• Naimah Khanom - for transforming the bookings procedure at Hackney Diabetes Centre, significantly enhancing efficiency and patient safety.
•  Joanna Connier - for her outstanding work in establishing the admin processes for the Long Covid service. A shining light of excellent practice.

Leader of the Year

Winner:

• Dr Letty Dormandy - Letty oversees the running of the acute care unit, a busy ward with a high turnover of patients. In this role, Letty goes the extra mile to improve not only the care of the patients being looked after but also the working lives and wellbeing of all those working there. The judges praised Letty’s kindness, compassion and always being approachable. Embedding themselves within the team, and truly upholding the values, respects and contributions of those working with them.

Finalists:

• Nazia Ahmad - who in her role as head of adult therapies Nazia shows incredible tenacity and compassion to lead services under immense pressure.
• Ahmed Patel - recognising his dedication to nurturing staff well-being and fostering a positive workplace. He is an exemplary leader who not only guides the team professionally but also prioritizes their mental and physical health, actively promoting a work-life balance.  

Developing happy, healthy, and heard staff

Improving Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

Winner:

• Sandra Weekes - Sandra has worked for many years to create a safe and respectful working place for the large staff membership who are minoritised through ethnicity. The judges felt that Sandra demonstrated and embraced the ethos of the Trust, leading the way with anti-racism work and helping to develop an understanding between race and disability to improve the support offered to staff.

Finalists:

• Victoria Beckwith - who explores all aspects of EDI and supports the Trust to change, by providing the right resources and courses and by developing strategic direction.  
• The staff network leads - representing their communities across the Trust, championing the voices of the people they represent, and to challenge the Trust with candour and courage.

Supporting Staff Wellbeing and Joy at Work

Winner:

• Ahmed Patel - Recognising his dedication to nurturing staff wellbeing and fostering a positive workplace. He is an exemplary leader who not only guides the team professionally but also prioritizes their mental and physical health, actively promoting a work-life balance. The judges thought Ahned embodied the essence of the Joy at Work through his consistent efforts in promoting staff wellbeing and creating a work environment where happiness and productivity coexist harmoniously.

Finalists:

• Locomotor Staff wellbeing team - who over the years have responded to informal staff feedback & the NHS staff survey results to improve care.
• Alice Kenward - who has almost single-handedly created an annual sports day extravaganza. Since 2015 she has facilitated, judged, harried, fundraised and humorously communicated about the Therapies Sports Day
• GROW Trolley - an initiative to get information about development and wellbeing opportunities out to staff who work in clinical areas, with a focus on nursing and midwifery teams.

Strengthen partnerships

ISS Colleague of the Year

Winner:

• Lydia Ampofo - Lydia upholds Trust policy and is a model for the ISS team to be very proud of. Lydia has been a part of the SCBU team for years and has continued to ensure that unit is always clean and safe. The judges felt Lydia demonstrated huge sensitivity to patients, a model team worker highly respected by her colleagues. She’s an integral part of the team understanding the important role they have, taking the imitative in ensuring the environment is kept to a high standard.

Finalists:

• Olubunmi Lawal - who absolutely epitomises Trust values maintaining a safe environment, being personal to the end, respectful of the team’s work, and taking care and responsibility in her role.
• Martin McKeown - for never ending support of initiatives, allowing teams to deliver great engagement events to staff, which boost morale.

Working Together in Partnership

Winner:

• First Contact Physiotherapy Team - The service demonstrates the power of collaboration across community and primary care providers in a post COVID-19 era, while embracing the challenges of working within a new integrated care system in north- East London. The judges thought the team demonstrated excellent service, well led, impactful and growing with clear value for money, exceeding all criteria for the award.

Finalists:

• Hamza Anwar - for his work on the The Paediatric Physiotherapy Screening Clinic pilot, managing the project with great skill, enthusiasm, leadership and efficiency.
• Green Wheels  - offering guidance, support and time to learning to ride a bike, building confidence and upholding the NHS’s green agenda.

Secure our future

Making Homerton Healthcare a Greener more Sustainable Organisation award

Winner:

• Homerton Facilities - For their outstanding initiatives such as purchasing renewable energy resources, installing LED lighting, improved energy monitoring, a living wall and improved bike storage for staff. The judges thought the team showed how to make the best possible impact in many areas to make the Trust compound greener and reduce carbon emissions.

Finalists:

• Joel Reynolds - for leading on the process of procuring and implementation of 10 ebikes for use by the Adult Community Rehabilitation Team. These ebikes have now been used for over 3,000 miles of community home visits and have saved costly use of public transport, as well as reducing staff travel time.  
• Homerton Green ED QIP team - for producing a traffic light system to reduce unused/wasted cannulas with a relative reduction of 31% in unused/wasted cannulas.

Making the most of Resources and Saving Money award

Winner:

• The NEL ICS Clinical Consumables and Services Workstream - The team have found ways to ensure that they deliver without compromising the core belief of the NHS and what we stand for: Patient outcomes and care. The judges felt the team was committed to the challenge of making the most of resources without compromising quality of product and services. 

Finalists:

• Anish Patel - who oversaw the Patient Admin Review, creating a structure that ensured career progression opportunities and delivering £100k of recurrent savings, whilst improving service quality.
• Automated medicines dispensing, Chief Pharmacist Iola Williams - for ensuring that the Trust continues to deliver the highest standard of care to patients whilst creating an efficient and lean supply chain of medicines.

Fostering innovation, improvement, and learning

Innovation and Improvement Project of the Year

Winner:

• The Paediatric Physiotherapy Screening Clinic - This is a new clinic that embodies ICS agenda and the neighbourhood's initiative. The judges felt the team had a tremendous initiative to form community-based services, helping to reduce waiting times and deliver better patient outcomes.

Finalists:

• Supervision Champions Innovation and Improvement - for their collaboration to create a more sustainable way forward.
• Identification of high-risk foot patients during COVID and beyond - the Foot Risk Form - identifying people who were and are at risk of active foot complications.

Education, Research, or Development Scheme of the Year

Winner:

• Mental capacity simulation course - A joint project with The Homerton Simulation Team and Adult Safeguarding Team, developing a simulation-based session which focused on mental capacity assessments in different situations. The judges thought the team showed how brilliantly they worked together with various departments, and were impressed with how the initiative has gone from strength to strength since its inception.

Finalists:

• Resuscitation Intervention Procedures Simulation – a course developed to provide training in some of the rare, time-critical, life/sight saving procedures that emergency medicine trainees may be required to perform.
• Pre-Registration Nursing: Collaborative Learning in Practice - for creatively implementing strategies that increase capacity expansion for nursing students and improve learning experience.  

Teams of the Year

Clinical Team of the Year

Winner:

• Enhanced Practice in Care Homes team - A small team of occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech and language therapy whose main aim is to support the transition into nursing care by maximising independence and prevent secondary complications. The panel were impressed with how much the team make a difference, improving resident satisfaction and working collaboratively with all staff.

Finalists:

• Edith Cavell ward - for managing complex and often very challenging patients, in the last year they have fully engaged in OD work on the ward to improve team work and the standards of care.  
• Superphysios! - whose team mission statement is to support children, young people and their families to help them realise their potential so they can participate and play in all environments and have fun!

Non-clinical Team of the Year

Winner:

• The Quality and Patient Safety Team  - They have been leading the Trust towards a proactive way of managing patient safety incidents. The judges loved this entry, the focus of their work is to continually improving patient safety, whilst providing personalised and individualised care, demonstrating responsibility to patients and carers even when things don't go as planned

Finalists:

• Information Services - comprising of the Business Intelligence team, Contract Analytics team, Data Quality team and Data warehousing to provide support to operational teams by designing, developing and implementing reports to meet business needs.  
• Logistic Team and Materials Management - for the amazing work in delivering an optimised inventory management practice across Homerton.

CEO Rising Star

This award is given to someone whose outstanding contribution and exceptional achievements have resulted in improved services for patients and clients both within the Trust and beyond.

Throughout their years of service they have delivered, influenced, led and innovated teams and people, both internally and external to the Trust, by fostering a culture of openness, humanity and support.

Winner: Gitty Blum, Labour Ward Matron

Chairman’s Unsung Hero

Winner: Jacqueline McIntosh, Freedom to Speak Up Guardian

^{Paula Griffin accepting the award on behalf of Jacqueline}

Congratulations again to all our winners and nominees!