The winners of the first inaugural Allied Health Professional Awards at NCIC have been confirmed.
Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) are the third largest clinical workforce in the health and care. The Trust employs over 600 AHPs and nearly 200 AHP support workers, plus a growing number of apprenticeships.
Associate Director of AHPs Dr Sarah Elliott, organised and held a virtual awards ceremony to celebrate the hard work and dedication from all NCIC AHPs. There were over 100 nominations across the 9 categories, which made it difficult for the judging panels to select just a few winners.
Over 50 AHPs were joined by Chair Steven Morgan, Chief Nurse Jill Foster and Director of Communication Steve Park, to find out who had won.
There were 9 category winners including AHP champion, which was handpicked by Jill Foster from all of the nominations:
This award recognises an AHP team or individual who has delivered improvements that benefit population health, wellbeing and address health inequalities
The winner was chosen because they demonstrate passion for making sure children and their families have the best start in life and has worked on numerous service developments spanning a number of partners.
Winner: Zena Cassels, Paediatric Occupational Therapist
This award celebrates our AHPs who have gone the extra mile to deliver high quality care.
The winners are a team comprised of physiotherapists, occupational therapists and assistants who work tirelessly to ensure patients are seen in a timely manner in their own homes. They provide a rapid response service to prevent admission, and liaise with multiple partners including GPs, social care, care agencies and the acute sector.
Winner: Cockermouth and Maryport AHP team
This team is being highly commended for starting a number of groups to support respiratory patients whilst promoting integration with local community providers.
Highly commended: East Community Respiratory Team
This award recognises AHPs who have demonstrated innovation in information and communication technologies which can help support and improve patient care.
The winner of this award has recently secured a place on a national digital care leadership programme for aspiring health care professions. They are also undertaking a project to develop an app to improve the pathway for patients with foot ulcers aligned with national guidelines and being a forerunner in the use of the health IO wound care app.
Winner: Ellie Walker, team lead for Podiatry
This award recognises the contributions made by AHPs to service improvement, research or audit.
Over the past year, this individual has led her team through a Team Engagement and Development Process as the team highlighted that they found it hard to focus on quality improvement and were feeling frustrated as they did not have the time for professional and service development.
Winner: Nicola Martin, clinical lead occupational therapist
The highly commended award for leading improvement is awarded to a team who has responded by working differently to improve efficiency, reduce patient waits and to support staff personally and professionally. This has included changes to triage, reviewing DNA rates with several patient groups now being offered an opt in appointment and signposting to other resources to promote self-management. This has reduced waiting times by six weeks for out- patients and there is better utilisation of clinical time in the acute hospital by a reduction in the number of unrequired patient assessments.
Highly commended: Dietetic Team
This award recognises AHPs who use quality standards to improve the quality of care we give to our service users.
This individual was an integral member of a task and finish group created to roll out a standard version of the Care if the Dying Patient document across all in patient units in the Acute and Community Hospitals.
They brought an energy, professional enthusiasm and a community care home perspective to the group which ensured opportunity to standardise equity for those people who reside in a community setting and went above and beyond on the roll out day to participate in the ward based education in the purpose of the document.
Winner: Nichola Todd, Speech and Language Therapist
This award is for those who celebrate diversity, promote equality and belonging, and are at the front of shaping our inclusive culture at NCIC
This is awarded to one of the AHP administration coordinators who is passionate about inclusion and acts as the lead for education on this topic with her team. She uses her own initiative to find out information and subsequently shares this with the team such as the Oliver MCGowan case. She has also contacted outside agencies to provide resources such as McMillan cancer at work. Additionally, this individual has been supporting a team member who has a child newly diagnosed with autism – this has been extremely challenging for the individual and as her direct line manager has been extremely supportive with flexible working so the staff member can support their child.
Winner: Rachel Barber, Diabetic foot/podiatry coordinator
This award is for AHPs who are actively contributing to delivering our goal of net zero
This team work closely with local and national charities to support the repurposing of prosthetic componentry and reduce waste going to landfill. STAND ( formally Legs4Africa) is a charity supporting limb provision in sub- Saharan Africa is one such beneficiary who regularly receives donations from the team. This team is proud to be green and is always looking for opportunities to reduced their environmental impact.
Winner: Prosthetics Team
This award recognises those who support the development of our learners to transform our workforce.
The winner of this award received numerous nominations from their team highlighting their passion and enthusiasm for supporting students and colleagues, she is recognised for being a highly motivational individual who excels in her role as a mentor, helping in all areas of training our future workforce and often goes the extra mile to produce extra resources for students. She is approachable and enhances the learners experience through her great attitude.
Winner: Jayme McHard, radiographer
This highly commended award goes to a physiotherapist whose willingly shares his knowledge and skills with his team, recognises the importance of personal development and helps his service grow as individuals and as a team by utilising research and evidence to drive forwards.
Highly commended: Iain Quinn, Advanced MSK Practitioner, Clinical Lead East
This award recognises an AHP who demonstrates dedication and passion to promoting AHPs at NCIC.
This individual is passionate about teaching and regularly provides teaching sessions, both informal and formal, and welcomes students of all professions to shadow clinics and how they can influence patient care from their own professional perspective. She goes out of her way to provide learning opportunities for trainee doctors to equip them with essential knowledge and skills as they commence their Ophthalmology rotation
She has recently delivered a training session for the school age screeners, to ensure their knowledge and skills remain up to date. Additionally, she has provided teaching opportunities for AHPs from the ward based stroke team to enhance their knowledge of stroke related visual problems and supported a NENC system wide webinar showcasing the profession.
Winner: Naomi Corbin, orthoptist
Dr Elliott said: “Well done to, not only the winners, but those who were nominated and the wider AHP team who are vital to providing great patient care.”