It’s official – we’re a great place to work! @CombinedNHS

There was plenty to celebrate as North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust teams scooped a string of awards.

The Trust’s Finance team won the Great Place to Work Award at the Healthcare Finance Management Association (HFMA) West Midlands Branch Awards on 23 June. The award recognises the team that best demonstrates a culture and development programme that enables individuals to perform at their very best. This follows on from their success at the national 2017 HFMA Awards where they won the Costing Award.

Combined enjoyed further success on the same night at the Healthcare People Management Association (HPMA) 2017 Awards. The Leading with Compassion scheme, where staff, patients and carers can nominate someone who they believe has demonstrated compassion won the Academi Wales Award for Excellence in Organisational Development. The scheme was launched at Combined and has been rolled out across 11 NHS organisations in the region. To date, more than 450 Trust staff have been recognised in this way and received a personalised badge and card.

You can make a Leading with Compassion nomination via its website at www.nhscompassion.org/nscht/. To find out more about the scheme, you can view this video, while this video chronicles the journey so far.

In addition, our Feel Good Friday health and wellbeing initiative was a runner-up in the Social Partnership Forum Award for partnership working between employers and trade unions. Feel Good Friday was set up in October 2016 to enable staff to receive information and advice on a range of things aimed at enhancing health and wellbeing. As well as getting cholesterol checks, for instance, attendees can also speak to our Staff Support and Counselling Service, staff side union reps and the diversity and inclusion team.