Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust rolled out the red carpet on the evening of Friday 7 July to welcome guests to the Mercure Bradford, Bankfield Hotel and reveal the winners of the five award categories in its annual You’re A Star Awards.
Dedicated staff and volunteers from across the district were recognised during the Oscars style ceremony across five award categories based on the Trust’s aims of delivering: Quality, Working Together, You and Your Care, Value for Money and Patient Experience.
The You’re A Star Awards showcase the very best examples of outstanding care across Bradford, Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven. Now in their thirteenth year, the awards are the highlight of the Trust’s calendar.
Nominations came from colleagues across the Trust and many were among the guests in attendance at the ceremony.
The event’s main supporter, Bradford-based Sovereign Healthcare, provided £1,000 to the winner of each category to support their ongoing work to benefit patients.
Short films highlighting nominee achievements were screened as part of the ceremony to showcase the work and quality of care delivered by Trust staff and volunteers over the past 12 months. Some included heartfelt testimonials from patients and carers.
Chair of Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust, Mike Smith, paid tribute to a wide range of healthcare professionals and volunteers across the Trust which included community health, mental health, children’s voluntary and central services.
Mike Smith said: “Our annual awards recognise that there are many remarkable people working within the Care Trust as staff and volunteers. Each year we see fantastic examples of service and dedication and I am proud to be involved in the ceremony to celebrate everyone’s achievements and to recognise they have gone the extra mile to provide exceptional service and make a positive difference to the health and wellbeing of people across the district.” Mike also extended his thanks on behalf of the Trust’s Board to Sovereign Health Care and all other organisations that have made this event possible, both during the year and on the night, and congratulated and thanked all nominees for their hard work and dedication.
The winner of the You and Your Care Award Category went to Christine Cunliffe, a committed assistant clinical practitioner who has been making a real difference to the patients she cares for by consistently delivering outstanding care for over 30 years, with her passion for staff wellbeing.
Despite Christine saying she is only ‘doing her job’ she has been key in the Heather Ward, at Airedale Centre for Mental Health, engaging with a number of national initiatives, including the ward being the first across the region to receive national accreditation by the Yorkshire and Humber ANSN* Improvement Academy for the quality of its safety huddles.
These safety huddles see staff ‘huddle’ twice daily so they can identify any ways they can better support people on the ward in the day ahead and keep people safe. These have now been rolled out across numerous services in the organisation.
Commenting on winning the award, Christine said: “I was delighted to have been nominated, but to win – I’m absolutely thrilled, especially when retirement for me is in the not too distant future. What a lovely way to go out.”
The winner of the Patient Experience Award Category went to Nick Smith, a Trust Governor with lived experience of mental health crisis, who is extremely committed to supporting vulnerable people that have suffered emotionally or experienced a mental health crisis.
Commenting on how it felt to have won, Nick Smith, with a smile on his face, said: “I’m chuffed to bits; it’s fantastic to be acknowledged in this way – it’s fandabbydosey!”
The winner of the Quality Award Category went to Andrew Birkenshaw, a health facilitation nurse and Jodee Simpson, a speech and language therapist at the Care Trust’s Waddiloves Health Centre, that regularly think outside of the box to find creative ways to support people with learning disabilities, to have their health needs met.
Andrew and Jodee worked with Noel, a 49 year old man with learning disabilities, autism and epilepsy, to help him overcome his fears of surgery, to enable him to have a lifesaving operation to remove a tumour after he was diagnosed with cancer.
The work to prepare Noel to overcome his anxiety was successful and led to Noel having the lifesaving surgery that he so desperately needed. Noel is now enjoying spending time with his sister and family, and going out to do his photography – which are the main loves in his life.
Andrew, speaking collectively on behalf of the winning duo, said: “We are delighted to have won the award and to be recognised for the work that we do – it is absolutely amazing.”
The winner of the Value for Money Award Category went to the children’s services leadership team who brought together service leads from different teams and departments across the Trust to successfully redesign children’s services across the district.
Cliff Springthorpe, Business Support and Improvement Lead, speaking on behalf of the team, said: “I feel incredibly proud of the service; people have worked extremely hard to completely redesign how we better manage staffing and cases, and continue to provide a high quality service to the families of Bradford, Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven, more efficiently.”
The winner of the Working Together Award Category went to Young Dynamos, a young people’s research advisory group within the Trust that has been helping to shape and influence services for young people.
Giving their time freely, the group of under 19s, contribute their thoughts and ideas to research projects with commitment and good humour, co-producing research and providing advice from a young person’s perspective to researchers across the Yorkshire and Humber region. The group has been instrumental in ensuring researchers are able to offer services that meet the needs of young people to improve the quality of services received.
Young Dynamo, Kirsty, speaking on behalf of the group, said: “We’re so pleased to have won this award because it’s really nice to know that the work that we’ve been doing has been recognised and that people appreciate the help and advice we’ve been giving.”
Take a look at videos of the winners work here…
Take a look at videos of the finalists work here…