Staff and teams from across Lincolnshire’s hospitals have been recognised at a glittering staff awards ceremony. This is the tenth year we have celebrated our Staff Awards, with an event for over 200 staff held at the Lincolnshire Showground.
The full list of awards winners and highly commended entries for the ULHT Staff Awards 2023 are below.
Extra Mile – Clinical Award
Highly commended – Vicki Lloyd
Vicki has been nominated for this award in recognition of a particular event she dealt with; where she looked after and supported the children of a patient during a very difficult incident in the Emergency Department. She has been described as a ‘hero’ for the way in which she gently cared for the children, who were alone and scared, in really difficult circumstances, putting her own feelings to one side to put their needs first.
Winner – Donna Woodward
Donna has an extraordinary commitment to patient care, alongside making remarkable efforts to enhance bonding and a sense of unity for her team, to make them the best that they can be. Donna goes above and beyond to ensure each individual feels heard, understood and cared for. This includes running staff exercise challenges and coordinating many fundraising efforts, which have raised thousands of pounds for breast cancer charities.
Extra Mile – Non-Clinical Award
Highly commended – Peter Quinlan
‘Snowy’ is a wave of sunshine that passes through the hospital and brings a smile to the faces of everyone he meets. He initially came to work at Lincoln County Hospital for just three months, but he is still working and transporting patients around the site 23 years later, at the grand age of 84. Snowy brightens up the day for patients and colleagues and is great at putting a smile on people’s faces during what is often a really worrying and stressful time.
Winner – Andrew Jackson-Parr
Andy is an amazing support to patients, families and colleagues during many challenging situations, including helping colleagues in making difficult decisions, breaking bad news and helping with end of life conversations. Andy provides an outstanding level of care to patients and their families, aiding dignity in death, helping people to grieve and supporting people to find closure in some of the hardest moments of their lives.
Service Improvement, Education and Research Award
Highly commended – Jane Hall
Jane set up an entirely new service for Lincolnshire, supporting patients suffering with potential late-onset side effects of radiotherapy. She comprehensively researched the needs of such a service, acquiring the necessary knowledge to get the service set up quickly and meet the needs of patients. Feedback from patients has been incredible, recognising the way she makes them feel heard, and brings together and supports staff from across numerous teams to make a difference.
Winner – Chest X-ray Reporting Team
This team has been responsible for the development of the Faster Respiratory Diagnosis (FReD) Pathway, which is a way of speeding up the diagnosis and subsequent treatment of potential lung cancers. Team members have taken on additional training and the whole multi-disciplinary team has worked amazingly together to improve patient experience, significantly speed up the process and improve outcomes for people with suspected lung malignancy.
Outstanding Leader Award
Highly commended – Bex Connolly
Bex has always made it clear that her passions are for excellence and wellbeing in her teams, and demonstrates that every day in her leadership of the Resus, Critical Care Outreach Team and Sepsis teams across the Trust. She has brought motivation and excitement into the team, making colleagues feel valued and listened to. She has encouraged improvements including the digitisation of resus trolleys and plans for an external training centre for deteriorating patient training.
Winner – Lindsey Wilkinson
In a short time as interim site lead, Lindsey has shown herself to be a fantastic leader, with a dedication to staff wellbeing and upholding the Trust values. She has introduced positive changes to the department, including peer-to-peer reviews, direct observational practice and a well-structured Band 5 training/journal club timetable. In spite of staffing challenges, she has gone out of her way to make sure the teams feel valued and recognised.
Rising Star Award
Highly commended – Michele Norris
Michele has brought the brightest light to the Dixon Ward family, as she is one of the most positive, happy people you could meet. Michele and her new HCSW colleagues have together helped to transform the culture of Dixon Ward, and embraced the changing role of the Healthcare Support Worker. Michele has welcomed the challenge of completing her apprenticeship and extended roles, and is proactive in ensuring the highest possible standard of care is delivered by all.
Winner – Trish Roberts
Trish has excelled at her role as Student ODP, both academically and professionally in the way that she cares for and interacts with patients in theatres. Her life experiences, coupled with a caring nature and a strong academic knowledge, enables her to provide excellent patient experience. She has also played a proactive role in creating a learning environment for all student colleagues in the department during her time there, going above and beyond to support colleagues.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Champion Award
Highly commended – The PRIDE Staff Network Leadership Circle
The leadership circle has been nominated in recognition of the way they provide inspiration to colleagues at ULHT, creating opportunities for staff that support their unique needs. This has included creating a confidential and safe space to ask the LGBTQ+ community questions, making sure the Progress Pride flag is displayed on all hospital sites, and being assertive and supportive advocates for Trans colleagues when TERF hate stickers were found on our hospital sites.
Winner – The Staff Menopause Clinic
Sally and Sarah, as part of the Women’s Staff Network, have been nominated for their work in setting up a Staff Menopause Clinic. This is the first ever clinic of its kind within the NHS and helps improve the lives of women within the Trust who are going through the menopause. Feedback from colleagues who have used the clinic describe how easy it is to access and how dedicated and passionate the team are in ensuring people receive the correct care.
Team of the Year – Clinical Award
Highly commended – The Bostonian Ward
This ward is continuously working to improve staff morale and retention, at the same time as implementing changes to improve quality within their area for the benefit of patients. Examples include the introduction of shared decision-making councils, fundraising to make enhancements to the ward environment and patient experience, setting up time-out days to improve staff skills, knowledge and experience, and also the introduction of board rounds to improve communication and knowledge.
Winner – The Maternity Patient Safety Team
The team works tirelessly to ensure that women and their families have continually improving outcomes. This growing team has led on multiple innovative improvement projects to ensure that patients’ voices are heard, services improved and staff involved. This has included the introduction of an Induction of Labour Journal for pregnant women to use, and the embedding of NEWTT2 into the neonatal service, to improve the ability to detect neonatal deterioration and instigate prompt action.
Team of the Year Non-Clinical Award
Highly commended – The Lincolnshire Talent Academy
This team has worked incredibly hard over the last year to support the organisation to develop new ways of ‘growing our own’ staff to help address some of the workforce challenges we face as a Trust. The team has worked closely with divisional teams to develop career pathways, supported the personal and professional development of colleagues, and set up and now runs the annual Lincolnshire Careers Event to help attract people to work in the NHS in Lincolnshire.
Winner – ULHT Together Admins
This team is made up of people who work across a wide variety of different roles, sites and parts of our organisation, but who come together as a team day in and day out to deal with seriously challenging, complex and sensitive issues on our closed staff Facebook group. Team members all volunteer for the role, which involves lots of out of hours working and brings with it many challenges, but it is vitally important to supporting staff morale and engagement across the Trust.
Volunteer of the Year Award
Highly commended – Lesley Hart
Lesley has been volunteering in Grantham Emergency Department for over five years, offering support to the reception team in helping with admin tasks, stock levels, and signposting, as well as helping to speed up the booking-in process for patients. She offers exceptional patient care and service, providing information to patients and relatives, and also ensuring patients are comfortable and kept wellinformed about the next steps on their journey.
Winner – Debbie Neale
Debbie is a great asset to the International On-Boarding Support and Clinical Education Teams, providing support with and to the internationally educated nurses (IENS) who are recruited to work at Pilgrim. She arranges meet and greet sessions for the IENs, provides them with pastoral support and plenty of helpful information, as well as practical advice. She is both passionate and compassionate, and goes out of her way to give them a warm and friendly welcome to the Trust.
The Roger Thorley Great Patient Experience Award
Highly commended – Lucy Wonnacott
Lucy is described as a ‘caring, passionate and respectful midwife’ by a family who nominated her for this award following a compassionate induction when their baby was born sleeping. She offered encouragement, a listening ear, sympathy and support to the parents at a difficult time, offering a level of comfort that will never be forgotten. At the same time, she also treated the baby with compassion, dignity and respect, helping to shape the family’s memories of the day.
Winner – Victoria Bell
Victoria is described as an ‘absolute godsend’ by the patient who nominated her for this award. Victoria has made the patient feel human rather than just a cancer patient throughout their treatment journey, as well as understanding the challenges faced by her as a cancer patient who is also a mum of young children. Victoria makes them laugh on the good days and offers unending support on the bad days. She is humble, empathetic, professional and loyal to her patients, and amazing with her team.
Chair’s Compassion and Respect Award
Highly commended – Katarina Vojtekova
Katarina is approachable and friendly and goes the extra mile every day, getting involved in patient and staff management issues. In one case, she intervened in the care of a hospice patient who had a broken hip. In spite of him not being a medical patient, she saw the need and worked with his family to ensure that his medications were correct and that a plan of care was put in place for him to return to the hospice and die with dignity.
Winner – Jessica Harness
Jessica has a real concern and passion for the wellbeing of her patients, and demonstrates what the heart of nursing really is. She frequently goes above and beyond in a patient’s interest. Examples include staying with end of life patients after her shift so they are not alone, and pushing for a senior review when she has a feeling something isn’t right. She is a hub of knowledge, and even during the most stressful shifts answers any query from staff, patients or relatives calmly and with consideration.
Chief Executive’s Award
Winner – Outpatient Appointment Service Team
Andrew Morgan, Chief Executive, said: “Each year, I dedicate this award to an individual or team who I believe has truly shone during the year.
“This year, as we’ve had another challenging year, I had so many options to choose from, but I decided to go for a team that has dealt with many of those challenges head-on.
“As we have been through a number of periods of industrial action in recent months, we have unfortunately had to cancel and rearrange hundreds of patient appointments. In many cases, these patients have already been waiting for many months or even years to be seen, and so breaking the news of a further delay is not an enviable task. I would not want to do it.
“My winners tonight have individually contacted each and every one of these patients, offering supportive and kind words and going out of their way to book new appointments, even when those patients may have been angry, upset or disappointed. So I am delighted to confirm that my CEO Award goes to the Outpatient Appointment Service team.”