Congratulations to all our winners at this year’s Star Awards!
October 19, 2023
Throughout this week, we will be celebrating all our award winners from the annual awards.
Today we feature:
Patient Safety Award – Emily Hobbs and Zeena Tudor: Zeena is a District Nursing Team Leader and Emily is a Practice Education Lead in District Nursing. They have led on the national community safer staffing tool rollout within district nursing, devising a plan to roll this out to the entire district nursing workforce and enabled the Trust to be one of the first organisations to introduce this and test the new national standards. This enables our community services to be safer for our patients. The safer staffing tool will tell us how many staff we require on a shift to perform safe care to our patients. This is so pivotal for our patients, ensuring they are seen in a holistic manner and get care delivered by the right staff at the right time. They have led this project with great enthusiasm and have ensured it has been a success.
Patients Choice Award – Ophthalmology Ward: The Ophthalmology Ward team at City Hospital were nominated by the family of a patient. They stated: “On the 31st of May 2023 our husband, dad and grandad presented at eye accident and emergency with what we presumed at the time was an infection. He was seen by one of the surgical team that felt he had an infection, but she wanted to take advice from a senior doctor. The doctor returned with what dad felt was the worst possible news, he needed to be admitted. As soon as we arrived on the ward at around 8pm the team were welcoming and friendly. They explained dad needed eye drops every hour. At this point he was exhausted; he hadn’t slept the previous night at all, but the team did all they could to make him as comfortable as possible. Once he had seen the doctor the next day his plan was to continue on the eye drops every hour. The nursing team were attentive with his medication but also tried to lift his spirts though his exhaustion. Nothing was ever too much for us or dad during his admission and they celebrated the wins when he started to improve and when his drops were reduced allowing him to get a few hours’ sleep. They made his room as dark and comfortable as possible. Dad was discharged home following a six day stay and has continued to receive exceptional care as an outpatient. We are truly thankful for the team on the eye ward for everything they did for dad, and we are quite sure that they saved his vision. We can’t express what this means to us as a family.”
Non-clinical Team of the Year – Chaplaincy Team: Our multi-faith chaplaincy team offer support to patients and colleagues alike and offer guidance equally to those with faith and those without. The team develop and maintain prayer spaces, allowing staff, patients and visitors to seek solace during difficult times after receiving a warm welcome from a member of the chaplaincy team.
Clinical Team of the Year – Cancer Hotline Team: The cancer hotline was established in 2022 to provide Sandwell residents with a dedicated resource they can call if they are concerned about symptoms of cancer. Facing funding and staffing issues, the team worked tirelessly to set up this unique service, working collaboratively with both NHS England and the West Midlands Cancer Alliance. They have seen more than 300 patients since they launched and have referred over a third of those to a two week pathway. The service is taking some pressure off primary care, triaging and returning calls within 48 hours. They provide reassurance to those patients not deemed urgent or who do not need further referral – and for those patients who require further investigation, they refer extremely quickly to the appropriate service without the need for the patient to visit their GP.