Celebrating NHS heroes at the BHT Annual Awards
Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust held its BHT Annual Awards at the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre on 3 October to celebrate some of the exceptional people working or volunteering at the Trust. All colleagues, whatever their role, are encouraged and expected to lead by example living by the Trust’s CARE values of Collaborate, Aspire, Respect and Enable.
There were eleven awards in three categories from outstanding leadership to kindness to a people’s award. They were presented by members of the Trust board and senior leaders, while the event was also live-streamed to enable as many people as possible to cheer on and support their colleagues, friends and family.
Spotlight on the Winners
Outstanding Leadership Award: Fiona Barry, Head of Service for CYP Therapies
Fiona Barry successfully led the Childrens and Young People Therapies service through a retendering process, collaborating with stakeholders and other colleagues, and keeping the entire team engaged in the process. She puts staff feedback and wellbeing at the centre of her leadership style. Her commitment to learning from feedback and active listening drives ongoing quality improvement, fostering an environment of excellence and innovation that benefits patients and colleagues alike. By securing a place at crucial decision-making tables, Fiona ensured the service had a strong voice, increasing its visibility and enhancing the quality of care offered to patients and making the service more accessible.
As one team member said, “In a busy world she demonstrates respectful and compassionate leadership, and enables all her staff to go forth and provide outstanding care in our community.”
Staff Engagement Award, Most Improved Teams: Acute Medical Unit
After a challenging year in 2022 this team showed incredible resilience and a genuine desire to understand how they could better support each other.
As the Trust’s Chief People Officer Bridget O’Kelly said: “They were clear winners. I don’t think we’ve ever seen such a significant improvement to a team’s staff engagement score before, certainly in the timeframe of a year.”
Learning and Education Award: Jamie Sewell, Specialist Clinical Practice Educator, Radiology
Radiography is a small profession, and recruiting both students and qualified radiographers can be difficult. Since Jamie’s appointment, the department has seen a steady rise in radiography locally, with more students choosing the Trust as their placement hospital, which has led to a positive impact on recruitment.
Jamie worked with Bucks New Uni to develop the post-graduate MSc Radiographer programme, which enables BSc-qualified people with degrees outside of radiography to re-train as a radiographers. This resulted in more staff choosing to remain at the Trust and gain further training. By leading the apprenticeship scheme, which is now so popular it has a waiting list, Jamie has also ensured there are career progression opportunities for non-qualified staff at the Trust to gain their radiography degrees.
Jamie understands the importance of inspiring the next generation to develop the Trust’s local talent pipeline. By going to schools and educational events, such as the Bucks Skills Show, Jamie has put Radiology on the map as far as a career opportunity for school leavers. He even facilitated a school visit to the department to experience radiography first-hand and virtually ‘accompanies’ the Schools Engagement team on outreach activities though his popular careers chat video: https://youtu.be/MKCc78aV2Aw
Kindness Award: Ann Kenny, Bereavement Listening Lead, Florence Nightingale Hospice
Ann consistently puts patients, volunteers and colleagues at the heart of everything she does. She supports a huge team of volunteers, often moving her own work schedule to meet their needs. She always strives to give patients and their families in the hospice as much time as possible. Ann also started a peer support program to benefit all staff on the unit.
Over the past year or so, she has grown an incredible bereavement listening service, training volunteers and nurturing their skills. She continues to impart invaluable knowledge and skills to bereavement volunteers, listeners and trainee counsellors, who in turn are the best they can be with the service users they support.
Volunteer of the Year: George Francis, Volunteer Gardener, Community Head Injury Service
George has primary progressive MS and had a stroke which damaged his ability to communicate. He is currently a patient of the Community Head Injury Service (CHIS) under the vocational team, who is supporting him with finding employment. Misconceptions around his capabilities have prevented this so far but he has happily given his time to volunteering, transforming the gardens at Brookside Clinic in Aylesbury.
He is responsible for a number of projects with a focus on maintaining the grounds and growing new produce. He single-handedly built a greenhouse from scratch, as well as raised garden boxes for growing fruit and vegetables, with the produce available for any member of staff to use. George arrives at Brookside in all weathers and genuinely appreciates the opportunity he has been given to put his skill and talent as a gardener to use.
Outstanding Non-Clinical Service Award: Rhea Kankate, Equality Diversity and Inclusion Manager, Corporate
Rhea won this award for her exceptional dedication and outstanding performance to promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion within the Trust.
Her contribution to promoting inclusivity benefits both patients and staff and contributes to a more equitable and effective healthcare system and workplace.
Outstanding Acute Care Award: Hip Fracture Team, Part of National Hip Fracture Database
The National Hip Fracture Database (NHFD) 2023 Annual Report demonstrates that Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust performs significantly better than the national average in several areas relating to hip fracture care, including the prevention of delirium, discharging patients to their own homes top quartile), surgical procedure and anaesthetic management (top quartile), day one post-op physio assessment (top quartile), bone protection, and mortality.
The team has achieved this by using the database to produce a score card of key metrics which they review every six weeks at a multi-disciplinary team meeting. The team ranges from, among others, hip-fracture practitioners, orthopaedic consultants, junior doctors, trauma leads and coordinators, nurses, anaesthetists, ward clerks, discharge coordinators, community teams, pharmacists and dieticians. By working together across disciplines, using the information provided from the database and the hip score card, the team are more engaged and proactive in improving patient care together every day.
Outstanding Community Care Award: Vicky Perkins, Deputy Director Community and Rehabilitation
Vicky’s determination and passion has ensured the right services are delivered at the right location to benefit residents from more deprived areas of Buckinghamshire who might otherwise struggle to access healthcare services.
Through her and her teams hard work Unit 33 opened on the 26 September 2023 as the first health on the high street outlet in Buckinghamshire. It is located within the heart of Aylesbury at Friars Square shopping centre. Unit 33 offers a range of services including blood pressure testing, health visiting services, NHS Health Checks, sexual health services, veteran support, and immunisation. It supports local residents, in one of the most deprived areas of the Buckinghamshire, to take control of their health and wellbeing by offering proactive support and advice, in a convenient location with excellent public transport links.
Since opening, 14,000 people have accessed the unit and hundreds of people have had their blood pressure checked or a mini health check (which includes blood pressure, BMI, mental health assessment, alcohol intake and smoking status). People were able to receive advice on healthy lifestyle behaviours and directed to the right support as required. Public feedback has been extremely positive with a 4.87 star rating out of 5 and people reporting changes in their lifestyle including weight loss, increase in physical activity and improvement in mental health.
A colleague said, “Vicky is a true advocate for the patient, looking at everything we do and the services we deliver from their perspective.”
Improvement Award: BHT Lipid Optimisation Team, Corporate
The Lipid Optimisation Programme is a collaborative working project, conducted in partnership with Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK, to tackle high cholesterol in Buckinghamshire – one of the biggest causes of cardiovascular disease (CVD), such as heart attacks and strokes, by using an innovative population health tool to identify CVD patients that need to better manage their cholesterol levels. People in the most deprived areas of England are almost 4 times more likely to die prematurely from CVD, compared with those in the least deprived areas.
Prioritising suitable patients from the most deprived areas of Buckinghamshire, the programme has been able to offer additional medications to treat their high cholesterol. Over 1,100 patients have now been contacted and reviewed by expert clinicians from the Trust in the first 6 months of the programme, with over 62% of patients starting new medications or having their dosage increased.
Dr Mark Johnson, Associate Medical Director for Clinical Productivity & Transformation: “A raised cholesterol is one of the most common causes of cardiovascular diseases and a key driver of health inequalities in the UK. Cardiovascular diseases are responsible for a quarter of the 6.5-year gap in life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas of Buckinghamshire. Our programme has provided all patients across Buckinghamshire with access to a greater range of NICE-approved lipid lowering medications, which will reduce their risk of having a further heart attack or stroke and ultimately save lives.”
Lifetime Contribution Award: Dr Helen Pegrum, Consultant, Florence Nightingale Hospice
Dr Helen Pegrum is an exceptional palliative medicine consultant who has made an outstanding contribution to patient care and palliative care services in the Trust for over 25 years. Helen has been an inspirational lead consultant in palliative medicine. Alongside her compassionate clinical leadership, she has been instrumental in developing the Trust’s pioneering medical examiner service. As lead medical examiner she is currently growing the service. Helen has been devoted to medical education throughout her career and is the training programme director for foundation doctors. Her mentoring and support extend even further through her roles as clinical and educational supervisor to foundation doctors and regional palliative medicine trainees. She has been recognised nationally with the medical examiner team and regionally for her contribution and dedication to training.
Helen is an exemplar palliative care leader, inspiring and supportive educator and innovator. Whilst her focus is always patient care, she maintains a drive to develop services and to support and enable those delivering high quality of care both locally and regionally.
People’s Award for Personal and Compassionate Care: Ward 3 Nurses and Danni Gupta Consultant Midwife
Danni and the nursing staff on ward 3 were nominated by one very grateful couple. The team supported Katie, who suffers from Tokophobia – the extreme fear of childbirth – through the birth of her son, Spencer, as well as a prolonged hospital stay after the birth.
Katie’s partner said: “The care Danni demonstrated was outstanding… without [her] I honestly can’t imagine how we would have gotten through the pregnancy… She’s someone who leads from the front and inspires others to follow in her footsteps. She’s fierce and fearless while being soft and compassionate! She enabled Katie … to deliver Spencer panic-free and wake up as the most incredible mum in the world. She enabled us to create a family!”