Dorset's healthcare heroes are honoured at awards ceremony

Outstanding staff and volunteers who go the extra mile to help patients have been honoured at a local healthcare ‘Oscars’ event.

The Dorset HealthCare 2016 Heroes Awards celebrated the efforts of workers in services and locations across the county, who have made a real difference over the past year.

Held this year at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, the event showcased hard work carried out by staff throughout the Trust, which provides a range of community and inpatient physical and mental health services.

The 2016 award winners were:

• Being a Learning Organisation – the Dysphagia Awareness Training Team, based in Dorchester. The team has delivered training to more than 2,000 NHS, social care and private sector health workers over the past ten years to help improve care of people with swallowing disorders.
• Compassion and Kindness – Tracy Hardy, Housekeeping Assistant at Wareham Hospital. Tracy regularly performs unprompted, heart-warming acts of kindness and generosity for patients, showing real compassion for people in need.
• Improving Lives – James Tyson, Staff Nurse at St Ann’s Hospital in Poole. James led efforts to raise more than £1,000 to help a terminally ill service user whose flat was burgled while in hospital.
• Everyone Counts ­­– the Assertive Outreach Team, based in Weymouth and Portland. The team works with people who have very complex mental health needs, who can become marginalised and isolated from society. They show patience, sensitivity and tenacity in finding ways to help these people on the road to recovery.
• Working Together for Patients – the IT and SystmOne Team. The team provided incredible support for the establishment of the new Weymouth and Portland Urgent Care Centre in July, ensuring IT equipment and telephone systems were ready from day one.
• Commitment to Quality of Care – Rachel Sadler, Community Mental Health Nurse at Fairmile House in Christchurch. Unprompted, Rachel helped bring about changes to ensure her team could cope with heavy demand and see referred patients within four weeks.
• Bank Work – Mairead Bailey, HealthCare Assistant at Bridport Hospital. Mairead regularly helps out with last-minute cover on the wards (even on Christmas Eve), is always cheerful and has a fantastic way with patients.
• Volunteering – Bronwell Cattell, at Melcombe Day Hospital in Weymouth, and Keith Fursman at Bridport Community Hospital. Bronwen helps out two days a week, organising lunches and encouraging patient involvement, and is positive, enthusiastic and energetic. Keith gives up his time to look after the hospital’s flower beds and, over the years, has raised more than £3,000 to help plant the outside spaces with flowers.
• Leadership and Management – Samantha Rotheram, Team Leader with the Bournemouth East Community Mental Health Team. Showing real leadership, Sam has helped to develop a high-functioning team, undertaking supervision on a regular basis to ensure all patients receive the best care.
• Team of the Year – Health and Social Care Co-ordinators, Weymouth and Portland. The team has been at the heart of developments to deliver care closer to people’s homes, showing innovation, enthusiasm and openness to discussion about how services should work.
• Outstanding Contribution – Zach Bayliss, Community Mental Health Nurse, Bournemouth. Zach has worked with homeless people who are vulnerable to violence and exploitation. He has strived to find safe sleeping spaces, or at the very least good sleeping bags and access to food, for these clients and spends many hours checking on their welfare

Ann Abraham, Chair of Dorset HealthCare, said: “It was a real privilege to hear stories of staff who have gone above and beyond what is expected of them, to make sure people around Dorset receive the care or treatment they need.

“Everyone who was nominated deserves recognition. Staff at Dorset HealthCare work tremendously hard every day to help people in all sorts of situations. I wish we could give everyone an award.”

The awards followed Dorset HealthCare’s Annual Members’ Meeting, where Trust governors, members, staff and other guests gathered to hear about the Trust’s work during 2015/16, and its plans to develop and improve services over the next 12 months.

The day also featured a special ‘thank-you’ lunch for some of the many volunteers around Dorset who provide tireless support for the Trust. There was also a ‘Dragons’ Den’ event, where staff pitched ideas to help enhance services for patients.

An award of £2,000 was made to the ‘Space for Growth’ project to create a garden growing area in the grounds of St Ann’s Hospital in Poole, to help improve the wellbeing of patients, volunteers, staff and visitors. The panel of ‘dragons’ also pledged that the other three ideas would all receive development support to bring them to fruition. These were: a project to support patients’ transition from CAMHS to adult mental health services; a loneliness reduction and resilience programme, and a plan to improve dental health among young children, initially targeting Portland.