Saturday 1st December saw over 200 of the very best in social care attended a glittering awards ceremony at The Hilton Hotel, Gateshead for the finals of the Great North East Care Awards, where the category winners were announced.

The Great North East Care Awards are part of the Great British Care Awards, a series of 9 regional awards celebrating excellence across the care sector.  The purpose of the awards is to promote best practice within both home care and care homes sectors, and pay tribute to those individuals who have demonstrated outstanding excellence within their field of work.

Sponsored by Access Health and Social Care, sector support also includes Care England, The Department of Health, The National Care Forum, The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) and the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group (VODG), as well as local authorities and other commercial organisations.

There are a range of categories available for nomination, which represent all areas of the care sector; whether it be older people or specialist services and from frontline staff such as care workers and care managers to people who have made an impact in other ways such as training.

Winners of the Great North East Care Awards will go through to the final at Birmingham’s ICC on 8th March 2019.

The winners of the Great British North East Care Awards, together with the judge’s comments are detailed below:

 

The Care Employer Award

Mark Brodie – CIC

At the forefront of change CIC are committed to provide support to employees and the local community. Investing an amazing 3.3 million pounds to bring its employees a well being fund, life insurance, long service awards and increasing pay for under 25’s. Mark feels that people ‘want to be valued’ and is committed to investing into his employees and helping them further their career and build skills and knowledge of the sector. Investing into the power of three; (1) colleagues, (2) customers and (3) communities, CIC are giving back and plan to continue to do so over the next five years, with a 10 million pound investment strategy.

The Care Home Worker Award

Norma Jewitt – Pathways Care Group

Norma likes to leave her residents feeling happier when providing support. She never assumes she knows what people want she finds out by talking to them or their family members. She encourages response from her ‘vintage afternoon teas’ or her singing for the brain sessions especially for people living with dementia.

The Home Care Worker Award

Leianne Waddell – Bluebird Care South Tyneside

Leianne is clearly a devoted and passionate carer. She is willing to go above and beyond to care for her client with not only safeguarding her but promoting independence, dignity and respect. Lianne was nominated for her deep understanding and superb relationship with her service user, in which she actually paid for her to go on holiday with two carers so she could carry out something she wished to do. Well done Leianne!

The Care Home Newcomer Award

Jack Brown – Sanctuary Care

Jack moved areas to work in the care sector and find a job that was fulfilling. He took his experience of coaching fitness to improve the lives of people living in residential care. He now heads a team of 3 activity workers. The job is more important than the money.

The Home Care Newcomer Award

Angie Starsmore – Camphill Village Trust

A dedicated, person centred care professional who puts her service users at the heart of everything she does, often going the extra mile.

The Care Home Registered Manager Award

Karleen Taylor-Williams – Crown Care

The judges quickly identified Kaleen’s strong ability to empower and engage her team, taking a requires improvement rating in three months to good overall. Kathleen exuded dignity and respect for her residents and staff.

The Home Care Registered Manager Award

David Grayson – Pathways Care Group

David has taken his service, which supports service users with severe emotional and behavioural difficulties from inadequate 6 years ago to outstanding. His passion and inspirational leadership was illustrated through examples of children’s success stories accessing education and achieving GCSEs after years of exclusion from education.

The Care Home Cook/Chef Award

Eric McLoed – Pathways Care Group

Eric clearly articulates an inclusive and imaginative approach to his catering. An experienced chef, he has been responsive to residents needs, bringing more to the table than just food by encouraging, stimulating and enticing residents to be involved in their dining experience.

 The Dementia Carer Award

Scott Gilchrist – Advinia Health Care

Scott is a young man who wants to be able to influence decision makers for people living with dementia. He feels its vital to know a persons back story to enable him to truly provide person centred care. He gains satisfaction when he sees a residents face lighten.

The Care Home Team Award

Kingsway Team – Advinia Health Care

They provide a unique approach to providing excellent care for a very diverse range of residents with challenging behaviour – often residents refused care by other providers. Believing that everyone is an individual whether a resident or an employee and looking after each other in the team.

The Home Care Team Award

West Lodge, CIC

A fantastic team who support one another to provide person centred, outcome focussed care.  Inspirational care professionals!

The Care Home Activities Organiser Award

Carolyn Harrison – Thornley Leazes Care

Carolyn is a very passionate, dedicated care manager and activities coordinator. She not only manages a domiciliary care service but runs activities in a residential service and brings the two together. Through fundraising and their own second hand shop, Carolyn and her dedicated staff provide a whole community with events to attend and even an annual holiday. Carolyn and her team should be proud of the range of care and activites they provide to their clients and a community as a whole.

The Ancillary Worker Award

Christopher Sogorski – Hillcare Ltd

Christopher is very passionate about his roles. He likes to make a difference to the residents lives and feels it is very important to ensure residents feel at home. Christopher said its important to interact with residents and everyone is an individual. The residents assist him with jobs and often teach him how to use old tools as they used to use and keep him right. He loves this and said it makes him smile

The Care Trainer Award

Rebecca O’Keefe – Bluebird Care

With a background in health and social care, Rebecca understands she must get to know her staff to support them to develop. She trains alongside staff and will meet them for a coffee if they are struggling with their diploma. Rebecca has created a skills wheel to really measure performance of which the staff team evaluate their own learning and development. Rebecca goes above and beyond for her staff team and is passionate about quality care.

The Care Home Frontline Leaders Award

Daniel James – Lifeways

A committed care professional dedicated to providing person centred support, leading by example and motivating his team.

The Home Care Frontline Leaders Award

Paula Marshall – Gateshead Council

The winner of frontline leader is passionate about supporting both staff and the people who use the service to fulfil their true potential. Her enthusiasm is infectious and she leads by example. An inspirational force, driving forward the ambitions of staff and service users to achieve positive change.

The Putting People First/Personalisation Award

Blaydon Resource – Gateshead Council

Choice and control over decisions which affect your life are a fundamental human right. The winner of this category really does put people first empowering people accessing their service to engage with activities, promoting positive risk taking and delivering a very personalised service which supports the person to remain independent as possible.

The Good Nurse Award

Karen James – Popular Care

Karen is passionate about improving the quality of peoples lives and supporting people to regard themselves as part of a big family rather than people needing care.

The Outstanding Contribution to Social Care Award

Margaret Mandal – Director – Care at Home Wearside

In the words of the team that nominated her:

“We would like to nominate the owner of our company for this award due to the longevity of her service and her ability to adapt to the ongoing changes within social care.  Margaret has provided quality care to the people of Sunderland for more than 25 years.

The daughter of a racehorse trainer Margaret has witnessed many changes during her time with Care at Home including the introduction of technology and remains involved in the daily running of the services, dedicated to delivering a person centred approach to service users through her highly trained and motivated workforce.”

 

For more information on The Great British Care Awards please visit our web site at www.care-awards.co.uk

Lets celebrate social care and help it get the recognition it deserves