Thursday 24th November saw over 300 of the very best in social care attended a glittering awards ceremony at The ICC, Birmingham, for the finals of the Great West Midlands Care Awards, where the category winners were announced.
The Great West Midlands Care Awards, sponsored by Wells Pharmacy brought together the category finalists from across the West Midlands region.
Shiraz Khan,General Manager of Well Careplus, said: “The Great British care awards are a fantastic organisation, dedicated to raising the profile of the Care Sector and the amazing individuals that champion what the care sector strives to achieve. We are delighted to sponsor the Great British care awards, to help recognise these modern day heroes, that would otherwise go unsung.”
The 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.
Sector support includes Care England, The Department of Health, Alzheimer’s Society, The National Care Forum and The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) as well as local authorities and commercial organisations.
There are total of twenty one award 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, and specialist care in areas such as dementia and innovation.
Winners of the Great West Midlands Care Awards will go through to the final at Birmingham’s ICC which takes place on 31st March 2017
The winners of the Great British West Midlands Care Awards, together with the judge’s comments are detailed below:
The winners of the Great British West Midlands Care Awards, together with the judge’s comments are detailed below:
The Care Employer Award
Embec Care Ltd
A real passion for delivering outstanind care in the community. Through investing in its staff. Embec ensure client needs are always met with a personal touch.
The Care Home Worker Award
Joel Ramsay Anchor
Joel is the ultimate professional. He is exceptionally thoughtful and proactive with his clients, reflecting on each shift to improve continually the level of care he delivers.
The Home Care Worker Award
Sharon Cooper Knaves Court Housingandcare21
Sharon has been in care for 33 years and continues to remain as passionate about service delivery as on day one. She supports her colleagues and families and constantly goes the extra mile to make a difference.
The Care Newcomer Award
Chris Smith Direct Health
Coming over from the US, Christopher has only worked in the sector since April. He has made a massive impact in a short space of time, is dedicated and passionate and will undoubtedly go far in his field.
The Care Home Registered Manager Award
Sharon Childs – Herefordshire Care Homes
Sharon leads a successful and growing home with energy and commitments. She is always available for staff and residents. She sees her main role as enabling her residents to continue to live their lives.
The Home Care Registered Manager Award
Deborah Wright Housingandcare21
Her enthusiasm and passion shone through. She is a fabulous leader, manager and mentor to her care team. As a result client’s receive top class care.
The Care Home Cook/Chef Award
Lorraine Ashby Anchor
Lorraine demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the importance of good nutrition. She is passionate about involving people in planning their menus and meets with her team to ensure nutritional needs are being met.
The Home Care Co-ordinator Award
Hollie Lloyd Coventry Extra Care
Such an enthusiastic candidate, demonstrates her passion and commitments to her role. Particularly impressive was the apps she has been involved in developing to personalise the care plans on ‘needs’ and ‘wants’ of the service user.
The Dignity in Care Award
Errol Dias Solitaire Home Care Services Ltd
Errol naturally ensures dignity and respect for his clients is uppermost in his mind. He has devoted his career to supporting venerable adults and was a real star candidate.
The Dementia Carer Award
Kelly Hayden Godiva Lodge
Kelly works nightshifts and loves it. She is a natural carer, endlessly patient and totally focussed on her residents. She makes an enormous difference.
The Care Team Award
Learning Disability Team Direct Health
Very deserving winners in an extremely competitive category. The collaboration and bond between the team came across very strongly through their work in their highly demanding roles. Well Done!!
The Care Home Activities Co-ordinator Award
Rita Graham – Heritage Manor
Passionate and with infectious enthusiasm Rita uses a highly innovative and person centred approach to deliver a meaningful activities programme which engages with residents, staff and the community.
The Ancillary Worker Award
Sue Hillstead Herefordshire Care Homes – Coldwells House
Susan has a positive attitude to mirror her huger personality. Commitment is such that there is no end to what she does. Susan not only cares about the best environment and how she can create the but also giving the best experience to anyone she interacts with.
The Care Trainer Award
Amy Jones, Natasha Masefield, Lisa Bennett Solitaire Home Care
Amy, Natasha and Lisa demonstrated a real passion and understanding of the impact great training has on care delivery. They are a skilled, passionate, energetic team.
The Care Innovator Award
Nicola Thompson Herefordshire Care Homes
Nicola leads a person centred activities programme across the Herefordshire Care Homes Group. This innovative initiative empowers residents by overcoming barriers through bespoke, outcome focussed activities. By working with third party sector and community groups Nicola has enabled a 24 hour activities culture.
The Frontline Leaders Award
Jenna Hughes The Sycamores Nursing Home (part of Holmes Care Group)
Jenna was not only positive and enthusiastic but also demonstrated strong leadership in leading by example and implementing positive changes outcome based.
The Putting People First/Personalisation Award
Yetunde Esan Carewatch Care Services
All the candidates showed truly impressive credentials in this category and the results were very close. Yetunde impressed us with her deep insight into the importance of giving her service users a voice in their care. A client is more than a care plan, she says and it was plain that underlying all her many wonderful ideas is the notion that she is only happy when she sees clients getting what she herself would want for her own family.
The Palliative Care/End of Life Award
Mayesha Ibrahim – Choices Care
Along with enthusiasm and supporting everyone Mayesha is an inspiration to all. Well done Mayesha!
The Care Assessor/Care Planner Award
Laura Brown Direct Health
Laura is a full time assessor who passionately demonstrated a thorough understanding of the importance that person centred care planning, and assessment has when delivering a quality care service.
The Outstanding Contribution to Social Care Award
Jonathan Vellacott
Jonathan has been Chief Executive of Direct Health since acquiring the company in 2003.
Under Jonathans leadership the company has grown organically and through selective acquisitions to become one of the leading domiciliary care providers in the UK employing over 2,500 staff at 18 branches across the
Midlands and North of the country. Delivering over 50,000 hours of care per week and providing services to over 6,500 elderly and vulnerable people.
Jonathan was one of the first industry leaders to support work of the Care Workers Charity by becoming the first corporate member of the charity in 2013.
Jonathan’s leadership, compassion, investment in his workforce and dedication to the sector saw him in 2014 recognised by his peers as one of the top ten most influential people in social care.