Thursday 15th November saw over 350 of the very best in social care attended a glittering awards ceremony at The Holiday Inn, Peterborough for the finals of the Great East of England Care Awards, where the category winners were announced.

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

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

The Care Employer Award

The Partnership in Care

For a company who see’s an ‘outstanding’ rating as too conformist, this unique organisation takes personalised care to a new level of understanding. They view going the extra mile as a normal, everyday activity.

The Care Home Worker Award

Grace Watson – Melford Court

Grace demonstrated a positive and respectful attitude to the people she cares for. She provided a number of examples where her practice is directed by the wishes of the people who live at Melford Court. Her energy and enthusiasm is infectious!

The Home Care Worker Award

Gary Pinfold – Anglia Case Management Ltd

Gary is excited, enthusiastic and genuinely delighted to support his client in the community. Working as part of a dedicated team to ensure his client can be part of the community, gain independence and fulfil his potential. Gary changed career eleven years ago and we gained an exceptional care worker.

The Care Home Newcomer Award

Amy Humphries – Consensus

Amy’s story told true passion within the care industry. An inspiration to all. Amy’s positive impact on peoples life, to give opportunities and to make a difference through organising events and building those special bonds to achieve and give the best quality of life is fantastic. An inspiration. 

The Home Care Newcomer

Mihal Chislia – Focus Care Agency

A passionate and dedicated individual who puts the service users at the heart of everything.  An asset to the sector! 

The Care Home Registered Manager Award

Sandie Oxborrow – Baylham Care Centre

Without doubt Sandie loves her role and being in a position to make a big difference to the lives of people. Rated outstanding by CQC, Sandie has demonstrated that challenges can be turned to advantage by re-organising staff shifts around bus timetables and using technology to share information. With Sandie, its all about her team and we could see her passion shining through.

The Home Care Registered Manager Award

Sarah Marquiss – Home Instead Senior Care Milton Keynes

Sarah is knowledgeable, organised, technical, aware and caring. Leading from the front, and the beginning of the company, to ensure residents receive person centred quality care and support. Sarah also supports her staff with encouragement and innovation. A Home care manager for the future of social care.

The Care Home Cook/Chef Award

Karen Chapman – Hunt Healthcare

Karen is passionate about her residents and ensuring that they are involved in all aspects, from growing the food, to preparing and making the food. The residents needs are being met through not only nutritional foods but having the social element, lots of talking, laughing and enjoying their meals.

The Dignity in Care Award

Gerardine Church – Cross Keys Care

Leads by example to promote and implement good practice which focuses on dignity. Her passion for people and ensuring they are involved and have a voice and are truly respected shines through. 

The Dementia Carer Award

St Johns Care Home

Fantastic person centred care, getting to know their residents and giving opportunities for them to have an active role in the home. Residents help with maintenance and cleaning. This gives residents purpose and fulfilment in life. 

The Care Home Team Award

Bramley Court Lifestyle Team – Carebase 

Carol Morgan and her Lifestyle Team are passionate about the Health and Wellbeing of their residents. For everyone to make the most of each day, residents need to maintain independence and autonomy so they introduced an exercise programme which has a whole person approach, linking physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing for everyone. Carol believes it is the foundation for other lifestyle choices at Bramley Court supporting residents to lead a fulfilling life. 

The Home Care Team Award

Melanie Castillo – Consensus Redan Street

Melanie and her team at Redan Street demonstrated real passion and enthusiasm for the service they deliver. They always go the extra mile to ensure that people they support have a stimulating, interesting and varied lifestyle. 

The Care Home Activities Organiser Award

Jo Whitehouse – Sonnet Care Homes

Jo has huge drive, energy and passion to deliver person centred activity in the homes she covers. Jo came across as an enthusiastic leader to her team of coordinators ensuring resident feedback and great engagement in groups and individually takes place.

The Ancillary Worker Award

Jackie Rickett – Averley Lodge Care Home 

Jackie demonstrates passion, enthusiasm, and dedication to her role as activity coordinator. Jackie has a great resident led activity programme in place with a variety of clubs, one to one sessions and themed projects. Jackie has recently won the NAPA competition securing £500 for the residents to spend.

The Care Trainer Award

Carrie Phipps – Athena Care Homes

Carrie’s passion shone through. Progressing through the organisation, Carrie now provides all training across 540 staff members. She is most proud of introducing an induction plan, which she developed from scratch. This has been continually developed and now extends to working with recently trained staff on the floor.

The Care Innovator Award

Kelly Roberts – Outlook Care

Kelly is a consummate innovator. The introduction of the gold card system has enabled recognition of the special status of the service users.

The Care Home Frontline Leaders Award

Samantha Fearon – Cross Keys Care

Samantha’s frontline leadership skills have resulted in many positive benefits for Cross Keys Care. From the implementation of a new training programme, resulting in higher retention rates, to a new system for checking MAR sheets, Samantha’s enthusiasm for her role shone through.

The Home Care Frontline Leaders Award

Helen Mulcahy – Anglia Case Management

Helen leads by example, motivating her team to deliver quality person centred care. 

The Home Care Co-ordinator Award

Sophie Mundy – Primary Homecare

Sophie is knowledgeably, organised and capable. Career progression has taken Sophie from care worker to coordinator. Sophie successfully uses accessible information standard and innovation to support her clients in the community where English is not their first language. Sophie is a shining example of good home care coordinator.

 The Care Assessor/Care Planner Award

Libby Pearson – Abberton Manor Nursing Home

Very passionate about working with individuals, families and professionals to ensure the assessment and planning process is positive, smooth and adapts with the individual. 

The Putting People First/Personalisation Award

Alderwood Care Home

Alderwood care make sure that all of the foundations of safe, excellent care are in place so that the staff team can support residents to ‘have a life’, not just stay alive. 

The Good Nurse Award

Silvia Nunes – Ford Place Nursing Home

Silvia is passionate about delivering high quality care and tailors support to each resident as an individual. She leads from the front and engages staff even working with them on the floor to share her own knowledge and experience. Residents and families think she is an exceptional individual. 

The Palliative Care/End of Life Award

Denise Phipps – Ford Place Nursing Home

Denise has many year’s experience of providing care at Ford Place but has taken on her new role as end of life champion with energy and commitment. She has generated lots of ideas to improve care in residents last days an to support their families and less experienced colleagues.

The Unpaid Carers Award

Eileen Wymark – Volunteer – Barchester Alice Grange Care Home

Eileen has volunteered for us for many years and has been actively engaged in helping us make the home a special place for everyone that visits.  She visits most days and will help out in any role we need be it hostess with the mostess at a coffee morning or supporting people to eat their meals.

Most recently Eileen has slept for two nights in a chair beside a dying resident with whom she had a special bond.  This is unbelievably kind and all the more special because Eileen is herself over 80 years old.  She is funny

 The Outstanding Contribution to Social Care Award

Carol Smit – Managing Director – Focus Care Agency

In the words of the team who nominated Carol:

Mrs Smit is an inspirational Managing Director. With over 45 years’ experience in the health and social care sector and a number of qualifications gained on the way such as RMA; (Dip: IR; RGN; RMN; CHN & Midwife) BA (Cur) Admin; BA (Cur) Edu; MA (Cur) HSM.

She is passionate about her role as the Managing Director which is evident for all to see. She directs the business strategically to attain clinical excellence and leads people to face the challenges.

She believes that sharing knowledge and empowering others is one of the greatest gifts you can give another person and makes it her mission to know each one of our service users.

 

 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