Friday 16th November saw over 400 of the very best in social care attended a glittering awards ceremony at Aston Gate Stadium for the finals of the Great South West Care Awards, where the category winners were announced.
The Great South West 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 South West Care Awards will go through to the final at Birmingham’s ICC on 8th March 2019.
The winners of the Great British South West Care Awards, together with the judge’s comments are detailed below:
The Care Employer Award
Doveleigh Care Devon
The focus of employee empowerment and engagement has driven resident, business and staff excellence. This can be seen all homes achieve CQC outstanding, learning from each other’s training and progression and various recognition schemes help alongside staff retention and growth.
The Care Home Worker Award
Susan Burroughs – Barchester
Passionate about her role and recent promotion to team leader. Goes above and beyond training new staff on her days off. Treats all her clients how she would treat her grandparents. Always practices person centred care.
The Home Care Worker Award
Carole and Peter – Shared Lives South West
Carole and Peter devote themselves to their clients, treating them as part of their extended family. They offer incredibly personalised support absolutely tailored and focussed on individual needs and preferences.
The Care Home Newcomer Award
Alex Follett – AbleCare
Alex is quiet, calm but passionately committed newcomer to care who clearly adds great value to the lives of the people she supports. She has a clear, meaningful grasp of personalisation and what this means to her work. She is driven to give her best and ensure that this means the people she supports have their choices and dignity respected at all times.
The Home Care Newcomer Award
Debbie Stolton – Bluebird Care Bournemouth and Poole
Debbie is a dedicated, passionate individual who’s enthusiasm for supporting people to remain independent in their own homes is infectious. Person centred through and through Debbie is an asset to the sector.
The Care Home Registered Manager Award
Samantha Evens – Doveleigh Care Ltd
Samantha is clearly very passionate about what she does. Even though the care home she manages was awarded care home of the year, she is still looking for improvements! She engages her team by creating ambassador and mentor roles to empower them and make them feel special. This in turn means they enjoy their job and provide excellent continuity and quality of care with no agency usage.
The Home Care Registered Manager Award
Sharon Snook – Caretech
Sharon entered the sector as she autism in the family and wanted to make a difference. She doesn’t do this because of reports or scores, but rather because she is passionate about helping people have a better quality of life. Proving someone can do something with their life. CQC were going to close the service before Sharon became manager and 6 weeks later, they were transformed to requires improvement with good in caring. Internal audits are showing good across the board.
The Care Home Cook/Chef Award
Becky Beddoes – The Old Rectory (Southern Healthcare)
Becky stood out from coming out of the restaurant industry, bringing her expertise to the care sector. In her current role she has transformed the whole menu to be home cooked presented in a professional standard. She ensures she is up to date on the latest dietary needs, passing all her knowledge onto other colleagues in other homes for the residents to benefit.
The Dignity in Care Award
Shannon Sheppard – Riversway Nursing Home
It was clear that Shannon absolutely loved her job role, she had that ‘spark’, knowledgeable and supportive of the people she supports and the staff she works alongside.
The Dementia Carer Award
Victoria Fosuah – Riversway Nursing Home
Victoria loves her clients and was nicknamed Victoria the Deeder as she continues to support those clients at night that may have had a bad day and needs nutrition through the night
The Care Home Team Award
Cowbridge Care home – Cornwallis Care Ltd
The team have moved from difficult times, transforming into a positive future, leading the way for others in Cornwall.
The Home Care Team Award
Brandon Trust
Under new leadership the team are making all the right moves for the future and are giving people the opportunity to enjoy life again.
The Care Home Activities Organiser Award
Kerri Oxley – Wellington House
Kerri is person centred through and through and sees the person not the illness. She is creative, proactive, empathetic and dedicated. She has created an intergenerational activities initiative through the ‘Forest School’, bringing vulnerable adults and children together.
The Ancillary Worker Award
Andrew Morgan – Sanctuary Care
Andrew goes above and beyond using a creative, pro-active approach to improve the wellbeing of residents. He is so much more than a Maintenance Man and a great asset to the sector!
The Care Trainer Award
Remi Mateulec – Milestones Trust
Passion and commitment to training staff, Remi ensures they have the skills needed and being able to embraced risk taking to enable service users a better quality of life.
The Care Innovator Award
Fiona Mahoney – Reminiscence Learning
Forest school for dementia and young adults – taking a truly challenging idea and making it a massive success.
The Care Home Frontline Leaders Award
Jo Perkins – Somerset Care
Since being appointed as community team leader Jo has made lots of changes and gained staff trust. She has given the team a voice, supported development and participated in research and training. She has developed approaches that promote client independence and involvement and ensured the whole team are fully included. She leads by example and deals with issues promptly, communicating learning to her team.
The Home Care Frontline Leaders Award
Kerry Brain – Crossroads Care Forest of Dean and Herefordshire
Kerry leads by example, motivating her team to provide high quality, person centred care. She adopts a creative and proactive approach to problems – always ensuring the service user is at the heart of the service.
The Home Care Co-ordinator Award
Carola Martinez – Care 1st
Carola led from the forefront in developing new services in Gloucester. Supporting and motivating new staff in delivering bespoke services to older people in the community.
The Care Assessor/Care Planner Award
Erin Taylor – Brunelcare
Erin is a young lady with an exceptional attitude to care. Her knowledge and value base was outstanding. She should be very proud of what she has achieved.
The Putting People First/Personalisation Award
Sebastian Kolbadii – Community Integrated Care
Sebastian has completely changed the home and not afraid to challenge. He motivates his team, gave them energy and completely changed the home with decorating throughout and revamping the garden with getting all the residents involved.
The Good Nurse Award
Emily Marshall – Barchester
Passion and pride – that describes Emily. Every resident knows her and more importantly she knows about them, their needs wants and preferences. This means Emily can advocate for them and be their voice even when they can’t speak for themselves.
The Palliative Care/End of Life Award
Deborah Horrigan – Carlauren Care
Boundless passion and commitment to residents, families and colleagues. Deborah cares for the whole person.
The Unpaid Carers Award
Clive Iles – Volunteer – Brunelcare
In the words of the person who nominated Clive:
“Clive Iles’ connection with Deerhurst was born in the foundations of the building. His mother was one of the first people to live in the home and since 1997 he has been a volunteer part of a larger group of volunteers.
“Clive is a constant presence. His enthusiasm to offer support to anyone who comes into contact with him is plain to see. In this tight financial climate volunteers can make or break a care home.
Clive is such a positive addition to the care home I have never met another volunteer anywhere near as devoted. Often your contribution is only judged by the hole you leave when gone. I can’t envisage Deerhurst without that smile and greeting from Clive.”
The Outstanding Contribution to Social Care Award
Robert Fielder- Managing Director – Carlauren Care
In the words of the person who nominated Robert:
“Robert was only going to work in care for two weeks back in 1981.
He started his career in the NHS working with people with learning disabilities and being involved in one of the first community homes for people with learning disabilities leaving institutionalised environments and facing prejudice, Rob has built his career from a cadet nurse.
Having left school with no qualifications at 16 Rob is now multi qualified with diplomas and degrees as well as being a chartered member of the Institute of Housing and a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute.
Now at the age of 53 he has dedicated his whole life to helping others. Rob can only be described as a Great champion for vulnerable people.”