Friday 24th November saw over 300 of the very best in social care attended a glittering awards ceremony at Edgbaston Stadium, Birmingham, for the finals of the Great West Midlands Awards, where the category winners were announced.
The Great West Midlands 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.
Sector support 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 commercial organisations.
There are a 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 innovation.
Winners of the Great West Midlands Care Awards will go through to the final at Birmingham’s ICC in Spring 2018.
The winners of the Great British West Midlands Care Awards, together with the judge’s comments are detailed below:
The Care Employer Award
Herefordshire Care Homes
An outstanding independent group of care homes with dynamic leadership, pioneering in creating a supportive culture of learning which empowers staff to provide excellence in person centred care. It’s easy to see why Herefordshire Care Homes have achieved outstanding rating with the CQC.
The Care Home Worker Award
Sue Guest, Dimensions
Sue is a passionate individual who clearly loves her role as a carer and the users she supports. During the interview process the barn dance and charity event she organises in her own time really stood out. Well done Sue!
The Home Care Worker Award
Sarah Baker, Home Instead Senior Care
Sarah stands out in a very competitive category as a born carer. She has care DNA. If you needed some home care you would certainly want Sarah to deliver it due to the great abilities she has shown, a well deserved winner!
The Care Newcomer Award
Laura Bradbury, Knaves Court
Laura is a caring and committed individual who was inspired into her role through caring for a family member. She sees the residents as family and ensures they are provided with dignity. Well done Laura!
The Care Home Registered Manager Award
Marcelo Moreira, Precious Homes
Marcelo has high standards and enforces a great team spirit. As a hands on manager Marcelo wants to make a difference and has achieved great results for the company.
The Home Care Registered Manager Award
Anette McDougall, Archangel Homecare
Annette demonstrated a real passion for working in the care sector but more importantly, an emphasis on creating a person centred culture for both staff and service users.
The Care Home Cook/Chef Award
Rhea Taylor, Anchor Trinity Lodge
Rhea is a well deserved winner who focuses on meeting residents needs through her menus and is keen to meet the desires of new residents as well. She provides residents with tasty dishes leaving them highly satisfied.
The Dignity in Care Award
Geoff Aris, Barrowhill Hall
Geoff is an inspirational individual operating a truly inspiring outcome focused care provision meeting the needs of her clients with dignity at the heart of the service.
The Dementia Carer Award
Hayley Simmonds, Barchester
It was a hard decision as all the candidates in this category were amazing! Hayley’s commitment to her residents showed exceptional undertaking of dementia and her compassion shone through.
The Care Team Award
Eden Futures
The team at Eden have an absolute passion for their service users and evidenced a commitment to person centred care. They support one another to support the service user to promote independence and wellbeing.
The Care Home Activities Co-ordinator Award
David Ible, Care UK
David allows residents to be stimulated through his activities, giving them lots of choice and encouragement to join in. He notes the family feel of the home and is a committed individual who shone through as a worthy winner.
The Ancillary Worker Award
Pauline Saville, Rashwood Care Home
Pauline is a passionate individual who loves her job and the elderly. She provides a very clean home for residents to live in and is praise worthy through the stimulation of conversation for residents through their discussions of the home’s photographs.
The Care Trainer Award
Matt Morely, Housing & Care 21
Matt understands the importance of the role and shows a great deal of both knowledge and empathy as well as a good focus on team work. He importantly strives for enjoyment of coming to work and is a deserving winner.
The Care Innovator Award
Michael Dennis, Wholistic Fostering
Michael demonstrated true inspirational innovation in planning and putting into action a care facility providing safe loving homes for young people who need support outside the family unit
The Frontline Leaders Award
Louise Thompson, Precious Homes
Louise demonstrated her skills and person centred approach in building a team that provided a constructive and empowering approach to care working with Autistic service users.
The Home Care Co-ordinator Award
Samantha Ward, Bluebird Care (Bromsgrove & Redditch)
Samantha impressed the judge with her commitment to her service users and her staff. She is motivated, passionate and a very worthy winner of this award.
The Care Assessor/Care Planner Award
Beth Robinson, Direct Health
Beth is a truly deserving winner. Her professionalism, dedication has resulted in outstanding person centred care for her service users.
The Putting People First/Personalisation Award
Wayne Slade, Anchor Trinity Lodge
Wayne is committed to promoting independence, dignity and choice. He is a dedicated social care professional who really does put his service users first.
The Palliative Care/End of Life Award
Sandra Madden, Bluebird Care (Bromsgrove & Redditch)
Sandra is clearly passionate about providing the very best end of life care with the support of a strong team. Dedicated and compassionate. A very worthy winner.
The Unpaid Carers Award
Jackie Clack
Jackie is an upaid carer within the day care service of Embec Care where her husband who had dementia came for support.
Jackie attends the day care weekly and provides support to the service users. Nothing phases Jackie and she is keen to help those whilst ensuring their dignity, respect and choice.
Jackie shares her vast experience of life in setting up and leading activities. Jackie has organised charity events and outings for the clients that attend.
Jackie is a treasure and is a precious addition to our team and offers so much time and patience to our client group tour staff group and is an asset to our service
Jackie does not seek thanks or praise, she often says she is happy to help others as Embec Care helped her and made her husband’s days filled with joy and purpose