Thursday 9th November saw over 300 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.

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.

Winners of the Great East of England Care Awards will go through to the final at Birmingham’s ICC in Spring 2018.

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

The Care Employer Award

Sonnet Care Homes

Sonnet Care Homes are an inspirational and committed well led organisation.  ‘Kindness, comfort and respect’ are key to the organisation, and are embedded in the culture.

The Care Home Worker Award

Maureen Coplen, Quantum Care

Maureen demonstrated a passion for her role and the people she supported. It was clear this was more than just a job for her.  If we were in in a care home we would like Maureen to care for us!

The Home Care Worker Award

Hemendra Vinodrai, Choices Care

Hemendra started working in care for personal reasons and is very passionate about her role. She says that ‘she learns from the people she supports.’  A very well deserving winner!

The Care Newcomer Award

Florin Moales, Focus Care Agency

Florin has evidently made a significant difference in his role. He used the phrase ‘enabling voice, empowering choice’ which is something he was able to prove in his examples and towards those he supports.

The Care Home Registered Manager Award

Loreta Moss, Black Swan Care Group

Loreta is a role model for anyone who aspires to be a first class professional in care. She demonstrated great leadership qualities evidenced by an ‘outstanding’ rating from CQC in a recent inspection. She is an inspiration to her team.

The Home Care Registered Manager Award

Cheryl Milldown, Primary Homecare – part of Cardinal Health Care group

Cheryl places training very high on her agenda to achieve quality care.  A well deserving winner!

The Care Home Cook/Chef Award

Marien Thorpe, Ford Place Nursing Home – Stow Health Care

This was a close category with Marien standing out as a winner due to her commitment to the role and the residents she supports. Having spent 20 years working in the home, most of which were as a care worker she understands the residents needs, whilst recognising their choice.

The Dignity in Care Award

Joan Sirrett, Sonnet Care Homes

Joan demonstrated a passion for her role, there was a clear structure in place to ensure dignity was embedded into the culture of the organisation. A passionate and dedicated care professional.

The Dementia Carer Award

Suzanne Warnes, Independence Matters CLC

Suzanne believes a good dementia carer works from the heart. This is demonstrated in the support groups she holds for dementia families. In addition she loves watching her students progress into valued dementia carers.

The Care Team Award

Karen Chapman, Judy Cable and Helen Granville, Swanton Care

The Team have developed a 10 bed nursing home for complex health needs, rather than being cared for in intensive care. This allows residents to still have a homely feel despite all the equipment.

The Care Home Activities Co-ordinator Award

Kirsty Thomas, Bucklesham Grange Care Home

Kirsty is a passionate Activities Co-ordinator with a fantastic range of activities Her design of the ‘Thomas Tool’ – a  look for residents needs and care, is very much valued. Kirsty is truly raising the bar.

The Ancillary Worker Award

David Melton, Athena Care Homes

An inspirational and dedicated man who gets pleasure from seeing a smile on the residents faces. He goes above and beyond in his role and thinks of it as a hobby and not a chore.

The Care Trainer Award

Sarah Farrow, The Carers Trust Cambridge

Sarah has a passion for delivering outstanding training services. Her hard work, energy and focus means that training is always relevant and up to date. She makes training fun for staff and residents.

 The Care Innovator Award

Yashveen Kowlessur/Tracy Josko, Cornerhouse Care Home

A truly innovate approach to ‘making dreams come true’ by recognising the individual and offering a service to reflect this. This is achieved by motivating staff to help fulfil the dreams and needs of the individuals.

The Frontline Leaders Award

Dawn Curtis, Quantum Care

Dawn showed passion and commitment for her team, developing an end of life lounge for her service users. Dawn also delivers training to her staff and helps staff who are struggling to achieve goals.

The Home Care Co-ordinator Award

Tracy Curry, Berkeley Home Heath

Tracy has showed great dedication to her job role, by putting the needs of her service users and staff first. Tracy provides out of hour support to her team and would jump on shift when required. Continuity of care is foremost when allocating care calls.

The Care Assessor/Care Planner Award

Karen Parker, Cross Keys Care

Karen is passionate about person-centred care and ensures a high standard of care is always delivered right from the beginning when completing an assessment. She always strives to put the service users’ needs first.

The Putting People First/Personalisation Award

The Team, Aveley Lodge Care Home

A dedicated, passionate team of care professionals that really do put the service users at the heart of everything they do.

The Good Nurse Award

Patricia Nortel-Barroso, St Mary’s Court Care Home

Patricia showed great passion for nursing and for the vulnerable people she cares for. Patricia leads by example and is a well regarded mentor for other staff.

The Palliative Care/End of Life Award

Ewa Kujawa, Eversley Nursing Home Ewa is clearly passionate about providing the very best end of life care with the support of a strong team. 12 years ago she overcame barriers to progress from a domestic to manager of the home, an inspirational lady.

The Unpaid Carers Award

Cristina Cordosa

Cristina is a former carer at Lyncroft Care Home is Wisbech. She finished working at the home in May 2017. Not long after leaving Cristina asked if she could come into the home on her days off on a voluntary basis to help support the residents. She had built up an excellent rapport with the residents and she missed spending time with them.

Cristina is familiar with the home and residents and will happily take on any task that is asked of her from helping with activities to supporting the housekeeping or care teams. She will go above and beyond what is usually expected of a volunteer. During a recent infection outbreak at the care home she volunteered to cover for staff who were off sick, working long days, all unpaid to ensure that the residents’ needs were met and put first.

She is well liked by residents and respected by all the staff team who value her fantastic contribution to life at Lyncroft Care Home.

The Outstanding Contribution to Social Care Award

Dr Helen Brown, Carers Trust Cambridgeshire

Carers are at the heart of everything we do. This is Helen’s mantra in life and something she’s instilled in others. Helen is passionate about improving the lives of unpaid family carers of all-ages and has inspired many others to share that passion.

The impact Helen has had on carers in Cambridgeshire is untold. Her drive and determination ensured we are the best we can be and we have helped more carers year-on-year. Helen has literally changed lives. She’s given carers and people with care-needs options, she has given them the tools to help them with their caring role; in many cases she has given them their life back.

Helen joined Carers Trust Cambridgeshire, Peterborough & Norfolk in 2005. At the time there were five schemes all providing different services to different areas. She merged them into one cohesive whole ensuring all staff work to the same policies/procedures and people can access the same service wherever they are. We also provide CQC regulated care for people with care-needs of all ages.

Services Helen has developed have been cited by the Department of Health and NHS England as well as Cabinet Office for best-practice.  Our award-winning social prescribing model been shared widely and used by others.  In 2015, Helen won the Third Sector Leadership Award. In the same year Helen also received a ministerial invitation to join the Standing Commission on Carers ensuring the voices of carers are heard at the highest levels.

Throughout this time she has tirelessly lobbied and challenged government/local authorities to consider the impact of the caring role on unpaid family carer of all-ages.

Helen has both professional and personal experience of family carers. She has developed the type of services that aims to support any carer of all-ages wherever they may be throughout the whole of Cambridgeshire.  This is her life’s work from which she will be retiring from in November 2017.

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