Thursday 24th October 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 10 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 for the events includes Care England, The Department of Health, The National Care Forum, The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) and the Alzheimer’s Society, 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 20th March 2020.
The winners of the Great British East of England Care Awards, together with the judge’s comments are detailed below:
Care Home Employer
Athena Care Homes
Valuing, rewarding and training staff are strongly embedded in this organisation, ensuring a clear career pathway and impressive staff retention.
Home Care Employer
Gordon Anderson
Kare Plus Norwich
Gordon demonstrated innovation and creativity, he showed commitment and dedication to his staff team ensuring that his team were well supported and appreciated!
Care Home Worker
Jazmyn Shearwood
Pearl Heathcare
Jazmyn has worked at Capricorn cottage for over 2 years. She has worked as part of the team to improve the care within the home. She is bubbly, vibrant and very enthusiastic to give the best care to everyone. Her goal is to progress to a management role.
Home Care Worker
Caroline Dube
Christies Care
Caroline was chosen for the best home care worker because of her empathy, passion and dedication to the job role. She has a bubbly and positive outlook on life that shines through when discussing her love of work and clients. Her company is lucky to have her.
Care Home Newcomer
Lois Southorn
Castle Meadow Care
Lois is a breath of fresh air! Her enthusiasm, passion, charisma and compassion really shone through. Only 6 months into her first job at 19; she has an old soul with energy. Caring comes from her heart which just can’t be taught. She is amazing!
Home Care Newcomer
Sabrina Ray
Merit Home Care
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
Anca Roman
Excel Care Ltd
The judges chose Anca as she stood out with her attitude and the ability to care. Anca’s clear love and devotion to her care home residents and staff team was at the core of her interview. Anca has an innate caring nature about her.
The Home Care Registered Manager
Sonia Thacker
ENA Hourly Care
All candidates were excellent, and it was not an easy decision, however Sonia stood out as being very passionate about her role and the service her team provides to service users. She loves what she does, enabling people to stay safely in their own home. She is a strong leader taking her team on a journey of improvement.
The Care Home Cook/Chef
Carrie-Ann Higgs
Forrest Health Care
A very motivated, passionate and enthusiastic cook who wants to make a home from home. She believes the cook is an integral part of the care staff and is working towards that. She has undertaken more specialised training to meet the needs of the residents and loves everyday of her job.
The Dignity in Care Award
Nasreen Bara
Central Bedfordshire Council
Nasreen spoke with passion and person-centred dignity, her philosophy towards care was great and she spoke with integrity and gave good examples of how she achieves these.
The Dementia Carer Award
Toyah Findell
Forest Healthcare
From her daily sparkles, ‘people like me’, Gemstone idea’s and in-depth training, Toyah shows initiative and enthusiasm and has genuine compassion and empathy towards improving the lives of people living with dementia
The Care Home Team Award
Angela Herbert
St Martins
Angela and her team demonstrated a real passion for the people they support. This is a unique service that offers real hope to those who are normally hard to reach. Their commitment and enthusiasm were outstanding.
The Home Care Team Award
Shayne Mills
Consensus
The team led by Shayne are passionate, energetic and motivated. To receive an ‘outstanding’ rating from the previous, ’requires improvement’, is phenomenal. Zero staff turnover evidences the team’s commitment. Working together, fund raising and completing projects to enhance their service users’ lives is inspirational.
The Care Home Activity Organiser
Bernie Leister
Precious Homes
Bernie ensures all activities are person centred and goes above and beyond to involve residents in the planning. Bernie’s initiatives have had a real impact on the wellbeing of the residents.
The Ancillary Worker Award
Samantha Stockwell
PJ Care
Samantha has enhanced the outside area for residents for sensory, physical and mental stimulation. This includes all residents’ needs and wishes and shows a clear passion for what she does. We feel she is an asset to her organisation.
The Workforce Development Award
Ruth French and Alex Ball
Stow Healthcare
The culture of developing the company’s workforce is evident. Their use of unique and engaging training scenarios demonstrates their commitment. They are clearly a professional and passionate team that give tangible examples of their amazing work.
The Care Innovator Award
Kelly Lindsay
Friend in Deed
Kelly is a true innovator; she is passionate about creating a social movement and the impact of her charity is for reaching.
The Care Home Frontline Leader Award
Wendy Cousins
Advinia
Wendy leads by example, motivating her team to deliver quality person-centred care. Passionate and committed – an inspirational care professional.
The Home Care Frontline Leader Award
Sam Cant
Focus Care
Sam showed great leadership, whilst dealing with very difficult scenarios around a service user who was both destructive and self-harming. Sam identified and enrolled his team into the vision that would eventually transform this person’s way of life, massively improving the outcome. Sam has a great vision and a commitment to supporting others. The world needs more people like Sam.
The Home Care Coordinator Award
Daniella Raven
Abbots Care Ltd
Daniella presented organised leadership and great time management skills. She was ambitious and keen to support her team and other teams and showed great core values and behaviours.
The Putting People First/Personalisation Award
Hilltop House
Sanctuary Supported Living
Hilltop House are outstanding in their creativity, innovation, inclusion and involvement of their residents and service users in all aspects of their care and support. Encouraging, empowering and promoting independence of their people in every way putting people first.
The Palliative Care/End of Life Award
Debbie Day
Cedars Care Home
Debbie demonstrated real person-centred care, putting her service users’ wishes first. She is kind, caring and compassionate and gives over and beyond in her role. We all need a Debbie!!
The Good Nurse Award
Deogracias Lapena
First Care Homes Park View
Deo has worked as a nurse for 45 years. He is a very humble person and continues to do a great deal to enhance the lives of others. He loves to pass on his knowledge and keeps up to date with current changes. Deo goes the extra mile to support everyone that he meets!!
The Housing with Care Award
Kingfisher Court
Cross Keys Care
Kingfisher court team were a shining example of how housing with care delivery care with dignity and compassion can truly putting the person first every time. The team spoke with one voice truly recognising the interdependence of environment and empowering people to live fulfilling lives.
Unpaid Carer
Rhoda Crisp
Sohal Healthcare
In the words of the person who nominated Rhoda:
“Rhoda’s mum was in the care home but sadly passed away. However, Rhoda has continued to visit the home weekly spending time with the service users making arts and crafts, baking and gardening, during this time she has undergone an operation and still made a point of coming in to see everyone. Rhoda spends time with all service users talking to them about everything. We had one lady who had stopped talking due to dementia, Rhoda would come in and sit with her and eventually this lady started to say a few words, Rhoda has a heart of gold and loves to give her all to the services users of Milton Lodge.”
Outstanding Contribution
Greg Lapham
Precious Homes
In the words of the staff member who nominated Greg:
“Greg, our popular leader, is the pillar that ensures that the services that Precious Homes provide and develop go above and beyond to fit the specific needs of the people we support. This is evidenced by the multiple Pinders Design awards the company has won; but very few people know that Greg designs these services himself.
He absolutely knows how services should look and work. He uses his wealth of experience and knowledge within the care sector to develop safe responsive effective and well led services. He truly values his staff at all levels and goes that extra mile to ensure everyone feels part of the team. Most of the staff and service users know Greg because he visits all our services and wants to make sure that we are providing quality services.
He is extremely supportive and listens to all staff and service users and has a strong passion to make peoples’ lives better by making a positive difference. Greg has grown Precious Homes from a dozen services in 2014 to nearly 40 services today and all our services are rated either Outstanding or Good. How many care companies in the UK are 100% Good & Outstanding? Not many at all and therefore he deserves this award, lots of leaders talk, but Greg absolutely delivers.
The management team he has put in place share his vison and values as do our managers and as a result people love their jobs. We are all #proudtobeprecious. “
Lets celebrate social care and help it get the recognition it deserves