Thursday 8th November saw over 400 of the very best in social care attended a glittering awards ceremony at East Midlands Conference Centre for the finals of the Great East Midlands Care Awards, where the category winners were announced.
The Great East 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.
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 Midlands Care Awards will go through to the final at Birmingham’s ICC on 8th March 2019.
The winners of the Great British East Midlands Care Awards, together with the judge’s comments are detailed below:
The Care Employer Award
DE Healthcare
We were greatly impressed by Tracey and Donna’s focus and entrepreneurial spirits. We believe they are a shining star and applaud them for their investment into staff development, training and their well being, but above all it was their undeniable passion for delivering high standards of care to their service users that place them first.
The Care Home Worker Award
Emma Norris – The Esland Group
Emma showed great passion and commitment for working with young children from different backgrounds. Her commitment to making positive changes shone through.
The Home Care Worker Award
Shannon Harrison – Bluebird Care Lincoln
Shannon has so many wonderfully inspiring words of insight. I was mesmerised in listening rather than writing. These words sum up Shannon up – “If I could have a magic wand I would make everyone’s head glass so I could see what people needed from me and they could see I have no ulterior motive but to be here for them”. “Its recognising we are all human and sometimes we fall into a chasm and find it hard to find a way out. I like to think I am a bridge that can help people out of the chasm even if its just a moment in time”.
The Care Home Newcomer Award
Reece Grant – Parkside Nursing Home
Reece’s passion and dedication to his role his infectious. He has achieved so much in such a short space of time, including saving the life of a resident. He is an asset to the sector!
The Home Care Newcomer Award
Jodie Mayfield – Sanctuary Supported Living
Jodie has overcome personal difficulties to channel her energies into making a huge different to the lives of the people she supports. She uses an innovative approach to promote independence and enhance wellbeing. She is a real asset to the sector!
The Care Home Registered Manager Award
Zoe Searston – Your Health Ltd
Zoe’s compassion and commitment to her residents shone through throughout the interview. Her ability to engage with residents’ family and other professionals was obvious as well as her passion for caring for some of the most vulnerable people.
The Home Care Registered Manager Award
Gina Smith – West Hallam (Ashmere Derbyshire)
Gina was placed in a service that was inadequate and required improvement. Communication breakdown amongst professionals and staff hit rock bottom and teams’ morale was zero. Gina put in place goals and communication systems which turned the service around in 6 months to ‘Good’. Staff received awards from company’s appraisal system and thanks from Gina – they call her their missing piece to their puzzle. Gina states “I don’t class it as a job its my life. I genuinely love helping people feel happy and content.”
The Care Home Cook/Chef Award
Tina Stapleton – Belvoir Vale Care Home
Tina has demonstrated deep knowledge and understanding of catering in the care sector. Tina shows passion and has a real eye for attention to detail. Innovation and a willingness to go that extra mile ensure the needs of the residents are met.
The Dignity in Care Award
James Irving – Four Seasons Healthcare
James is visibly passionate about caring and dignity in general. Spend just one minute in his company and you will understand why. Whilst he prefers to be known as a carer, James is often called upon to visit other homes to train, share and demonstrate high standards of dignity in action!
The Dementia Carer Award
Olivia Bosworth – Monarch Healthcare
Olivia’s commitment to the residents shone through – even giving her time up to visit on days off. It was obvious that Olivia put the needs of the individual first, meeting their outcomes and ensuring she fully understood the needs of each person she cared for.
The Care Home Team Award
Coppice Lodge Care Home – Ideal Care Homes
With a mix of Residential and Dementia Care, Coppice Lodge team have been on a two year journey to improve standards across the board. From training programmes and internal promotions, to pop up restaurants and social Saturdays the team have excelled in truly make peoples last wishes come true.
The Home Care Team Award
Dawson Close – Community Integrated Care
An inspirational, dedicated team who are passionate about enabling individuals to meet their full potential, achieving goals and aspirations.
The Care Home Activities Organiser Award
Janet Mansbridge – Your Health Ltd
Janet is passionate about her role and has a strong focus on intergenerational and a variety of inclusive activities. She gives choice and is person centred in the activities offered.
The Ancillary Worker Award
Caroline Rye – Morton Grange
What can I say about Caroline as it is impossible to categorise her purely as an ancillary worker. Her personal drive and motivation crosses over into many different areas at Morton Grange. She is proud to work in the care sector and she goes well beyond her job description at every opportunity.
The Care Trainer Award
Kelly Styles – Mobile Care Services Ltd
Kelly is passionate and enthusiastic about training , loves her job and developing people through training to make a difference to provide quality care.
The Care Innovator Award
Peter Wood – Central Bedfordshire Council
Peter’s idea of colour coded recipes through his software programme enables service users with learning difficulties to bake and sell their goods in a coffee shop. A simple idea that instils a real sense of achievement and pride. It provides service users with the opportunity to build new relationships within the community and with carers. Well Done Peter!
The Care Home Frontline Leaders Award
Stacey Orton – Jubilee Court (Sun Healthcare)
Stacey is a dedicated team player who is incredibly inspirational and motivational for her team. She is committed to her job and has a very positive attitude.
The Home Care Frontline Leaders Award
Sarah Wilde – Percurra
Sarah is passionate and committed care professional who leads by example to ensure her team is motivated and delivers quality, person centred care.
The Home Care Co-ordinator Award
Alexandra Clayton – Morton Grange
Alexandra demonstrated every skill a good leader should. Her passion and commitment to her team and customers was clear from the outset and Alexandra is a deserved winner of the award. Many congratulations and all the best for the future.
The Care Assessor/Care Planner Award
Charlotte Gregory – Direct Health
A thoroughly professional and highly competent care assessor. Having previously been a carer Charlotte demonstrates empathy and compassion and is focused toward promoting independence and achieving person centred outcomes.
The Putting People First/Personalisation Award
Diane Bruce – Mulberry Court Care Home
Diane’s ‘hopes and dreams’, a celebration of practice, was an inspirational project. Inspired by a personal experience, Diane set about making dreams happen for her service users. Diane’s passion was clear and we were moved to tears by her story. Good Luck Diane. Keep up your personal challenge to make dreams happen. You deserve this!
The Good Nurse Award
Alison Charles – AMG Nursing and Care Services
A passionate, caring compassionate nurse. Knowing the person and being able to make a difference, enabling and respecting individual choices to have a fulfilled life.
The Palliative Care/End of Life Award
Sarah Milnes – Monarch Healthcare
Sarah is deep rooted and heavily invested in her passion for this sector. Having personal experience of poor care Sarah is determined to ensure that great Palliative Care is available to all. This has resulted in her travelling the UK, as far north as Scotland, in her own time and at her own expense to research great facilities. This has led her to setting up from scratch, 2 fully managed Butterfly wings for 4-6 people, and is focussed to setting up Butterfly Wings in all 11 homes by 2020. I believe she’ll achieve this too!
The Unpaid Carers Award
Pauline Hall – Ashmere Nottinghamshire Limited
Pauline is a volunteer at Sutton Court and worked for Ashmere Notts for many years and retired way before more of the rest of us joined the company. Not satisfied with a much deserved rest, Pauline quickly offered to return to the company as a volunteer and took upon making a successful community lunch club.
The lunch club has grown in popularity not least from Pauline’s welcoming nature and kind perseverance to ensure as many ladies and gents are able to come as possible.
Pauline is tirelessly devoted to making the club a success and despite periods of poor health herself, continues to put the attendees and the good word of Ashmere before herself.
She is always willing to help and spends time with anyone and everyone that she comes across in the home. She is extremely dedicated and makes a huge difference to the lives of those elderly people not only living in Sutton Court but also in the nearby community.
The Outstanding Contribution to Social Care Award
John Walton – Woodleigh Christian Care Home
John grew up in Manchester and has personal experience of being part of a small family living with and caring for his grandmother and equally of the emotions experienced when a family can no longer provide 24/7 care at home. When he became the owner of Woodleigh Christian Care Home in 2003 he committed himself to the safe and compassionate care of their residents. John works in the business every day ensuring all the resident are enjoying life to the best of their ability.
In the words of his staff:
“John is the kind of provider someone can only hope to work for. He is kind, generous and dedicated to making resident’s lives better every single day. He is a perfectionist through and through and will never stop ‘climbing the mountain’ to improve things for those in his care.
“He has faith in his entire staff team and empowers his managers to be the best that they possibly can be while giving them the freedom to make changes along the way.
“John’s work with the Care Association means that he insists on being the voice of those who have none. He always fights for fairness and equality and has impacted the lives of many, many people in the last 14 years as the owner of Woodleigh Christian Care Home Ltd.
“John is one in a million and everyone at Woodleigh Christian Care Home ltd know how lucky we are to have such a wonderful provider leading us forward.“
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