Thursday 7th November saw the very best in social care attended a glittering awards ceremony at The Park Plaza, Cardiff, for the inaugural Great Welsh Care Awards, where the category winners were announced.

The Great Welsh 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 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 Welsh Care Awards will go through to the final at Birmingham’s ICC on 20th March 2020.

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

The Care Employer Award
Heritage Healthcare Cardiff
Heritage Healthcare demonstrated a passion and innovative approach to providing high quality services where staff and clients are integral of a wellbeing service.

The Care Worker Award
Hayley Foy, Affinity Homecare
Throughout her interview, Hayley evidenced a person-centred approach ensuring the people that she supports had choice and were treated with dignity and respect. Judges were touched by her commitment to offer support, free of charge to an individual at the end of life, ensuring he would not be left alone whist waiting for a hospice placement.

The Care Newcomer Award
Michelle Muia, Life Long Learning 4 Living
Michelle demonstrated enthusiasm and motivation to provide a high quantity environment for the service users she cares for. Individual needs of people are important to her which shows her caring attitude.

The Care Home Registered Manager Award
James Oram, Ashberry Healthcare
James presented with a bubbly and positive approach which supported his assurance that it takes a happy and fulfilled team to ensure the people that he supports, and their families, are treated and cared for as people. This dedication to changing the culture of his service was clearly evidenced by the nomination of the award.

The Home Care Registered Manager Award
Tracey Woodward, Affinity Home Care Group
Tracey provides a quality service with good understanding of service user and staff needs. She communicates well and acknowledges the support she has from colleagues.

The Care Team Award
Vivienne Foley, Right at Home Cardiff and Newport
A fantastic team that highly values their staff. They fully understand the importance of their staff whilst also involving their families and highlighting social life. A stand-out provider of very high quality care and staff motivation. Testimonials and positive feedback are just a sneak peak of the outstanding work being carried out. Vivienne’s passion and proudness for her team is admirable.

The Care Home Activity Organiser Award
Emily Mcleod, Gwasted Hall Nursing Home
During Emily’s interview it was clear that her passion for providing meaningful activities to promote both physical and mental wellbeing had made an impact on the people that she supports. Judges were blown away by her enthusiasm and passion for making a difference and would happily ask Emily to support their own family.

The Workforce Development Award
Abbey Folland, Right at Home Cardiff and Newport
Abbey is an innovative and passionate trainer dedicated to raising standards in the sector, and has made a measurable impact.

The Care Innovator Award
Helen Foster, Alzheimer’s Society
Helen has been instrumental in launching and rolling out the Dementia Connect initiative, a service that aims to steer people through health and social care, provide advocacy whilst ensuring service users are in control.

The Frontline Leader Award
Jemma Nicholas, Right At Home Cardiff and Newport
Jemma is extremely dedicated and cares passionately about the service users and staff. She is very determined to deliver a quality service whatever the circumstances.

The Putting People First/Personalisation Award
Home Care Transformation Team, Isle of Anglesey County Council
The team go above and beyond to ensure the people they support are at the centre of the services by empowering with choice and control.

The Good Nurse Award
Alison Williams, Barchester Healthcare
Alison shows good knowledge and has a wealth of experience. These two things she uses to good effect in the service she provides and with the staff she values who work with her.

Lets celebrate social care and help it get the recognition it deserves