An evening of celebration to shine a spotlight on our outstanding colleagues
Amazing nursing teams, inspirational leaders, outstanding rising stars and compassionate clinicians were all celebrated at Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust’s (KCHFT) staff awards on Friday.
The ceremony showcased exceptional care and shone a spotlight on the incredible individuals and community teams pioneering new ways of working and striving to find new ways to deliver high-quality care in the community.
It was also the chance to reflect on a year with more than 2.2 million patient contacts, including half a million children, where we treated 2,000 inpatients, reduced pressure on A&E with 185,000 people seen in our urgent care services and where we protected school-aged children with a whopping quarter of a million vaccinations.
Chair John Goulston said: “It’s not been an easy year for our colleagues, that’s why it’s important we have the opportunity to celebrate our dedicated and caring workforce who work hard every day. Whatever role they are in, they never stop stepping up to make sure our patient care remains of a high standard and we are very proud of all those who were nominated and won an award.”
Earlier this year, a judging panel of colleagues and patients from KCHFT read through more than 350 nominations. The volunteer and participation partner awards were chosen by our public members in an online vote.
Interested in becoming a member or volunteer? Find out more at www.kentcht.nhs.uk/volunteer
The winners are
This service cares for patients across east Kent with a diagnosed long-term lung condition, aiming to optimise and empower them to self-manage.
This team care about their patients and each other. They endeavour every day to empower their patients and identify areas of potential service improvement. We value excellence in our service and were shortlisted in November 2023 for an HSJ Award as Primary and Community Care Provider of the Year.
The team was nominated by: Sheilagh McCrossan, East Kent Professional Lead for Respiratory and Head of Service.
Runners-up: Dysphagia Team and North East London Dental Homeless Team.
Over the past 18 months we received additional investment to trial both Play and CBT based approaches within our children’s counselling team.
Their desire as a team, and as individuals, to demonstrate excellence in every aspect of delivery has been outstanding. This is shown in the wealth of families who choose to send their personal reflections.
Parents have been thrilled and the feedback has shown how transformative the approach was for families: “The counselling for my son has been outstanding, I am extremely grateful for the service provided. My parent sessions are a genius idea, so forward thinking, so necessary and effective.”
The team was nominated by: Amber Bond, Head of Service, Kent School Health.
Runners-up: Integrated Pharmacy Team and NHS Health Checks Team.
I am delighted to nominate the Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (EPMA) team following a remarkably successful roll-out of the system into community hospitals.
Ward staff understandably had some anxieties about losing paper drug charts declaring themselves to be technophobes. The EPMA team approached this with care, understanding their fears, anxieties and learning needs.
The whole team is very caring and support each other. There have been numerous ‘sticky’ moments but the team have reflected, had the humility to apologise for when things have gone wrong and regrouped ready to face another challenge and find new solutions.
The team was nominated by: Ruth Brown, Chief Pharmacist/Director of Pharmacy Services.
Runners-up: Campaigns and Digital Team and One YOU Kent - Public Health Training Team.
Donna is an instrumental part of the Gate Clinic HIV team and in many ways is the backbone of the team. She is a dedicated patient advocate. Patients love seeing her, she follows up with patients, even with just a quick text to touch base if she knows they have something particularly important or stressful coming up.
Donna personifies our values. She is deeply compassionate, and cares for each and every patient she meets. She is empathetic, considerate and ensures equity of care. She has a real understanding of the diversity of needs a patient may have, and is well attuned to helping them.
Donna was nominated by: Vanessa Burton, Lead Clinical Specialist Pharmacist.
Runners-up: Suvi Hay, Patient Flow Matron, Faversham Cottage Hospital and Tracey Vickers, Complex Care Outreach Nurse.
Sally gives children the individual time that they need to complete the screening to the best of their abilities displaying patience and adapting her language and behaviour to accommodate an individual child who may have additional needs.
Sally is always looking to see how she can improve and regularly engages with the specialist services as well as visiting other trusts to see what she can learn and share.
She is the first to be aware of her colleague’s balance between work and home life celebrating the good and supporting with kindness when the bad and ugly happen.
Sally was nominated by: Michele Ellis, Kent School Health Screening Lead.
Runners-up: Georgina Worton, Assistant Practitioner, Kent School Health, Emily Woodhams, Specialist Speech and Language Therapist, East Sussex.
Rachel consistently goes above and beyond her duties to offer support, guidance and encouragement to those around her. Rachel demonstrates kindness and compassion whilst empowering others to find the best solution for themselves.
She is always there for her colleagues, even when faced with her own challenges, remains calm, logical and objective in her approach, always responding from a position of support.
Rachel is a kind, honest and caring person, whose commitment to her role is evident through her approach and contribution to the trust core values.
Rachel was nominated by: Hayley Marcham, Compliance Manager
Runners-up: Samantha Debnam, Administrator to the Community Hospitals Business Unit, Marcella Capper, Head of Medical Equipment Management, Complaints, PALS and Patient Experience.
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Jill’s dedication to her patients and exceptional management skills warrant recognition and celebration. Jill’s commitment to compassionate care is evident in her tireless efforts to support even the most challenging patients. As an aspirational leader, Jill empowers her patients to take control of their health journey while providing unwavering support.
Her innovative approaches and dedication to finding solutions contribute to improving patient’s quality of life. The excellent standard of this service is recognised nationally including NHS England who have asked Jill on a number of occasions to present this ‘gold standard service model’ to other trusts who are looking to roll out a similar service.
Jill was nominated by: Ess Savidge, Frequent Service User Support Worker.
Runners-up: Sarah Wolf, Senior Clinical Decision Maker, Acute Response Team and Sheilagh McCrossan, East Kent Professional Lead for Respiratory and Head of Service.
Helen is an inspirational, compassionate, supportive and intelligent leader who goes above and beyond every single day. If every team had a Helen, then the world would be a better place. She epitomises the trust’s core values and works incredibly hard to support the One You Smokefree Service, by helping the hardest to reach communities improve their health by stopping smoking.
Helen constantly strives to ensure the team is aspiring to be the best they can be and support new developments. The targeted lung
health check has been a huge success as the first pilot to integrate a smoke-free adviser as part of the team.
Helen was nominated by: Beverley Crossland, One You Team Lead for South Kent Coast and Ashford.
Runners-up: Jo Greeley, Senior Counselling Manager, Kent School Health and Lisa Graham, Central Referral Unit Supervisor.
Sheryl is entirely a credit to the trust and to the team and displays the KCHFT values at all times. She always shows excellence and is continually going above and beyond for the team and the trust.
She encourages development in others, looking for training courses that would strengthen my knowledge and actively encouraging me to partake in these. She continually comes up with creative solutions such as when the DBS reporting had gone down, she then worked to create an Excel Macro to streamline the reporting process.
Sheryl is a shining star and exemplary example of a manager who personifies our values.
Sheryl was nominated by: Darryl Scott, ESR System Coordinator.
Runners-up: Chloe Crouch, Head of Communications and Engagement and Janna Courtney, Head of IT Projects and Applications.
Maz joined us in Jan 2023 and has had such a powerful impact on what we do that I feel she should be celebrated.
Her dedication to developing her own knowledge and skills, whilst improving education across the service, has transformed our learning experiences, which then has a direct impact on outcomes for children, young people and families.
Maz is a true rising star, her determination to have the highest standard of education across the service is outstanding. She sees education as an area that transcends everything that we do and I am really grateful for all her knowledge and for her commitment to the service. She is amazing.
Maz was nominated by: Steph Cooper, Operational Manager, East Sussex School Health Service and Immunisation Service.
Runners-up: Katie Edmunds, Health Visitor and Emma Blagden, Pharmacy Technician.
Wiktoria is quite simply a star. She joined the trust in October 2022 and made her mark straight away. She is one of the most driven and talented individuals I have ever had the pleasure of working with and has an absolute desire to improve the health and wellbeing of our community while ensuring her team is happy and well-supported.
The ability Wiktoria has to be an excellent team supervisor, fantastic colleague and advocate for the trust is what sets her apart as a rising star.
I have learnt so much from working with Wiktoria and have no doubt that in the future she will go on to great things.
Wiktoria was nominated by: Beverley Crossland, One You Team Lead for South Kent Coast and Ashford.
Runners-up: Edward Casement, Administrative Operations Manager, Children’s Therapies and Dawn Ledingham, Neurodiversity Manager, Kent School Health.
Hina joined the network team back in Oct 2022, she moved to England with her young family, new home, new job and new environment — yet she has excelled in her duties at work from the moment she joined KCHFT.
Hina has set ambitious goals for herself and the team, in order to strive for continuous improvement and growth. She upholds high standards in her work and consistently delivers results that surpass my expectations. She is conducting self-study to enhance her skillset. She is always happy to share this knowledge with her colleagues to help eradicate technical bottlenecks within the team.
Hina was nominated by: Culjeet Mann, Senior Technical Architect.
Runners-up: Jennifer Swaffer, Estates Information Officer and Lisa Rye, Administrator,
Community Neuro Rehab Team.
Natalie has been a dedicated volunteer for years. She quietly collects her work for the patients she sees to support them to get active with exercises. She takes time getting to know them to find out what will motivate them to be more active and encourages them to participate even when they are hesitant.
Her calm, gentle manner works wonders to help patients achieve as much as they can and her initiative to involve others in the bay or day room to join in is inspirational.
She is an ambassador for what she does and has suggested others for the role. She is an excellent role model for those joining our team and
we are grateful for how she takes them under her wing until they are comfortable to take on their own weekly shift. An exemplary volunteer we are proud to have on our team and grateful for all she does.
Natalie was nominated by: Judith Hayhow, Senior Physiotherapist, Victoria Hospital, Deal.
Runner-up: Vivienne Webb and Sophie Galvin, Breastfeeding support volunteers and Freddie Wraight, Community hospital volunteer, Westbrook House, Margate.
Carol has been elected as a public governor at KCHFT for more than eight years and we have been very lucky to have her as our Lead Governor for the past two years. Carol is a participation partner, a volunteer gardener at Deal Hospital, a member of our People’s Network, and a lay research champion. These are just a few of the ways that Carol supports KCHFT.
Carol’s knowledge of the trust and its governance is aspirational. We believe that her calm and patient manner helps all who work with her feel comfortable and supported. She is dedicated to the trust and our services, and often goes on visits to services and clinics and feeds back issues and areas for improvement.
Her fellow governors always feel listened to and supported. Carol is truly one of a kind, it is a pleasure to know her and it is a privilege to work with her.
Carol was nominated by: Joy Fuller, Governor Lead, Judith Cramp, Governor Support Administrator and Jan Allen, Staff Governor.
Runner-up: Pat Conneely and Sarah Ansell.
Helen has successfully managed a co-designed project to develop an additional contact in partnership with a local school and their pupils with the aim to improve the heath outcomes for children in Year 3.
She has gone above and beyond to ensure that the voice of the child has remained at the heart of the project and that the creativity and ideas grew from their ideas and what was important to them with their own health.
Helen is a truly worthy nominee and an aspiration to us all in Kent School Health.
Helen was nominated by: Alison Leigh, Clinical Lead for School Nursing.
Runners-up: Maria Wilton-Holness, Admin Manager, Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics and Samantha Leech, Strategic Business Manager, Nursing and Quality.
Sharon is a standout candidate for the health and wellbeing award, embodying the core values of compassion, aspiration, responsiveness, and excellence through her remarkable efforts to foster a positive cultural shift within our organisation.
Her creative solutions to challenges within the team have led to innovative approaches and improved outcomes. She actively seeks input and swiftly takes action to address concerns.
Her proactive initiatives and compassionate leadership have had a profound impact on our workplace culture, fostering a supportive and inclusive environment where everyone feels valued and empowered.
Sharon was nominated by: Osama Sheikh, IT Project Manager.
Runners-up: Sharel Cole, Consultant Advanced Clinical Practitioner in Frailty and Helen Merrick, Health Inequalities and Partnerships Manager.
North East London Dental Outreach Team
The outreach team is a driven, passionate, innovative, aspiring team. It includes drivers, admin support staff, dental nurses and therapists. Their focus is to reduce health inequalities in oral health and prevent dental pain and disease.
Quality improvement sits at the core of everything they do as they strive for excellence. In a bid to reduce the emissions and improve sustainable care the team are looking to engage cycle couriers to deliver school packs/disposable toothbrushes. They have also sourced bamboo toothbrush packs to replace plastic toothbrushes.
In some of the most deprived and diverse areas in England this team targets vulnerable clients so they can achieve positive outcomes in oral health quality of life.
The team was nominated by: Nicola Pearson, Clinical Director, Dental Services.
Faye Grounds, Specialist Practitioner District Nurse
Faye is not only an inspiring specialist nurse practitioner but she helps the team she works in everyday to support and achieve the most compassionate and knowledgeable patient focused care whilst always going above and beyond to achieve this.
Faye specialises in end of life care, she is always compassionate and responsive to the needs of not only the patient but their family and friends as well.
Faye inspires myself and many other members of the team to progress in our nursing careers and I feel very lucky to continue to have her as a mentor and this has supported me to feel more confident and competent every day as a newly qualified nurse.
Faye was nominated by: Emma Hitchin, Community Nurse.
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