"INSPIRATIONAL" WINNERS OF 2003 HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE AWARDS

2 Jul 2003 09:15 AM

Physio who gives hope to patients after surgery and social worker for vulnerable children win outstanding achiever prizes for excellence

Health and social care professionals who have pioneered new and imaginative services for their patients led the way in the prestigious NHS Health and Social Care awards which were held in London last night.

Physiotherapist Lorraine Clapham, who brings new hope to people suffering facial paralysis after neurosurgery through her unique cosmetic salon, "The Face Place", received her outstanding achiever award from Health Secretary John Reid.

Top achievement awards also went to consultant Dr Arun Baksi, who has spent 25 years building up diabetes services; social worker Sue Allan, whose beacon service has made a real difference to children and families in need; consultant midwife Faye Macrory who has transformed attitudes to drug dependent mothers giving birth in Manchester; and Rita Butcher who has championed the voices of mental health service users.

Around 800 applications were received for the awards which form the centrepiece of NHS Week. TV personality Gary Lineker, who was the host for the event, and John Reid gave out prizes to 18 winners including Newham Diabetes Service for Team of the Year (health) and Aldine House Secure Children's Centre in Sheffield who were Team of the Year (social care). Over 30 other schemes were commended as finalists in their categories.

The Health Secretary revealed that he had commissioned a major conference and exhibition to coincide with NHS Week 2004. " This will celebrate and spread good practice in the NHS and Social Care and provide further inspiration and education for all staff in the health service. I look forward to seeing several thousand delegates, not only from NHS and Social Care but also from overseas, coming together to learn, share and build on all that is best in Britain's health service," he said.

John Reid said he was delighted to be able to acknowledge and congratulate everyone who entered this year's awards for their outstanding achievements and he hoped they would be an inspiration to all. " Tonight is a chance to celebrate the incredible work that you and your teams do across the NHS and Social Care. These services are vitally important to our communities. It is right for us to say thank you to all of you for your dedication and commitment to the health and wellbeing of this country.

"Over two and a half million people rely on the dedication and expertise of health and social care professionals every day. These awards represent the pinnacle of that effort. Skill, ingenuity, commitment and passion - these are just some of the qualities commended by the judges, not only among the winners but all the finalists. All of you are outstanding achievers. You represent the best that the NHS and Social Care has to offer, " he said.

Award winners also included the Direct Access Cataract Service in Peterborough which has cut waiting times for cataract surgery from 52 weeks to a maximum of eight weeks; the Paramedic Practitioner, Older People's Support scheme in Sheffield which enables 60 per cent of older patients to be treated at home instead of in A&E; and the innovative Jackdawe Service for dementia home care in Nottingham.

A full list of winners is attached.

Notes For Editors

1. This was the third annual Health and Social Care Awards organised by the Department of Health, and is the centrepiece of NHS Week which runs from 30 June to 6 July.

2. The finalists were selected by a national assessment panel, chaired by David Fillingham, Director of the Modernisation Agency. Each winner receives £15,000 towards further development of services and an engraved award, finalists receive a certificate to mark their achievement.

3. Photographs of all winners will be downloadable from
http://www.doh.gov.uk/healthandsocialcareawards later today (Wednesday 2 July)

4. Further details on The Third Annual Health & Social Care Awards 2003, and the full list of finalists can be found at
http://www.modern.nhs.uk/healthandsocialcareawards

1. Category Outstanding Achiever Award - Doctor

Winner Dr Arun Baksi
Consultant physician
Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Trust

Consultant physician Dr Arun Baksi has devoted 25 years of his medical career to improving care for diabetes patients on the Isle of Wight.

The 64-year-old built a service from scratch after recognising that there was no formal service for people diagnosed with the condition.

His ambition led to the opening of a purpose-built £250,000 diabetes centre in 1991. It houses a multi-disciplinary team enabling patients to be cared for in a one-stop shop. Dr Baksi is a pioneer of the expert patient concept. He has overseen a training programme for diabetes patients to become expert in their own care. "We have about 30 expert patients and my vision is to have at least two in each GP practice."

Dr Baksi launched the first national conference on diabetes education in 1982 - the 22nd will be held this October.
In 1984, he launched the journal Practical Diabetes.

2. Category Outstanding Achiever Award - Allied Health Professional

Winner Lorraine Clapham
Superintendent physiotherapist
Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust

Lorraine Clapham's dedication and foresight have meant huge improvements in the rehabilitation of patients with facial paralysis.

For the last five years superintendent physiotherapist Lorraine, 51, has worked tirelessly to bring about an innovation in Southampton which she would love to see replicated across the country.

The Face Place is a clinic dedicated to the treatment and care of patients with facial paralysis such as Bell's palsy. Other patients she sees have paralysis after brain surgery where the facial nerve is also affected.
Patients attend the clinic for rehabilitation and beauty treatments including facial massages and make up sessions.

3. Category Outstanding Achiever Award - Nurse

Winner Faye Macrory
Consultant nurse/midwife
Central Manchester & Manchester Children's Hospitals
University NHS Trust

Services for drug dependent women in Manchester have been transformed thanks to the efforts of consultant midwife Faye Macrory.

The 48-year-old has been prepared to challenge and change attitudes to ensure a better deal for women with a history of substance misuse.

Her work has helped turn around the way the women are treated across three maternity hospitals in the city. Babies of substance misusing mothers are no longer automatically transferred to a special care baby unit but looked after by their mothers on the ward. Social services referral is no longer automatic but based on individual assessment.

"The aim has been to ensure that these mothers feel part of the mainstream service," said Faye. "We want to create a bridge for them to our very good NHS."
Faye's desire to improve the service was triggered in 1994 when she carried out an audit and concluded that maternity services were failing these women. She became a drug liaison midwife in 1995.

She is responsible for managing and strategically developing the service - a model of care that is now standard practice in many maternity services nationwide.

Faye, who was awarded an MBE in 1997 for services to health care, said: "Now that women know that they will be treated the same as everyone else, they are keen to access maternity services. Staff at all levels no longer judge women by the myths and stereotypes associated with substance misuse."

4. Category Outstanding Achiever Award - Social Worker

Winner Sue Allan
Service manager (resources)
Southampton City Council

Sue Allan is behind a number of groundbreaking services that have made a significant difference to the lives of hundreds of vulnerable children.

The 49-year-old 's commitment to developing services for young people has helped cut crime, school truancy, substance misuse and sexual offending, as well as improving children's mental health and resilience.
In 2000, Sue formed Southampton's Behaviour Support Service, an NHS Beacon Status service for children with severe mental health needs. During her time as a social worker she had experienced first hand the lack of multi- agency therapeutic intervention available for children and decided to set up a service to address this need. She has worked with families to assess what would make a difference to them.

An independent evaluation of the service highlighted positive outcomes for the 190 children served so far. Last year, Sue, along with service users, social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, education workers and primary care staff developed a joint venture between local employers and the city council that provides work placements, shadowing, mock job interviews and business mentors for care leavers.

5. Category Outstanding Achiever Award - Wider Health and Social Care Team

Winner Rita Butcher
Volunteer, Working Together Development Group
MIND in Tower Hamlets

Rita Butcher's experience of inpatient mental health services prompted her to help other service users in east London.

The mother of five opted to work in the field of mental health in the mid-nineties and has been a volunteer ever since.

Rita, 57, runs many groups and attends many meetings in her drive to ensure the voices of mental health service users in Tower Hamlets are heard. Despite being diagnosed with diabetes and a heart problem, she spends almost every day working towards her aim of empowering users. She is joint chair of the Working Together Development Group which brings together users and the local mental health trust.

Rita previously worked in the youth and community sector but set out to learn new skills in her bid to help mental health service users.

Whilst she is a committed volunteer, she would dearly love to get employment doing what she does now.
Rita said: "It's great being able to be a voice for people and see changes are being made."

6. Category Team of the Year Award - Health

Winner Newham Diabetes Service
Newham Healthcare NHS Trust

This dynamic service brings primary and secondary care together to serve all sections of the community and tackle social exclusion.

The diabetes service is a large team of more than 40 committed health professionals who work across boundaries with the local community to provide quality diabetes care. It has already made dramatic inroads on waiting times.

Community clinics, staffed by GP specialists, are supervised by a community consultant. Initiatives to meet the needs of the local population include ethnic link workers, preparatory workshops for the Muslim Haj pilgrimage and Ramadan leaflets.

The team has pioneered a number of diabetes awareness and screening programmes working jointly with voluntary groups.

Walking groups such as the Newham Striders have been set up through health improvement funding, to encourage people to take exercise. A similar group for Asian women is being led by one of the team's nurses in her spare time.

Dr Susan Gelding, consultant diabetologist, said: "Work goes on across specialties, with joint clinics reducing the number of visits patients have to make.
"A key benefit is that waiting time for diabetes referrals has been cut from 22 weeks to four weeks for urgent referrals."

Contact: Dr Susan Gelding 0207 363 8812, Comms,
Catherine.Howard@newhamhealth.nhs.uk

Winner Aldine House Secure
Children's Centre
Sheffield City Council

This team has transformed a secure children's centre under threat of closure into an impressive learning unit.
Violence has been cut by 85 per cent, young people are achieving exam results higher than expected, behaviour and attitudes have improved and crime has reduced.

Aldine House opened in 1997 but by May 2000 the Social Services Inspectorate issued a five-week licence to Sheffield Social Services Directorate to improve the unit or face closure.
The management team was reduced and more frontline staff recruited to give young people more time with staff.

Now an award winning and accredited exam centre, Aldine House, received it's first three year licence in July 2001 after major changes in staffing, education, management and services, which have received local and national recognition. Individual and group self-management and social responsibility programmes for children have brought positive changes in often damaged young people. Centre manager Francis N'Jie said: "Our education staff have created a centre for learning that young people, even those with previously poor commitment, attendance and achievement levels, are attracted to. Many young people leave our care having made significant improvements."

8. Category Improving Working Lives Award

Winner Podiatry Flexible Working Scheme
Knowsley Primary Care Trust

The Flexible Working Scheme aims to increase patient access, improve the working lives of staff and modernise services.
It allows staff to identify their preferred working pattern, setting the total hours they want to work in each year.

Staff choose their pattern and their clinical commitments are arranged around this. No two members of staff work the same hours. The scheme was developed to increase recruitment and retention of staff within the podiatry department, since there is a limited supply of podiatrists available to work in the NHS locally.

Samantha Ashton-Mort, acting head of podiatry, said: "Staff report high levels of satisfaction with the scheme. Some have reduced childcare costs, have more time with their children and increased leisure opportunities."
The scheme offers a wide availability of appointment times (8am-8pm Monday to Friday, also open Saturday).

Many patients have welcomed this since they can now attend before or after work and older patients have found it easier to arrange a relative to bring them to clinic.

"It has been so successful that the PCT is now looking to widen the scheme to include other staff groups," said Wendy Pickard, deputy director of service provision.

9. Category Heartbeat Award - Coronary Heart Disease

Winner Dr Peter Randall, heart care initiative
Isle of Wight Primary Care Trust

Two years ago the Isle of Wight Primary Care Trust fell a long way short of the gold standard on resuscitation. Less than half of its 21 surgery buildings had both the equipment and capability to respond in an emergency. Today it's a very different story.

In an initiative led by Dr Peter Randall, and aided by a grant from the New Opportunities Fund, the PCT has now equipped all its practices, branch surgeries, the out-of-hours GP service, three prisons and the cardiac rehabilitation service Heart Care Club with defibrillators, 100 per cent oxygen, rechargeable suction apparatus and a programme of six-monthly life support training.

Significantly, the island's only PCT, serving a population of 300,000 - rising to two million in holiday season - has also moved from being the worst performer on prescribing cholesterol-lowering therapy in the country to being within the top 25 per cent of prescribers.

PCT chief executive David Crawley said: "It's been a tremendous team effort."

10. Category New Hope Award - Cancer

Winner The Teenage and Young Adult Cancer Service, Leeds The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Teenagers and young adults with cancer and their families from across Yorkshire are benefiting from a specially designed service that delivers expert medical, therapeutic, supportive and social care in a 'home from home' setting.

The six-bed Teenage Cancer Trust Unit was developed within the Paediatric Oncology Unit at St James's University Hospital, Leeds, four years ago. It is run in partnership with staff, patients and their families.

Patients are provided with information about all aspects of their disease and its treatment, in ways that will be understood by them. They are encouraged to lead and direct their treatment, aided by professionals.

Macmillan clinical nurse specialist for teenagers and young adults Sue Morgan said: "In essence the service aims to give all these young people a voice and a choice in their care. Staff become their advocate and following referral, support the young patient and their family through the entire cancer journey."

11. Category Lifeline Award - Mental Health

Winner Service Development Team
Somerset Partnership NHS and Social Care Trust

An imaginative multi-agency partnership has created a full range of accommodation for people with mental health problems.

The trust's service development team has worked with partners in a cross-county special needs housing group. This includes five district councils, social services, probation workers, a supporting people team, health and housing corporation and voluntary and private sectors. It provides settled, secure accommodation for patients.

A rehabilitation unit has been renovated and turned into an assessment unit enabling patients to be moved easily to supported housing.
Funding has paid for three supported housing projects for people with mental health problems and another one for people with eating disorders. Two more schemes are due to open in 2003-2004.

After consultation the trust transferred two rehabilitation units to a housing association to give patients high quality accommodation with tailored support. Four tenancy support schemes have been created to offer adults help in their own homes as well as a supported landlord scheme across Somerset.

The trust's director of operations and service development Diana Rowe said: "Our aims have been to promote the principles of recovery by placing the user at the centre of the care and support the services provide.
"Improvements in the quality and range of accommodation and the support offered to providers has enabled people with serious and enduring mental health problems to maximise their potential."

12. Category Children's Awards- Children

Winner Viv Parker, Respect, Children & Young People's Rights Service Croydon Council

For the last three years staff at Respect have worked tirelessly to protect young people's rights and promote their involvement in all issues and decisions affecting their lives.

Respect is the children's and young people's rights service for the London Borough of Croydon, offering essential knowledge and advocacy for a wide range of young people, including those in care or who have left care, asylum seekers or those who are disabled.

In addition to manager Viv Parker, an administrator and three children's rights officers, the team includes two project workers - Nila Watson and Alex Suddaby - with direct experience of the care and disability systems.

Viv said: "All these young people, aged five to 21, belong to the most marginalised and socially excluded groups in society. We exist to make sure they are safe and to give them a loud and powerful voice."

13. Category Children's Awards- Young people

Winner Children and Young Person's Smoking Cessation & Prevention Initiative
Knowsley, Merseyside
Knowsley Primary Care Trust

A schools-based smoking cessation project in Knowsley has so far helped 85 per cent of young people using the service to kick the habit or cut down dramatically, and is helping to provide evidence that projects like this work.

Knowsley has one of the highest rates of smoking among young people of school age - 13.7 per cent compared with the national average of 10 per cent.

The Knowsley Children and Young Person's Smoking Cessation and Prevention has been expanded to youth and community centres outside school hours.

Assistant director of public health Liz Gaulton said:"Young people are motivated to stop smoking and many are confident enough to self refer to the service. With the right support they can give up, despite peer pressure."

14. Category Queen Mother Award

Winner The JackDawe Service
Nottingham City Council Social Services

Specialised home teams are helping people with dementia live at home longer. The JackDawe Service was set up to deal with the unique needs of people with dementia living in the community.

It is staffed by home care workers, community psychiatric nurses and occupational therapists - all with a specific interest in the client group and specifically trained in this area.

The service's aims include: helping people with dementia to remain living safely in their own homes; improving their quality of life and that of their carers; addressing social inequalities to help people maintain links with the community; and improving links with other health professionals.

Service user Audrey had not been out of her home for several months when the JackDawe Service first became involved with her. Her JackDawe carer knew she loved dogs and - after obtaining permission - brought her own dog into work one day. Audrey and her carer walked the dog together, something that Audrey now does on a regular basis. She is now meeting neighbours she hadn't seen for months while out on the walks and her well-being is said to have improved phenomenally.

Nottingham City Social Services and Nottingham City Primary Care Trust older people's services lead Shirley Smith said the project, initially only a pilot, is so successful it is now being rolled out across the PCT area.

15. Category Older People Award

Winner County Durham Care - Extra Care Scheme
Durham County Council

Older people are enjoying more independent lives under this scheme to provide a modern alternative to traditional residential care.

The Extra Care Scheme enables residents to have their own front door, safe in the knowledge of 24-hour back up should they need it.

Southfield Lodge, in Crook, provides them with their own flats alongside communal areas, and staff are on-site to help when needed. The scheme has made a positive difference to the lives of all Southfield Lodge's tenants. They are more independent, have more privacy and can take more responsibility for their own care. Debbie Richardson, team manager for Durham County Council's home care service, said: "It's absolutely remarkable the difference it's made to their lives."

16. Category Frontline Award for Emergency Care

Winner Paramedic Practitioner, Older People's Support (PPOPS) South Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust

Older people in Sheffield with minor injuries are being spared the trauma and upheaval of hospital through a scheme that has also reduced pressure on accident and emergency.

Around half of the patients who require care are now treated at home under the Paramedic Practitioner Scheme, a joint initiative between South Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust, Sheffield City Council's social services and the Northern General Hospital's accident and emergency department.

Paramedics have undergone extra training in a range of skills including identifying the need for X-ray, suturing wounds, administering drugs, such as antibiotics, and assessing head injuries.

A&E nurse consultant Julie Perrin said: "This has made a big difference for older people as most of the time they don't want to come into hospital and it helps preserve their independence. "Carers and nursing home staff don't have to accompany patients to hospital. And paramedics have more job satisfaction as it has increased their knowledge and enabled them to use their full range of skills."

17. Category Fast Track Award for Improving Waiting Times

Winner Direct Access Cataract Service
Peterborough Hospitals NHS Trust

Waiting times for cataract surgery in Peterborough have fallen from up to 52 weeks to a maximum of eight thanks to the Direct Access Cataract Service. Patients now no longer have to attend up to nine hospital appointments before they have surgery and instead have just two - the first on the day of surgery itself.

The service followed an examination of the patient pathway by the hospital's transformation team and ophthalmology department.

It gives community opticians responsibility for most of the pre-operative procedure, including giving advice on consent, explaining surgery and providing patients with an information leaflet and health questionnaire.

The patient chooses their operation date, which is booked from the optician's surgery and pre-operative assessment is done on the telephone by nursing staff using the information provided by the patient on the health questionnaire.
Patients are discharged within an hour of surgery and are seen a week after the operation at a nurse-led clinic.

Project manager Sarah Butler said: "The hospital and local opticians have worked together to provide a service that has had a dramatic effect on waiting times and reduced the amount of inconvenience for patients."

18. Category Primary Care Award

Winner Multi-professional Continence Team
Chorley & South Ribble Primary Care Trust

This is the first team in the UK to combine nursing, occupational therapy and physiotherapy services within a PCT continence advisory service.
It was formed in 2000 to focus on promoting continence rather than incontinence management.The project provides patients with direct access to specialist continence physiotherapy clinics and specialist continence occupational therapy assessments.

This includes access to the UK's first female urinal lending library, allowing patients to try different types of equipment before they buy.They can also get advice from different health care specialists. District continence adviser Ian Pomfret said: "Specialist continence clinics have made a positive step towards actively promoting continence rather than the more traditional incontinence management role.

"The team has been visited by health care professionals from all over the UK and Australia, who are looking at setting up similar services."
The team has published nine papers describing its findings and experiences in professional journals and spoken at regional and national conferences about