‘High Five’ at national patient experience awards for Team NUH
Innovations and best practice in patient experience and involvement at Nottingham’s hospitals resulted in five national awards in one day – including Trust of the Year.
Innovations and best practice in patient experience and involvement at Nottingham’s hospitals resulted in five national awards in one day – including Trust of the Year.
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) is celebrating the perfect day after stealing the show at yesterday’s annual Patient Experience Network National Awards (PENNA).
In addition to winning all of the three awards it was shortlisted for, NUH also received the Trust ‘Best in Class prize and was named the overall winner for an initiative called Carer2Theatre which has helped to reduce patient anxiety by offering better emotional support through reassurance and familiarity during their journey to theatres. Vulnerable adult patients can now be accompanied by a relative to the theatre department and anaesthesia room, where appropriate.
The PENNA Awards are the first Patient Experience awards in the UK, and celebrate all of the outstanding work delivered by those in this field within the health and social care industry. In an incredibly successful year for entries, this year’s awards recognised all of the excellent work that happened across Patient Experience throughout 2018.
NUH was shortlisted in three categories at this year’s ceremony, including for (1) our Memory Menu, (2) our Carer2Theatre initiative, (3) our Chief Nurse Excellence in Care Fellowship Programme and scooped all three awards.
The ‘Engaging and Championing the Public Award’ category was won by the NUH Memory Menu, a menu that was developed in collaboration with the local community across Nottinghamshire, and which was praised in the Trust’s recent Care Quality Commission inspection report as ‘outstanding’ practice.
Chris Neale, Assistant Head of Facilities at NUH, said: “Our Memory Menu was a new initiative that saw us design a hospital menu by asking patients to tell us what they want to eat when they feel poorly and are in our hospital. The Trust’s vision of putting patients at the forefront of our decision-making was the driver of the Memory Menu and the Catering Team already had a strong relationship with patient groups, including food quality tasting sessions.
“Food is medicine, but it also has a huge impact on our health and emotional wellbeing. Making sure patients are well nourished is an important part of their recovery.”
Trish Cargill, Chair of NUH’s Patient Partnership Group, who presented the NUH Memory Menu at yesterday’s awards ceremony on behalf of the Trust, said: “I’m still on cloud nine. It was an inspirational day and for me it was a privilege to be part of such a fantastic team and to be able to present. I’ve never been part of something so fantastic and to actually have the ability to present after winning was incredible.
“Communities put together what they wanted to go in the menu, so the people of Nottingham have developed and continue to develop the menu. The people’s menu won a national award!”
The Trust’s Chief Nurse Excellence in Care Junior Fellowship Programme was the winner of the ‘Using Insight for Improvement Award’. This initiative aims to empower and develop frontline Nurses, Midwives, and Operating Department Practitioners with the leadership and academic skills needed to drive excellence in care.
Dr Joseph Manning, Charge Nurse in our Paediatric Critical Care Outreach Team at Queen’s Medical Centre’s Nottingham Children’s Hospital, said: “It is a true honour to be recognised by PENNA for some of the fantastic work we are doing at NUH. This is further testament of our commitment to excellence in care for our patients and their families as well as staff satisfaction.
“We are blown away to not just have been the winner of our sub-category (Using Insight from Staff Feedback) but also the winner of the overall category, Using Insight for Improvement, for the Chief Nurse Excellence in Care Junior Fellowship Programme. This is recognition for our commitment to supporting our frontline staff to develop and lead change to improve patient experience and outcomes. A huge thanks goes to the leadership and support of our senior nursing team, Chief Nurse, and to the inspirational fellows themselves.”
Ann-Marie Riley, Deputy Chief Nurse at NUH, said: “Nottingham is a national leader in developing innovative solutions to further improve patient experience and involvement and these awards are testament to the fantastic work we do here. I am so proud of the teams for all they have achieved and incredibly grateful to our absolutely fantastic Patient Partnership Group who are an inspirational and hugely committed group of patients and critical friends who work alongside us to support our determination to continuously improve patient care, quality and services collaboratively with those who use our services.”