AHP day is a national opportunity to celebrate and appreciate the roles of the 14 allied health professions and demonstrate their significant impact on patient care. These awards aim to celebrate our AHPs at CUH and their vital impact and contribution they make in improving the health and wellbeing of the population we serve.
Assistant Practitioner of the Year
Emma Sharp – Dietetics Admin Co – Manager
“Emma is a star who is also 'The Guru' and central to the smooth working of the clinics within the Department.
I would like to personally congratulate and nominate her for the smooth running of our department owned and booked clinics - this is no mean feat and is relentless and ever expanding!
“She works tirelessly making useful suggestions, whilst booking large patient numbers and create a clinic effortlessly, despite all the paperwork required to set up new clinics and services.
Band 5 AHP of the Year
Jo Byers – Occupational Therapist
“Joanna came to shadow the OT dept 3 years ago, to explore the role of becoming an OT. 3 years and a Masters later she is now working in the team.”
Her professionalism, hard work and dedication to promoting the role of OT has been inspiring. She has involved herself in the IHI project, reviewing falls on the wards and the AHP day.
Band 6 AHP of the Year
Hannah Chandler - Cleft SLT
“When we had to switch to entirely virtual consultations due to the pandemic, which none of us had ever done before, Hannah threw herself in to developing resources to support online SLT intervention with children in our region. Using the tools available to her (PowerPoint and the internet), she developed child-centered and even personalised activities with animations to enable the intensive, multiple repetitions required in cleft SLT which are usually achieved through play.
“She has since presented these to the national clinical excellence network of SLTs working in cleft receiving a number of requests from around the region and country to share the resources which she was very happy to do.
Her work has therefore benefitted children with cleft related speech difficulties widely, as well as her national colleagues. She perhaps underestimates how good this innovative piece of work was.
“Hannah was recently successful in being awarded a competitive Health Education England, East of England pre-masters clinical academic internship. She is already using this opportunity to learn skills to help move patient care forward using best evidence and has emphasised throughout the application process that she wants to do projects that inform our work and could make a difference to patient care and outcomes.
“In addition to the specific examples above, Hannah's overall contribution to our service should not be underestimated. We are a small team covering a big geographical region with a heavy clinical caseload. Despite the challenge of a steep learning curve since joining a specialist service for the first time, she has been an outstanding team player, innovative, positive, flexible, always willing to cross-cover for other people when needed and pick up new challenges or take on additional projects contributing to service developments.
Team Leader of the Year
Emma Thompson – PT
“Emma is a fantastic physiotherapist with a wealth of knowledge and experience. While she is excellent in passing on this knowledge to her team through clinical teaching and case discussions, she also creates a working environment whereby every member of the team is valued and where knowledge sharing is encouraged for all.
“She continually provides members of the team with resources and advice as to where they can find information to develop their practice and there is always a great sense of self-improvement within the team.
“The neuro physiotherapy team have faced many challenges over the past few years, mainly pertaining to staffing levels not matching the needs, quantity and complexity of the patient caseload.
‘This year, she took the lead in a brilliant project, analysing the service we currently run against previous years (4 years’ worth of work being brought together) and was able to complete a staffing project which demonstrated just how important therapy is for a patient journey and the hospital function.
She proved that with increased physiotherapy input, we can greatly improve patient outcomes, as well as significantly reducing length of stay and ongoing inpatient rehab needs.
“All of this she does with great positivity, friendliness and passion. She is driven to improve the service for the hospital, for patient outcomes and for her team. She is an inspiration for all who work with her and I believe she should be recognised for the incredible work that she is doing.
AHP Team Award
Dietetics MODEL – DT
“The Department of Nutrition and Dietetics MODEL team (Metabolic, Obesity, Diabetes, Endocrine and Lipids) epitomise the Trust values and all criteria for this award.
“The MODEL dietetic team are a key member of the service which was rated best in the country and 20th in the world in the Best Hospitals in the World for Diabetes & Endocrinology.
“Sara Hartnell leads the team by example. The team have a positive, can-do approach to challenges. Patient care is at the core of their decisions.
The team are passionate about supporting and implementing the fast- paced advancements in diabetes technologies and treatments. Throughout COVID they have continued to participate in life changing research for people with diabetes. Sara has contributed to five research papers and with Dr Charlotte Boughton will be presenting research for the artificial pancreas at the next Medicine for Members lecture.
“MODEL make a significant contribution to a service rated best in the country, work flexibly and collaboratively to change practice and contribute to life changing innovations. I recommend them for this award.
AHP COVID Response 2021
David Monk - Ops Manager – ED
“In the initial weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic David led significant changes at CUH, this included the relocation of the minor injury and illness area from the Emergency Department to the urgent treatment centre creating additional resuscitation space for the expected surge.
Achieved through his leadership of trust wide support services who would not normally be within David scope of responsibility, from start to finish it was completed in under a week and was achieved through his knowledge of stake holder engagement and change management.
“In parallel he led the consolidation of the three Cambridgeshire minor injury units to one site at height of the pandemic these sites are delivered by another NHS Trust but who work on behalf of the NHS trust David is employed by but are commissioned by Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group, this is therefore a complex commissioning and service delivery arrangement.
“The units serve a population that is vulnerable and classified as socio and economically deprived, as a result the consolidation onto one site was also politically sensitive. This change ensured robust, resilient services and extended hours of opening as well as releasing highly experienced nursing staff to work on community hospital wards to help with the decant of acute hospitals.
“David has jointly developed a video consultation service for patients with minor injuries (operating at peak hours) to ensure that only those truly needing emergency department care reach hospitals with others seen in alternative settings or treated with self-care advice.
“This has continued on the joint working established in the above project and continued stakeholder engagement. Reduction in attendances has led to better resource availability for acutely ill patients during the pandemic and cost savings for the wider health system with alternatives to ED costing less.
“David recognises the value to visible leadership and staff engagement, rewarding and thanking team members for their contribution to the team goal and more importantly to patients. The understanding of high performing teams based on his OU MBA studies and professional certificate in health service management. Throughout the pandemic David has arranged for his teams from a variety of donors including work perk.
Chief Nurse Appreciation Award
Rachael Green - Deputy lead OT
“Rachael re-joined the occupational therapy (OT) team In April 2000, as an interim deputy.
“Rachael embraced the challenge and in the last 16 months has gone from strength to strength. She has taken on board the necessity for data to take forward the aspirations of the occupational therapy team and has become the departments guru.
“She has led and taken forward a number of initiatives and projects such as the redeployment of OT into EIT, better communications with other therapy counterparts in the community, joint PT/OT working to name a few. She has also been inclusive to others in the OT department and has allowed band 5's and 6's to take the lead in the project with the community.
“She was awarded the opportunity to take part in the IHI 'coach training' and has up skilled herself on all things 'transformation' wise.
I cannot thank her enough for all of the support she has given me and the department .