Excellence Awards 2023 Team/service
Excellence in improving use of resources
Improving our use of resources is one of our strategic objectives. This award was for a team or service that identified a need to improve their use of resources and can describe how they tackled the problem and how the outcome was evaluated.
Highly commended
Implementation and success of international nurse recruitment
The Trust’s drive to recruit overseas mental health nurses supports the reduction of vacancies across the Trust and widens the Trust’s workforce diversity. The campaign involved creating a brand new international recruitment function, including in-house training and ongoing pastoral support. The Trust has recruited almost 54 mental health nurses (highest in the area) so far, with around 100 nurses in the pipeline who have accepted conditional offers. International nurse recruitment now accounts for almost 25% of the Trust’s total nurse starters in a year. In such difficult times of recruitment in the NHS, the Trust is going from strength to strength and is now widening international recruitment to include other professions.
Winner
Calderdale and Kirklees CAMHS ADHD non-medical prescribers, ‘Maximising and streamlining service delivery’
In response to growing demand for ADHD services for assessment and treatment of children/young people across our region, the service invested in existing staff and supported their professional development through achieving qualifications. The non-medical prescribers have also been at the forefront of the development of the ADHD nurse led triage service and CAMHS physical health monitoring tool, which is now live on SystmOne. The team have used and streamlined existing resources and processes to maximise and improve service delivery in line with Trust values, developing a cost-effective and efficient service that is responsive to service user and family needs.
Excellence in improving care
Improving the quality and experience of all that we do is one of our strategic objectives. This award recognised an excellent project or initiative that identified an area where quality and/or experience needed to be improved, set objectives and delivered these. This category includes work undertaken by non-clinical teams that impact on quality and experience of care.
Highly commended
Kirklees individual placement and support service, ‘Job’s a good one in Kirklees’
The Kirklees individual placement and support service (IPS) supports people with serious mental illness to compete for, obtain and sustain employment opportunities. IPS offers individually tailored support to help people to choose and find the right job, with ongoing support for the employer and employee. The service underwent its first external Fidelity Review conducted by IPS Grow in October 2022 and was awarded 109 points out of a possible 125, – a ‘Good Fidelity’ rating. The team also secured the IPS Grow Quality Kite Mark. Since its launch, the Kirklees IPS service has supported 76 individuals accessing secondary care mental health services on their journey towards competitive paid employment, and to date has achieved 25 paid employment starts including roles in the Trust.
Winner
Wakefield CAMHS eating disorder team, ‘Delivering family therapy for anorexia nervosa’
All staff within the team have attended training for the family therapy approach to anorexia nervosa. The programme is delivered as the first line of treatment to any children or young people referred to the eating disorder team. The approach allows parents to take the lead in supporting their children, with staff offering a flexible outreach approach. Since the training was introduced, there has been a dramatic decline in the requests for mental health inpatient beds, with no inpatient requests for over 6 months due to the positive working ways and consistent approach with the model. Inpatient stays have also reduced not only admission but the length of stay, improving relationships with acute trusts.
Excellence in improving health
Improving people’s health and wellbeing is one of our strategic objectives. This award was for a piece of work that evidenced how it has improved the health and wellbeing – or reduced health inequalities – for people who use our services, their carers or people who live in our local area. It could also be for work that has improved the health and wellbeing of our staff.
Highly commended
Barnsley school aged immunisation service
This team of nurses and healthcare support staff deliver a variety of vaccinations to children from reception to 16 years old. Their aim is to ensure all children are given the same opportunities to receive vaccinations and to do this, they often have to look at new ways of working. Some of the challenges they face include language barriers, children that have gone into care, and children with specific needs. To make a better experience for these children, the team have purchased a medical device used to block pain which has been very successful with needle phobic patients, introduced storyboards to communicate with autistic children, and is looking at new ways of working with people who are non-English speaking. They have already had some really positive feedback.
Winner
Kirklees physical health and wellbeing team, ‘Improving health outcomes for people with serious mental ill health’
The physical health and wellbeing team in Kirklees deliver physical health care checks, coproduce physical health care plans and helps service users access physical health care services. In a short period, they have supported people who may not have had access to primary care to address some serious health concerns including diabetes, cardiovascular disease and respiratory conditions. Nationally, individuals with serious mental ill health are not always offered appropriate or timely physical health assessments despite their higher risk of poor physical health. The new service has helped achieve the national key performance indicator for annual physical health care checks in Kirklees for the first time.
Partnership working excellence
Presented to a service or team who have evidenced excellent partnership working, this award highlights the impact of working with others. It could be that projects or initiatives needed internal partnership working or that they teamed up with external organisations or groups to achieve objectives.
Highly commended
Barnsley virtual ward pathway, ‘True joint working to deliver a virtual ward service for our patients in Barnsley’
The virtual ward supports patients to be discharged home earlier or prevented from going into hospital. Every patient is supported by a hospital consultant, specialist nurses in community and virtual ward nurses who provide monitoring via telephone. This team is wrapped around the patient to deliver hospital level support in the place they call home. The team have regular meetings and weekly pathway discussions to ensure they are providing the care people need. Since its launch in October 2022, 115 patients have been supported by the virtual ward team. Staff work together as a team to overcome issues and act as a collective for the benefit of doing the right thing for patients.
Winner
ADHD and autism service, ‘New autism assessment pathway in Bradford’
The team is working with Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust to deliver a new autism diagnostic assessment pathway to help reduce waiting lists for autism assessments in the Bradford area. Together, teams have devised an electronic referral process and developed the pathway to include a face-to-face referral appointment with an autism specialist which has improved efficiency. Prior to the collaboration, the waiting list for autism assessments in Bradford was reduced by approximately 45 cases per year. Since the partnership began last summer, the waiting list has already reduced by over 120 cases. In addition, the success of the waiting list project has led to a long-term partnership that will eliminate the waiting list within 3 years.
Equality and involvement excellence
This award was for any service or team who demonstrated excellence in supporting equality and diversity, and in involving people who use our services, carers or staff. Entries described how they established relationships, supported or involved people from different backgrounds and how co-production, engagement and involvement contributed to improved outcomes.
Highly commended
Wakefield Future in Mind mental health support team, ‘The introduction of new ways of engaging and sharing good practice to school leadership teams to support children and young people’s wellbeing across the district’
Each term, the Wakefield Future in Mind team invite school leads from across the district to attend engagement events. The events are hosted in a school which can showcase its journey of working jointly alongside the team. School staff have limited opportunities to meet peers from other settings, so the events provide a space for shared learning and reflection. A core aim of the events is to promote sharing good practice, so that schools can learn from one and other and feel empowered to make positive changes in their own settings. The team reached 45 school staff members from 28 different settings, and they have already seen visible changes being made in many education settings where staff attended the events.
Winner
Equality, involvement and inclusion team, ‘Forensics animation’
The forensics animation shares the example of a journey a person may follow if they are admitted into a forensic ward and the support, care, and treatment they will receive. The Trust captured a diverse sample of people’s stories to provide a wider understanding of experience. Interviews gave current inpatients and carers an opportunity to narrate their own story using a series of prompts – this was a new involvement approach. The animation is an accessible communication tool which can be used by staff to support people who are detained and their carers, and is accompanied by the welcome booklet for the ward so that everyone receives the information they need. The animation has also been translated into BSL and the most frequent language requests for forensic inpatients.
Social responsibility and sustainability excellence
This award was for a service or team who have worked with partners and as part of the wider healthcare system to create sustainable outcomes and positive opportunities for everyone. It was aimed at any projects which deliver socially responsible outcomes (e.g reduce poverty in communities), have a positive civic and cultural impact (e.g improve health inequalities through active engagement with the arts), and improve the natural climate for service users, staff and the wider community (e.g. helping the Trust to become carbon net zero and improve local air quality).
Highly commended
Live Well Wakefield, ‘Social prescribing model’
Live Well Wakefield’s social prescribing service works with people aged 18+ to explore and address non-clinical needs by using voluntary, community, and social enterprise (VCSE) services. This reduces pressures on health and social care systems and supports people to move away from medical models. The team complete an overview assessment with patients and support is offered to address their social, physical, and environmental needs. Live Well Wakefield has received over 18,000 referrals since 2017 and in 2021 won Best Larger Social Prescribing Project at the National Social Prescribing awards. They have offered support to over 3,800 patients in the last year – 85% of clients reported an improvement in their overall wellbeing, and 93.5% of clients achieved their personal health and wellbeing goal.
Winner
Mental Health Museum, ‘Our green year’
In 2022 the museum brought a special focus to their work inspired by the history of early hospitals using green spaces therapeutically, developing initiatives that helped service users access the grounds at Fieldhead in Wakefield. The museum’s Wildlife Club met each month from early summer to carry out activities including a bug hunt, butterfly spotting and tree seed planting linked to the NHS Forest initiative. The team’s Grow-along project involved distributing packs of seeds to wards, schools, members of the public and community groups. An online community developed as participants shared their progress. ‘Our green year’ has enabled the Mental Health Museum to engage with service users in new ways, with feedback showing that people have enjoyed the sense of purpose and positive effect on wellbeing the activities had.
Chair and chief executive’s award
Electronic prescribing and medicines administration mental health inpatients (EPMA)
Over the last 12 months, the EPMA team have successfully rolled out the electronic prescribing and medicines administration system to 89% of inpatient beds. This has included setting up, testing and configuring the system, designing and delivering training, planning and supporting go lives, and updating, developing and improving the system in response to clinical feedback. The system has already led to a significant reduction in medication incidents such as illegible prescriptions, missed doses and doses given at the wrong time compared to paper prescription charts. On top of this, it has also made prescribing and administration processes much more efficient.
Find out about all our shortlisted finalists in our brochure.
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