Safety

For teams or individuals who improve the safety of colleagues, service users and carers.

Pak Chiu, winner of the 2011 Staff Recognition Awards for Safety

Winner: Pak Chiu

Pak is a Specialist Support Worker at Atlas House our inpatient unit for people with a learning disability and challenging behaviour. He was nominated for his outstanding contribution to patient care and safety using accessible care plans which help prevent and manage violence and aggression. The care plans promote a positive non-physical approach to respond to challenging behaviour including improving the patient’s environment, using diversionary tactics, breathing exercises and active listening.

He was nominated by his manager who said “We at Atlas House all believe that Pak really deserves this award. Primarily because his contribution has been very significant in ensuring that staff have the right skills and confidence to work with patients with challenging behaviour. Pak will always go the extra mile to support both staff and patients no matter how busy he is. We are really proud of him.”

Pak’s work has also been recognised by the British Institute of Learning Disabilities. He was invited to present his work at their national conference and was a runner up in their national award scheme.

Infant feeding advisors, Liz Ginty and Janet Blake, at IndigO2

Highly commended: Infant Feeding Advisors

The Infant Feeding Advisors in Greenwich Community Health Services were nominated by a colleague for their “long and sustained campaign to promote breastfeeding and give support to breastfeeding mums.”

They run successful breastfeeding support clinics across the borough of Greenwich. As a result of the team’s hard work the number of mothers who start breastfeeding and the number who continue to do so has increased. The nominator said “This has been an immense piece of work over many years and as someone who has worked in Greenwich for over 20 years, the results have been incredible.”

All of the staff have received UNICEF training and their excellent work has been recognised as the team have been assessed and accredited as Baby Friendly level 2. The ‘Baby Friendly Initiative’ is a worldwide programme set up by the World Health Organization and UNICEF. It was established in 1992 to ensure a high standard of care in relation to infant feeding for pregnant women and mothers and babies. The team are about to go for level 3 (the highest) accreditation.

Commended: Marcia Cambridge

Marcia works as a community staff nurse based at Florence House in Bexleyheath. She is part of a small team who provide 24 hour intensive support to some of the most vulnerable people in the borough of Bexley. The team’s support enables them to live in their own homes. She was nominated by her manager who praised her “extraordinary maturity in her approach to her clients and their families, her colleagues, and to her own professional development.”

Marcia was praised for the way she has taken on the care coordination of clients on community treatment orders using her “combination of excellent engagement skills, assertiveness and flexibility.” “Marcia has managed not only to remain on extremely good terms with these clients but has worked with them in a way that they both feel involved in decisions about their treatment and not restricted by their Mental Health Act status.”

Marcia went out of her way to put together an “innovative and unique care and contingency plan” to enable one of her clients to go on holiday for two weeks in Spain. She renegotiated treatment dates; researched the local area for nearby hospitals, clinics and pharmacies; provided details of medication translated into Spanish; and provided the client with a mobile phone with DISH contact details on which the client was contacted daily to monitor her mental health and check she was taking her medication. Marcia also made herself available to fly out at short notice if necessary.

“Marcia always goes beyond the requirements of her position in time, commitment and effort.”

“A woman who, some years ago, lost everything following the onset of her illness, now has tangible hope of returning to a normal life, enriched by her new home (which she and Marcia worked closely to establish), her friends, her leisure activities and closer ties with her family. This is the mark of a quality service outcome.”

“I, as a nurse with 27 years experience, have rarely found such commitment to client care and professional development in a fellow nurse and, until now, have never found it in such a recently qualified nurse.”