CARES Award for Attitude Winner: Stroke Unit Team
The CARES Award for Attitude is for striving to understand others’ needs and responding with care, compassion and professionalism.
This accolade was given to the Stroke Unit Team for their outstanding response to a number of challenges thrown their way over the past 12 months.
Senior physio Debbie Nielsen, who wrote the nomination, said: "I have worked on the Stroke Unit since 2010 and I feel the current team deserve some recognition. We have faced many changes with at times both ward manager and one of our consultants on extended leave so it has been a time of many changes.
"However, the team has always pulled together. Dr Basaam Aweid has done an amazing job – listening, teaching and supporting the team. He has an amazing attitude towards team working and making everyone feel valued. But one man alone doesn’t make a team without the others around him.
"The team led by Emily Hodgkinson meet every month and strive to improve the service we deliver with several service development projects always on the go.
"Our team is due to change shortly with several key members due to rotate to other areas or leave the Trust for pastures new but it would be a shame for them to go without recognising all we have achieved together.
"Madeleine Gifford (PT) has done an amazing job flying the flag for falls prevention. When we moved to the new build, with more side rooms and more space, also unfortunately came more falls.
"Maddie took this information and completed an audit comparing old unit with new, looking for trends and identifying areas of improvement. We now use falls monitors, have a system of identifying who is appropriate (or not) for sideroom and have same day falls huddles to de-brief and learn from them.
Everyone is valued and it is a lovely team to work in
"Helen Gratrick (OT) has been working on length of stay projects. She has also set up and established an art group along side therapy assistant Maria Robinson in response to the new stroke guidelines that stipulate increasing therapy intensity through group work and self directed exercise.
"It also has a big impact on wellbeing and social interaction on the ward. These are just a few examples but the team is always making improvements.
"The attitude of the staff is a reflection on the whole team and the environment we work. Everyone is valued and it is a lovely team to work in."
We managed to pull together as a team to turn everything around
Dr Aweid added: "Myself and the Stroke Team were really honoured to be nominated. We really felt this was due to a very difficult year where we went through the pandemic, there are doctors' strikes, and a really challenging ward move.
"It's amazing that despite that, we managed to pull together as a team to turn everything around the other way where we tried to reduce our falls, work as a team to support each other and achieve a lot of improvement projects.
"It's really great that has been appreciated."