Royal United Hospital staff recognised with prestigious awards

Staff at the Royal United Hospital in Bath have been recognised for providing the highest standards of care, compassion and innovation.

The Echocardiography team was named as Team of the Year | Photo © RUH

More awards than ever before were presented on Friday 12th May at Bath Pavilion, selected from over 120 nominations in 16 categories.

Hospital staff were thanked for making a difference for the people they care for, the people they work with and people in the wider community.

The Echocardiography team working in Diagnostic Cardiology was named as Team of the Year for embedding a responsive and supportive culture, creating the conditions for the whole team to perform at their best.

As a result, the service has been accredited by the British Society of Echocardiography, and was commended in a number of areas.

The team’s commitment to training has been particularly highlighted, including work to grow the sonographer workforce for the future against a national shortage.

The award for Most Innovative Team of the Year went to the Eye Unit nursing team for transforming the pre-operative process for patients who need cataract surgery.

The nursing team learnt new skills to allow them to do more checks in a single appointment, avoiding additional visits for patients. This helps patients get the care they need more quickly, as well as being more environmentally friendly with less travel.

The team also created its own in-house training course for nurse injectors and is now delivering 150 sight-saving injections per week.

Other award winners included:

• Volunteer of the Year Mark Kendall for selflessly donating his time to the Acute Stroke Unit after being cared for there himself;
• Learning and Development Lead Hugh McKinney who won the Working with Our Community Award for reaching out across the local area to engage young people in NHS careers;
• Junior Sister Patsy Boyd who won the Lifetime Achievement Award for her 51-year NHS career mentoring and developing thousands of nurses while providing outstanding patient care;
• Clinical Practice Facilitator Mary Jane Paclar, who uses her personal experience of joining the NHS from the Philippines to inspire healthcare assistants from abroad to follow their professional ambitions to qualify as nurses.

The Chair’s Outstanding Achievement Award was presented to Consultant Anaesthetist Jerry Nolan, who is an international leading light in resuscitation science, benefiting countless NHS patients and their loved ones.

The Chief Executive’s Award was presented to Charge Nurse Leigh Ingham for his exceptional clinical acumen and outstanding examination skills.

Leigh was praised for always going the extra mile to listen and provide the gold standard of patient-centred care.

Staff were also recognised for 25, 35, 45 and 50 years of service.

Alison Ryan, Chair, said: “It was an honour to celebrate so many inspirational and dedicated colleagues in roles right across the hospital. Much of this fantastic work goes unseen but makes such a difference.

“We have a vision at the RUH to be a place where every single person knows and feels that they matter, and our awards ceremony was a chance to recognise the many, many different things that our wonderful colleagues and teams to do make that a reality.

“On behalf of our Board of Directors, I’d like to congratulate all our winners, and those who were deservedly nominated too. We are very proud.”