NHS to celebrate ‘health and care heroes’ with parliamentary awards

The NHS has today (4 March) launched the NHS Parliamentary Awards 2020, to celebrate and give national recognition to staff who go above and beyond the call of duty. There is a category for Mental Health. Click here to access government news website. Click here to award site

Kate Granger Awards recognise inspirational healthcare staff and volunteers spanning 70 years of the NHS

A nurse who started training in 1948 is among the inspirational people and teams receiving special recognition for their dedicated services to the NHS spanning seven decades.
This year’s Kate Granger Compassionate Care Awards, announced at the 2018 Health and Innovation Expo at Manchester Central, were given to individuals, teams and organisations who demonstrate outstanding care for their patients. Click here for full details

2018 Clinical Excellence Awards

The 2017 Clinical Excellence Awards Round results were announced in late December 2017. ACCEA have now announced that the 2018 round will open on Tuesday 13 February 2018 and will close on Thursday 12 April 2018.

2018 Healthcare Science Awards launched

Applications are now open for the 2018 Healthcare Science Awards. The awards recognise the contributions made by healthcare scientists in pushing boundaries to deliver transformational patient care.  There are nine categories that make up the awards.

• Healthcare Scientist of the Year Award
• Healthcare Science Rising Star
• CSO Shirley Fletcher Apprenticeship Award
• CSO Equality and Diversity Leadership Award
• Innovation in Healthcare Delivery Award
• Excellence in Health Research
• Excellence in Education Delivery
• Developing Partnerships to Improve Outcomes

RCOphth and NIHR launch Researcher of the Year Awards 2018

The Royal College of Ophthalmologists and The National Institute for Health Research are pleased to announce the opening for applications of the 2018 RCOphth / NIHR Researcher of the Year awards.

HSJ Awards winners announced

The winners of the Health Service Journal (HSJ) Awards 2017 were announced at a ceremony held at the InterContinental hotel in London. The awards highlight examples of outstanding practice and innovation that help to safeguard and improve patient care across the NHS.

Physiotherapy app wins top rehabilitation award

A physiotherapy company specialising in the assessment and treatment of musculoskeletal conditions has won the Rehabilitation First training award for its ‘one-stop shop’ healthcare app.

The device includes a secure self-help and education website as well as tailored video exercise regimes, instant messaging, blogs and webinars.

It also offers a visual triage service which enables clinicians to see their patient and make a detailed on-the-spot assessment of their condition. They can then send patients tailored video exercises and check on screen they are being followed correctly.

Advancing Healthcare Awards 2018

Entries are now open for the Advancing Healthcare Awards 2018.

In its 12th year the awards are open to allied health professionals, healthcare scientists and those who work alongside them in support roles, and aim to recognise and reward those projects and professionals that make a real difference to patients’ lives.

Nominations are welcomed from individuals, teams and patients, service users and carers. With four new awards, there are now 14 categories in total, with the overall winner announced at a ceremony held on 20 April 2018 in London.

The deadline for entries is 5pm on Friday 19 January 2018.

Shortlist of nine inspirational nominations for Kate Granger Awards

Nine nominees make up the final shortlist for this year’s Kate Granger Compassionate Care Awards.

The finalists were selected from 117 entrants in the three award categories. The shortlist is made up of three nominees in each of the three award categories. The first award is for an individual working in the NHS or delivering NHS funded services. The others are for teams or organisations who are part of the NHS, or who deliver NHS funded services. These services can be delivered in hospitals, or in a primary care, community or residential setting.

Awards recognise best use of patient feedback

NHS England is backing awards to recognise the best initiatives to improve NHS services through the use of insight and feedback from patients and staff.

The “using insight for improvement” category of the Patient Experience Network National Awards 2017 opened for entries on 31 July and will close on 24 November. 

RCoA/NIHR Research Awards 2017

The RCoA is pleased to announce three joint awards in conjunction with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network (CRN). The awards are designed to recognise NHS clinicians (consultants and trainees) who are making outstanding contributions to clinical research, particularly in relation to NIHR CRN portfolio research studies.

Applicants must be NHS clinicians (clinical academics are not eligible) and must be a fellow or member of the RCoA. Clinicians can enter under one of three categories: consultant (including SAS), trainee (individual) and a new trainee network category.

Each award carries a £1,000 prize. Complete this short application form to apply. The deadline for applications is midnight on Friday 3 November 2017.

Freedom to Speak Up awards and new inspection guidance for guardians

The National Guardian's Office has launched new Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) 2017 awards to recognise and celebrate the fantastic work being done in NHS trusts to improve the culture of speaking up.

The five FTSU award categories are as follows:

• Freedom to Speak Up Guardian or Network of the Year
• Speaking Up – the Freedom to Speak Up communication award 
• Speaking Up Together – the Freedom to Speak Up partnership award
• Learning from speaking up – the Freedom to Speak Up learning award
• Leading the change to speaking up becoming business as usual

Fizzyo wins top tech health award

A physiotherapy-inspired computer gaming project for people with cystic fibrosis was chosen out of about 200 entries as the winner of the AbilityNet Tech4Good digital health award.

The idea behind the Fizzyo project is simple: to make physiotherapy breathing exercises fun – and encourage people to do them. It puts a wireless sensor into the mouthpiece of a conventional airway clearance device. As the user exhales, the sensor sends electronic signals that control computer games.

Sir Peter Carr Award winners announced

Dr Rachel Pilling, a Consultant Ophthalmologist, and Daniel Wadsworth, Deputy Head of Access at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, impressed judges with their project idea “15 seconds – 30 minutes”. This encourages NHS staff to complete a small task today, that might take 15 seconds but may save colleagues 30 minutes by avoiding further tasks down the line. The initiative aims to reduce frustration at work, increase job satisfaction and as a result improving patient experience.

Funding available to improve analytical capability in health and care services

The Health Foundation has launched a programme to support analysts working on healthcare projects to improve analytical capability.

£400,000 of funding is available to support up to six projects across the UK over 15 months. The deadline for applications is midnight, Tuesday 25 July 2017.

To find out more and to apply, visit: www.health.org.uk/advancing-applied-analytics

Send us your compassionate care award entries!

The call has gone out for more entries for this year’s Kate Granger Compassionate Care Awards.

The Chief Nursing Officer for England, Professor Jane Cummings, urged people to nominate colleagues and teams, while also revealing the entry closing date has been extended to 10 July.

NICE launches a competition for developers of healthcare technologies

NICE Scientific Advice has launched a competition for small or medium sized companies, charities and academic research groups, who are developing transformative products that have the potential to change patients’ lives and/or save the NHS money.

The NICE AdviSeME Prize is open to products (pharmaceuticals, devices, diagnostic test/tools, cell/gene therapies, healthcare apps) in the early clinical stages of development. To be considered the technologies should demonstrate clinical credibility and target a population with a high unmet clinical need. In addition they need to have a potential beneficial impact on either; survival and/or health-related quality of life, costs to the NHS or the use of healthcare resources and/or access to healthcare.

The winner will receive a free Light Scientific Advice Service from NICE, usually costing £15,000.

NHS England’s Chief Scientific Officer’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership winners announced

NHS England, in partnership with the National Measurement System (NMS) has announced the winners of its first Chief Scientific Officer’s (CSO) Knowledge Transfer Partnership Programme.

The bespoke 12 month development programme gives clinical leaders in healthcare science the opportunity to create, test and implement innovative ideas to improve patient care and identify new approaches to measurement and outcomes.

The programme involves collaboration at a senior level with partner organisations across the UK’s National Measurement System (NMS) at leading centres of excellence in science and technology. It is designed to enable senior healthcare scientists to remain in clinical service whilst building long term partnerships between clinical, research and industry teams.

This collaboration and learning from other science led organisations is crucial to putting science and innovation at the heart of the NHS, delivering the next steps on the five year forward view and ensuring sustained improvements to scientific services for patient benefit.

Projects led by physios triumph at HSJ awards

Physiotherapists were among the winning teams at this year’s Health Service Journal (HSJ) Value in Healthcare Awards, which celebrates outstanding efficiency and improvement in the NHS.

They included a physio-led team from Leicester, which won in the training and development category of the awards.

Diabetes Education

The Effective Diabetes Education Now (EDEN) team from Leicester Diabetes Centre, a collaboration between the local NHS trust and university, received recognition for developing pioneering technology for a diabetes training programme for healthcare professionals.

The team are using artificial intelligence algorithms to generate course recommendations for diabetes training, and to monitor response rates and the training needs of thousands of healthcare professionals.

Standardising chemotherapy doses

A physio-led team from NHS England were named the winners in the pharmacy and medicines optimisation category of the awards.

The team were recognised for their work to standardise chemotherapy drug doses across England, through the implementation of a standardised approach to dose banding.

Diagnostic ultrasound physios

A team of extended scope physiotherapists, from Homerton University Hospital NHS Trust in London, received recognition for providing point-of-care diagnostic ultrasound in the community.

HSJ Value in Healthcare Awards 2017: Emergency, Urgent & Trauma Care

In November 2014 Sherwood Forest Hospitals was the second to the bottom in the ED four-hour target performance in England. The ED department had been rated as ‘inadequate’ for safety in 2015 and the trust had 17 patients breach 12 hours during December 2014 and January 2015.

The trust recognised that this was not just a problem for ED to solve and so created the Emergency Flow Programme, which is organisation wide.