Well done to all of our Celebrating Excellence Award winners

Wow what a night! We hope you all enjoyed our virtual awards ceremony and well done to the winners.

David Probert, chief executive, said: “Congratulations to all the winners of the Celebrating Excellence Awards. I know it was incredibly tough for the panel to pick as we had so many fantastic entries this year. Well done to all 1,286 entries this year – it just shows how much brilliant work is happening at UCLH.

“A massive thank you to the staff experience team for organising the event. It was a fantastic way to celebrate all our achievements over what has been a very difficult year.”

Due to the pandemic, the ceremony was held virtually, with guest videos from the UCLH Choir, Chris van Tullekan, and Denis Campbell from the Guardian. There was also a special film remembering the staff we have sadly lost this year.

The full list of winners is here, along with extracts from their nominations:

Safety - Women's Health Safety Team

The women’s health safety team strive every day to ensure safety and wellbeing for our service users across women’s health. Despite a number of challenges this year, the team has taken everything their stride, demonstrating dedication and flexibility at all times – balancing the day to day governance and safety demands with the frequent short notice requests from external parties.

Kindness - Ahmed Al-Hassani

Ahmed has always been a welcoming, approachable person in the workplace, from when he was a SHO to now as a registrar. On numerous occasions he has shown kindness by taking the time to buy patient yogurts and lollies when they have not managed to eat. Although he is humble and does not want this known publicly, he organised small gifts for all the patients at Christmas, delivering them individually on Christmas day. When interacting with colleagues at all levels he is kind and respectable- from the cleaners, administration team, nurses, students and doctors. He naturally makes everyone feel included.

Teamwork - The Paediatric Oncology Consultant Team - Drs Sara Stoneham, Maria Michelagnoli, Ananth Shankar, Rachael Windsor & Trung Nguyen

The Paediatric Oncology consultant team is extremely inclusive, always approachable, who display outstanding leadership. They value all staff and professions regardless of bandings and are a visibly diverse group of healthcare professionals so act as positive role models both as individuals and as a group. They have been central to us developing our services for children with cancer and our profile. As leads and consultants within the service, they have had a huge influence on making the different members of the MDT integral to the wider service. They have supported, encouraged and inspired us to think and aim bigger and higher.

Improving - Ronan Astin, Consultant in Respiratory Medicine

Ronan has led the development and improvement of CPAP pathways, oxygen resilience and the recovery of respiratory physiology services. There is always a focus in every conversation on how the care to patient could be improved which drives everyone to keep getting better

AHP, pharmacy and clinical scientist of the year – UCLH Medical Physics Team

The team is one of the unsung behind the scene teams that helped save the lives of many patients. They worked for days on end setting up ICUs in theatre and T7 and GWB, T6. Never complained and more hardworking than any team I’ve ever seen. They stayed late on Xmas eve and NY Eve. Such a dedicated team, embodying kindness, safety and teamwork. They haven’t been acknowledged enough for their amazing contribution - truly outstanding!

Excellence in digital transformation - The EHR Delivery & Deputy Delivery Manager Team, Digital Healthcare

Marcel Levi and other notable UCLH clinicians wrote external articles on how well Epic was used during the pandemic. This is the management team that made those changes happen to rebuild whole sections of Epic during a lockdown. The team walked out of the office in March 2020 and had to rapidly get their team to work remotely - something they did so well it's now permanent. They also dealt with a massive volume of changes to Epic to support front line services. The scale of digital transformation they achieved in 2020 is unprecedented

Excellence in administration and support - COVID Vaccination Administration Team, Workforce Directorate

This team has achieved the most amazing results, including managing more than 400 vaccinators across a number of different sites. And they always turned up for work every day with a smile and a positive attitude to hep us vaccinate the nation (or at least North Central London).

Apprentice of the year - Laura Bradshaw

Laura is the embodiment of excellence. Laura, the first appointed arts and heritage apprentice within the NHS, has set a trailblazing example. In the short period of time, she has been in post, she has raised the profile of the arts programme and been fundamental in developing Creative Comfort, a creative initiative to improve staff wellbeing, over the COVID pandemic. She embodies the Trusts values: supporting her team and wider trust initiatives; showing kindness to patients, always stopping to talk and help; goes about her tasks in a safe manner and strives to improve the arts programme.

Volunteer of the year - Kiran Patel

Kiran is extremely hard working and reliable. He lets everybody know when he arrives and is always looking to support patients and staff by taking on additional tasks that have a big impact. When we were preparing to move into our new hospital, he volunteered to attend all of the staff familiarisation visits and helped to take staff around on tours of the building. He is always friendly, helpful and works well in our team.

Volunteer of the year - Liane Cusack

In the height of the pandemic, Lee took on not just an FFP-3 fit-testing role, but also our most challenging volunteering role yet, the Family Liaison Officer role. I consider it a privilege to coordinate such a dedicated and generous volunteer. I always receive positive feedback and there is no doubt that she has positively impacted the way many interact with Voluntary Services as a whole.

Volunteer of the year - Hannah Leyton Joyce

Hannah was part of the volunteer team who rapidly stepped up into the role of family liaison and made a tremendous difference to both a patient and staff experience. Hannah is dedicated to this role, she has great compassion and understands the needs of patients, their families and relatives. Her diligence with ensuring virtual calls, F2F visits where necessary and making check calls to those worrying at home about their loved one is just amazing. The positive impact on staff experience also must be highlighted.

Excellence in education - Ben Lovell

Ben Lovell over the past few years has been phenomenal for championing education across both our division and organisation. He is the most engaged Consultant in junior doctor education, development and improving their working conditions and welfare. In the time Ben has been education lead, we have seen our Medical rota become a safe and stable rota, dedicated daily teaching being organised for our entire MDT workforce, robust and engaged supervision of our junior doctors by the consultant workforce and collaboration with our medical teams across the tower and emergency floor.

Nurse/midwife of the year - Josephine Oamen

Her passion for her role is truly inspiring. She always seeks to motivate and improve the experience of the midwifery team. During the course of the pandemic Josephine has supported her colleagues both in and outside work, she has taken up the role of well being champion within EGA, she has put herself forward as the chair for the Trust BAME network, she champions improving health and safety for staff within the department. Her commitment and energy that she gives to the workforce is very impressive.

Top quality patient care - Family Liaison Team, Critical care

The pandemic affected all of our lives- none more so than the relatives and loved ones of our most vulnerable and critically ill patients. The FLT provided a much needed link between the patient and their loved ones who weren't allowed into hospital whilst they were severely unwell and often dying. The team , made up of people from many teams, many different specialties and many different grades of staff came together as one, the historical differences between nurses, doctors, AHP's and managers were forgotten in the genuine desire to put the patient first. They recognised a need, they gave a tremendous amount of themselves and in doing so gave those relatives and loved ones support, compassion and a vital link to their person when they couldn't be there themselves.

Junior doctor/dentist of the year - Bethan Goulden

Beth is an embodiment of all of the Trust values from the moment she arrives for work to the moment she picks up her bag to go home. Nothing is ever too much for Beth. She is like a walking encyclopedia who is cohesive, polite, reliable, a good listener and communicator, and an empathetic clinician. She copes well under pressure and has on numerous occasions carried the burden of trainee cover alone, during unforeseen periods of low staffing levels; with grace and diligence. Beth has a pleasant disposition and would be the kind of doctor every sick patient would wish to have by their bedside when facing an acute or chronic illness.

World class research - COVID research team

The staff who led and delivered Covid Research at UCLH – the UCLH Research Division, The Biomedical Research Centre, the Clinical Research Facilities, the Joint Research Office, the Vaccination research centre, the research delivery staff deployed to support research on the front line, research support services in imaging, pharmacy, diagnostic laboratories, our patients and staff who volunteered to be participants in Covid research, and finally our communications team who kept staff and the public informed about the breakthroughs as they emerged.

Excellence in ancillary and estates - Domestic Services team – All UCLH sites

The Domestic services team have been on the front line throughout the whole pandemic, very scared at first, not clinically trained and not understanding the full impact of Covid. They have cleaned the hospital every day in order to keep our patients and staff safe, been through change after change and often in full PPE to carry out " normal, back breaking" labour intensive cleaning.

Patient nominated living the values - Jignasa Modha, Anaesthetic consultant, Theatres

she made me feel very at ease and helped me with my fears of being put to sleep when I came in for my major operation. She is very kind with a heart of gold and very caring and listened to me and respected my wishes. She was with me every step of the way from being put to sleep and staying with me until I was settled in ICU and waited with me until my mum was allowed to be with me. I couldn’t have asked for a nicer person to put me to sleep. She made my experience a lovely one. It’s nice to say I have overcome my fear now of being put to sleep.

The Chair's award - The Security Team, UCLH

Chief Executive's Award - Gee Yen Shin, Consultant Virologist, UCLH

Joint Chair and Chief Executive's Award - Jane Keep, Head of Staff Experience

Special recognition award - Phase 4 Grafton Way Building

Special recognition award - All of the UCLH vaccination team