Our HSCP’s Staff Awards for Excellence category winners were invited to NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s (NHSGGC) Celebrating Success Staff Awards Event on 4 May 2023. 

At the event the Older People Residential and Day Services and Care Home Liaison Psychology Service, which was our HSCP’s category winner for Innovation of the Year, was announced as Glasgow City HSCP’s overall winner. You can watch a short film about the service.

Our HSCP operates five care homes for older people supporting 550 residents, helping residents to flourish within safe and homely environments. The COVID pandemic had a significant impact on how services have been delivered over the past two years, no less than in how social care staff have responded. The service is supported by over 700 staff.

A key focus for the service during this time was staff wellbeing, and how we could help our staff remain both physically and psychologically well, in order to be able to cope with the demands and pressures of the pandemic.

To do this, the service worked in collaboration with NHSGGC Psychological services to develop a ‘20 Minute Care Space’, which all staff were able to access.

This approach was identified as best practice within the recent Scottish Government publication ‘Healthcare Framework for Adults living in Care Homes: My Health ¬ My Care ¬ My Home’.

Our HSCP’s Chief Officer Susanne Millar; Sharon Wearing, Chief Officer Finance and Resources; Robin Wallace, Head of Older People Residential and Day Care Services; and Dr Melissa Martean, Senior Principal Clinical Psychologist, Care Home Liaison Psychology Service attended the Celebrating Success Event, along with all of Glasgow City HSCP’s local category award winners.

Susanne said: “I’d like to congratulate all of our award winners this year. I was so pleased to be able to be join all our winning staff on the night to hear about their exceptional work. I was particularly delighted that our Older People Residential and Day Services and Care Home Liaison Psychology Service was announced as Glasgow City HSCP’s overall winner. The care space project was an important way of allowing staff to take time out to focus on their own wellbeing, helping them to cope better with the demands of a busy workplace.”

Robin also commented: “I was immensely proud to be able to accept this award on behalf of our incredible workforce in Older People Residential Services. The success of this innovation could only have been realised with their amazing efforts, and I feel honoured and privileged to be able to work alongside them and see the impact that the care initiative has had on their wellbeing at work.”

HSCP staff were also winners in the NHSGGC Excellence Awards

Elizabeth (Liz) Thomson from our HSCP’s Complex Needs Service won the Gold Award in the Better Workplace Category in the NHSGGC Excellence Awards. This award recognises the often unseen work of our staff who help make NHSGGC a better workplace, improving the culture and supporting colleagues.

As part of the Complex Needs Service, Liz went beyond her role as a Health Care Support Worker and provided extra support to fellow staff members through ‘Lizzie’s Lunch Club’.

Liz made sure members of the mental health team were able to get a healthy lunch despite their busy daily schedules. She would use her own lunch break to make sure staff were able to eat properly, even making packed lunches for staff on outreach visits as well as care packages for patients, ensuring they had adequate items at their time of need.

Staff said that Liz’s initiative helped them going through their often very busy days and the fact that she is so giving to colleagues and patients was worthy of special recognition.

Silver winner in the Global Citizenship Category was our HSCP’s Asylum Health Bridging Team (ABT). The AHBT had previously won the Team of the Year category at our HSCP’s Staff Awards for Excellence.

The MV Ambition cruise ship was berthed in Glasgow and accommodated 1,500 Ukrainian refugees from September 2023 to March 2023. Lead Stewart Curtis from the Asylum Bridging Team (AHBT) and colleagues worked extremely hard to ensure there was a streamlined system and processes in place supporting the refugees to access health care. The AHBT were on board the ship providing initial health assessments, translated information documentation, signposting, and supporting the GP registration process. 

As the refugees settle into more permanent accommodation, across NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and other areas, Stewart and his team continue to support these patients and their GP colleagues.

Silver winner in the Volunteer category were the Peer Naloxone Champions, who had also previously won the Volunteer category at our HSCP’s local Staff Awards for Excellence. 

The Peer Naloxone Programme was introduced to combat the drug death crisis in Scotland. It offers training to anyone who might come into contact with someone experiencing an overdose, to be able to administer Naloxone which can reverse overdoses and save lives.

Our Peer Naloxone Champions are volunteers living in prisons who are able to provide crucial training on overdose awareness and Naloxone to prisoners and those leaving prison. This service is unique, and our champions are helping make the communities that people return to safer and contribute to the reduction of drug deaths in Scotland.

Since November 2021, the Champions have trained more than 745 people. There are now 12 Champions working in HMP Low Moss, Barlinnie and Greenock, and together they’re helping equip more people than ever before to save lives.

In the Better Health category, NHSGGC’s Urgent and Unscheduled Care services, which includes our HSCP’s hosted Mental Health Assessment Units and Community Assessment Centre, also received a Silver award

Read more about all the Awards.