Partnership staff had their achievements recognised at the Glasgow City HSCP Staff Awards for Excellence 2019 on 19 September. The Awards celebrate individual staff, teams and projects who have ‘gone the extra mile’ in their work in a number of categories. 

In total seventy-six nominations were received from across Glasgow City HSCP.  

The winners and commendations were as follows:

Category 1 - Our Patients, Service Users and Carers

This category recognises staff supporting out patients, service users and carers, and for support that goes the extra mile to meet their health and/or social care needs.

In this category, a commendation was awarded to:

•    the Ear Care Microsuction Service within Treatment Rooms in Glasgow City.

Treatment Room Services undertake ear care and where appropriate ear irrigation. 
Ear microsuctioning has now been introduced as a service within Treatment Rooms. This has many benefits such as reduction in time spent managing ear wax impaction, reducing risk and increasing patient and staff satisfaction.

The category winner for Our Patients, Service Users and Carers was:

•    Glasgow City HSCP Prescribing Support Team within South Locality for their project ‘Medication Review of Patients with Lung Cancer.’

The Glasgow South Prescribing Support Team has worked hard to successfully set up and deliver a referral pathway that allows patients with lung cancer attending secondary care to have their medicines reviewed in primary care in their GP practice.

So far 77 drug related problems for 22 patients reviewed have been resolved, and savings of £68.87 per patient/year have been achieved due to reducing unnecessary polypharmacy.
This pilot is a prime example of improving patient care through intra- and inter-professional working across not only primary and secondary care but also across the organisational boundaries of health and social care.

Category 2 - Our People

This category recognises staff supporting a positive workforce where staff feel listened to and valued, or going the extra mile to support the people who we work with to meet their needs and improve our services, with an emphasis on joint, collaborative working.

In this category, a commendation was awarded to:

•    Frances McColl, Social Worker and Mental Health Officer.

Frances’ work ethic encompasses social work practice that often goes above and beyond the call of duty. There are many examples of her positive engagement with others but one recent example demonstrates this in abundance. 

Frances worked with a gentleman who sadly passed with no family or friends.  Frances arranged his funeral and organised a public appeal in the paper and online through social media in a search for old armed forces comrades and friends to attend his funeral.  The story appeared in many local and national newspapers and there was a huge turn-out for the service user.

Frances is an example of an exceptional practitioner and mentor – who has never lost her heart for people in a professional world.  This has created a positive image of working with vulnerable people of the local community and bringing them together to celebrate the lives of each other.

And a second commendation goes to:

•    Brian Wilson, Home Carer who sadly passed away in June 2019.  

Brian received multiple expressions of support from colleagues. Brian was a very well-respected member of our team of home carers in the Castlemilk Area, and he was very well-liked by both his service users who he supported and his colleagues.  He always had a smile on his face, although he suffered from severe pain from sciatica. He was a very good carer, and having worked with him on many occasions, colleagues commented that he was kind and thoughtful and would always go that extra mile for his service users and colleagues, including during staff shortages. .

The category winner for Our People was:

•    Callum Lynch, Development Officer supporting the Glasgow Young People's Champion's Group.

Callum is one of Glasgow’s care experienced young people, and feedback shows that he’s an inspiration to other young people. Callum has significantly increased the membership of PAC, Glasgow’s Young People’s Champions’ Group, and he’s enrolled the support of many colleagues within the HSCP and partners from many of the corporate parent organisations.

Callum encourages people and organisations to do as much as they can to make sure children and young people feel in control of their lives and able to overcome the barriers they face.

Category 3 : Our Leaders

This category recognises staff leading and managing with vision and imagination, with a drive to do things differently to provide a better service and improve outcomes for our patients, service users, carers and other stakeholders, with an emphasis on joint, collaborative working.

In this category, a commendation was awarded to:

•    the UNICEF Baby Friendly Gold Award Work Programme

Glasgow City HSCP leads for Infant Feeding have shown exceptional leadership to achieve the UNICEF Baby Friendly Sustainability Gold Award, a UK wide accreditation.  The leads include:
•    Christine Walker, Health Improvement Senior (North East)
•    Tricia Mostyn, Health Improvement Senior (North West) and
•    Lesley Ann Currie, Health Improvement Senior (South).

The three localities achieved their gold awards between December 2018 and March 2019.  This achievement was the culmination of a very significant body of work in each locality, as the Gold Award can only be applied for after a two year period of sustaining the Baby Friendly standards and this being successfully reassessed.The staff leading this ably demonstrated an ability to go the extra mile and the corporate value of ‘we work as one team.’

The category winner for Our Leaders was:

•    the Chara Centre.

The Chara Centre is a Homelessness Emergency Assessment Centre for women.  The Centre provides an excellent service, to many homeless and vulnerable women, and the accommodation provided is of a very high standard.

Staff encourage the women to join in with many others in house activities including exercise classes, yoga, day trip outings, gardening, singing and song writing, arts and crafts. This benefits the women by building their confidence and self-esteem, allowing them to move onto permanent housing.

As a team, the Chara Centre staff go above and beyond in providing an excellent service for their service users to help them through an extremely difficult time in their lives.  This is an excellent example of staff being an inspiration to others.

Category 4 : Our Resources

This category recognises staff improving the way in which we as a Partnership do things with our resources so that we are better at what we do to meet people’s needs.  This includes staff, buildings, equipment and information.

In this category, a commendation was awarded to:

•    Frances Paton, Business Intelligence Manager

Frances has provided the Winter Flu Vaccination Team with an electronic solution that is multi-functional and streamlines the flu vaccination process for people who can’t manage to get out of their own homes.

The category winner for Our Resources was:

•    Glasgow City HSCP Home Care Services’ Large Scale Recruitment Project

They have won the category for the hard work and dedication they provided to reviewing and revising the way that home care recruits new staff in a very time-pressured and high-volume campaign.  The teams worked extremely hard to meet the demands of the project to get a successful marketing campaign up and running, processing 1,733 notes of interest and 1,392 applications, interviewing 356 applicants and recruiting a team of 274 new home carers to date.

Category 5 - Our Culture

This category recognises staff contributing to developing a partnership culture where there is more listening, more reflection and better working in our own teams and with other teams.

In this category, a commendation was awarded to:

•    Brenda Bissett, Blood Bourne Virus Nurse at HMP Barlinnie.

Brenda has a large case load of patients being treated with Blood Bourne Viruses. She has helped hundreds of men change their life for the better.  For young men with a Blood Borne Virus diagnosis who have been treated and given the all clear, she works in conjunction with their addictions and is able to help them stay off drugs or be stable on a methadone prescription.

Brenda is a valued colleague within HMP Barlinnie; with her knowledge, experience and work ethic she has been able to change not just patients’ lives but the lives of their partners and families.  

The category winner for Our Culture was:

•    Anne-Marie McAuley, Community Nursery Nurse in the Springburn Health Visiting Team

Anne-Marie was nominated seven times by various Health Visiting staff. Anne-Marie works extremely hard to promote change in our communities and goes above and beyond to support parents and promote child development.  Anne-Marie always accepts her tasks no matter how busy she is, and she always finds a way to help families, working especially hard with those who are reluctant to accept support.

Everyone in the area that she has worked with without exception has nothing but praise for her.  Families will often phone her for reassurance, after her task is complete.  Anne-Marie regularly goes the ‘extra mile’ in order to ensure families receive the best care enhancing their ability to integrate into the community for the benefit of their child.

Overall Winner

The Overall Winner this year, who won the Our Leaders category, was the Chara Centre.

Simon Carr, Chair of the Integration Joint Board closed the event. He said:
“The quality and range of nominations, commendations and category winners, all of us here today are winners in making what the HSCP is to date, and for supporting the planning and delivery of health and social care services with and for the people of Glasgow.

“We continue to do this in creative and innovative ways, especially in situations where there may be additional pressures.  Underlying all of this without question is your drive, passion, dedication and commitment to improving the health and wellbeing for the people of Glasgow."