Glasgow City HSCP’s (Health and Social Care Partnership) Staff Awards for Excellence 2024 took place as a virtual event this year on 13 March. The awards recognise and celebrate individual staff, teams and projects who have ‘gone the extra mile’ in their work in a number of categories.

Both health and social work staff working within our HSCP were eligible to be nominated. There was also a category for volunteers, for which individuals not employed by the HSCP could also be nominated.

The overall winner for our HSCP will be announced in the summer at the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s (NHSGGC) Celebrating Success Awards

This year’s awards were hosted by our HSCP’s Chief Officer, Susanne Millar, and the Chair of our Integration Joint Board (IJB), Councillor Chris Cunningham. Along with them, Sharon Wearing, Chief Officer, Finance and Resources; Gary Dover, Assistant Chief Officer, Primary Care and Early Intervention and Julia Egan, Chief Nurse announced category winners and commendations.

Susanne said: “I’m genuinely delighted to take part in our staff awards, and it’s one of the events in my calendar that I look forward to each year. It’s so important for us to take time to recognise our staff and appreciate the work that they all do. To pick people out is really challenging. They’re all winners, and people have taken time to write these nominations to show how much they appreciate the work that they all do and how they have a positive impact on our colleagues, patients, service users, carers and their families. Thanks and huge congratulations to you all.”

We received 115 nominations from across the HSCP. After reviewing and shortlisting the nominations, a judging panel shortlisted 50 and made awards and commendations in each of the five categories.

Team of the Year

Winner: Martha’s Mammies

Martha’s Mammies is a voluntary support service available to women in Glasgow who have recently lost the care of their children through Child Protection processes.

The service is a multi­disciplinary team who work with small caseloads of women to be able to offer flexible, intensive and adaptive support to respond to their needs. It includes physical, sexual and mental health and wellbeing services and therapeutic groupwork.  It aims to work in a trauma informed way to address underlying needs and risks associated with the women’s lifestyles.

Commendation: Staff of Stobhill Hospital Mental Health Wards

Stobhill Hospital Mental Health wards - Ailsa, Appin, Armadale, Broadford, Elgin, Isla, Jura, Portree and Struan all serve as a beacon of excellence in mental health rehabilitation, embodying a commitment to holistic care, patient empowerment and compassionate support. Positive feedback from patients, their relatives and external assessments show a commitment to enhancing patient experience and a culture of continuous improvement.

Leader of the Year

Winner: Rose Traynor, Team Leader, South Mental Health Services

Rose’s enthusiasm and leadership style has been a great inspiration and support to her team. During the past year there have been significant challenges within Mental Health Social Work Services, and she has continued to support and promote her team to achieve positive outcome for those they support. 

She encourages good practice, good values and professional development and a commitment to the service.  This creates a positive and nurturing environment and ensuring colleagues are supported. 

Commendation: Duncan Campsie, Manager, Asylum and Refugee Services

Duncan has shown by example how to respond to a crisis situation and supported his team to develop the necessary skills to provide a professional and responsive service.  He has been at the forefront of resettlement work in Glasgow and has excellent working relations with both staff and other agencies and shares his knowledge and expertise to benefit his team.

He has supported staff through the challenges of a new team in unprecedented times and has a commitment and passion for his work.

Employee of the Year 

Winner: Thomas Higgins, Senior Residential Practitioner

Tommy has worked in children's residential services for many years working in several of the children's houses across the city and has dedicated his working life to supporting some of our most vulnerable care experienced young people.

He has played a pivotal role in reshaping and delivering the Promoting Positive Behaviour (PPB) training for Children's Residential Services and represents Glasgow on the PPB Board with other local authorities.

In his role as a Senior Residential Practitioner, he has helped young people to flourish and realise their potential and nurtured them with care, enabling some of them to better understand the trauma they have experienced.

Commendation: Dr Kay McAllister, Consultant Gynaecologist in Sexual & Reproductive HealthCare, Sandyford Clinic

Dr McAllister has developed services to support women to access sexual health services including gynaecology in a community setting. She has championed early access to good information and support for women experiencing the menopause, including offering specialist care when needed.

She has supported the Healthy Working Lives Staff Agenda by undertaking many teaching opportunities for managers, occupational health and HR to support women in the workplace with menopause. Innovation has been shown in her approach to supporting Primary Care by establishing an email service for GPs to contact Sandyford staff, for specialist advice for their patient’s experiencing menopause. Support from GPs in response to this service has allowed them to be able to treat their patients without onward referral into secondary care or to Sandyford.

Volunteer of the Year

Winner: Sarah Donnelly and Sara Delaney

Both Sarah and Sara are lived experience volunteer mentors who support the work being done within Tomorrow's Women Glasgow and Martha's Mammies. 

Both women have transformed the team and are highly motivated to support the women working with these services. They give up their time to attend various groupwork activities and support the delivery of the programme and identify women who may require additional one­-to-­one support.

They recognised the need for recovery support and helped establish the development of a Recovery Cafe within the Lilias Centre Community Custodial Unit in Maryhill. This café aims to work with women in custody to ensure that they’re supported to maintain a drug and alcohol-free lifestyle that helps to prevent reoffending behaviour. 

Commendation: Jamie Philips

Jamie is a project worker who goes above and beyond supporting service users accommodated at Rodney Street Homelessness Assessment Centre. He spends a great deal of his own time as a volunteer encouraging service users to attend the Firhill Complex to learn football skills and take part in the Homeless Football Team that he helped develop. Jamie has also played in the team winning several awards with the service users. 

He also successfully set up a cycling group with service users and they build bikes and arrange trips together. This breaks down barriers, improving confidence and promoting wellbeing for those who attend this multi-cultural group.

Innovation of the Year

Winner: Chalk the Walk Project -­ North East Health Improvement Team

For World Suicide Prevention Day on 10 September 2023, the North East Health Improvement Children and Young Peoples Team (NEHIT) asked local youth providers to take part in an event, ‘Chalk the Walk’, to help shine the light on suicide prevention. Suicide was identified as the leading cause of death (25.7% across the 5 to 24 age group).

Working with Health Improvement Team staff, local youth organisations encouraged young people to use chalk, to beautify their community, with images and messages of hope, resilience, suicide awareness and prevention. The youth organisations then posted pictures of their artwork onto their social media streams and tagged @NorthEastGlasgowHealthInformation. The team allocated prizes for most creative, most colourful and most inspirational messages.

Chalk the Walk was an innovative method that has made a significant difference to local youth organisations, young people and their communities. Through providing a safe environment for meaningful conversations, which helped to explore attitudes and understanding of suicide, the event provided hope, resilience and confidence and helped diminish stigmas and taboos around suicide.

Commendation: North East Health Visiting Team 2 (Parkhead Team)

Parkhead Health Visiting Team has led on the development of an education package for health visitors and family nurses to support families who have neurodivergent children. Currently there is no formal training for them in relation to autism and other neurodiversity. The lengthy waiting lists for diagnosis in specialist children’s services meant that families didn’t feel they had the support they needed.

The team changed their practice so that families were supported earlier to understand their child’s needs/differences and help them move towards accepting these. They were also able to evidence improvement in staff knowledge, confidence and skills to support these families.

An amended education package is being tested with another three health visiting teams, with plans to roll out across the city. They’re working nationally with NES to develop the education package so it could be rolled out across Scotland.