A record number of local healthcare heroes are set to shine bright at this year’s You’re A Star Awards, which celebrate the outstanding care provided by teams and individuals across Bradford, Airedale, Wharfedale, Craven and Wakefield

The annual event held by Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust is in its sixteenth year and attracted a record 75 nominations this year. For the first time, members of the public as well as Trust staff were invited to nominate individuals or teams who they feel should be celebrated for going the extra mile to make a real difference in the local community.
The nominations span corporate and clinical staff, service users, carers and volunteers. New award categories introduced this year – Service User, Carer and Volunteer Contributions; Improvements and Innovation; and Team of the Year – sit alongside old favourites: Working Together; Non-Clinical Star/s and Unsung Hero.

Nominees include volunteers who have given their time freely (often to give something back after receiving outstanding care from the Trust), to nurses and healthcare workers who have come up with innovative ideas to help patients with their recovery.

And working quietly behind the scenes, non-clinical stars, who have been described as ‘the glue that hold departments together’ have been nominated for supporting clinical teams to ensure patients get the care they need.
Dedicated volunteer community health champion and walk leader, Bryan Walkden, was amongst those nominated in the Service User, Carer and Volunteer Contributions Award Category. Bryan, having led 175 walks in 2019, has been making a real difference to the health and wellbeing of his local community by helping others to regain fitness and reduce social isolation, encouraging people to exercise more and consider self-care.

Little Minds Matter: Bradford’s Infant Mental Health service, which offers relationship support to parents and carers during pregnancy and after birth was amongst the nominees in the Working Together Award Category; and the Community Dental service, which supports people in the community to improve their oral health has been nominated in the Improvements and Innovation Award Category for an anxiety management film they produced to support children attending hospital for dental extraction. The reassuring film explains what happens at appointments and has proved popular with children and parents alike, having successfully reduced anxiety for children.

Belinda Marks, who heads up the Palliative Care team, has been nominated in the Unsung Hero Award Category. Compassionate Belinda, noted for her amazing ‘can-do’ attitude, often goes the extra mile to provide peaceful and dignified end of life care for the patients in the community that she supports.

The Individual Placement and Support Employment service has been nominated in the Team of the Year Award Category. The team of employment specialists support people with severe and enduring mental health conditions to find and sustain paid employment in real work settings. Since its inception in 2015, the service has helped over 250 people gain paid employment.

The Executive Support team is known for its customer focus and proactive approach to delivering essential support to staff across the Trust, including the Executive Directors and the Chair of the Trust. The team has been nominated in the Non-Clinical Stars Award Category for ‘bending over backwards’ to consistently provide high quality, responsive services to colleagues across the Trust.

The event’s main supporter, Bradford-based Sovereign Healthcare, will provide £750 to the winner of each category to support their ongoing work to benefit patients.

The local NHS heroes will be celebrated at an Oscars-style ceremony later in the year, when the winners of the six award categories will be announced at the Mercure Bradford, Bankfield Hotel, recognising their outstanding work, commitment and achievement