Local healthcare heroes have been celebrated at the Trust’s seventeenth annual You’re a Star Awards ceremony for clinical and non-clinical staff, service users, carers and volunteers.

The online event on Friday 25 June honoured individuals and teams who have provided outstanding care over the last twelve months across the Trust’s community, mental health and learning disability services in Bradford, Airedale, Craven, Wharfedale and Wakefield.

These unprecedented times saw a 66 per cent increase in nominations for the 2021 awards and the presentation of a special one-off COVID-19 Award alongside the six You’re a Star-categories. Annual Living our Values winners for ‘We Care’, ‘We Listen’ and ‘We Deliver’ were also announced.

All the You’re a Star Awards winners receive £750 to support their ongoing professional work to benefit people who use Care Trust services, courtesy of the event’s main supporter, Bradford-based Sovereign Health Care.

Infection Prevention and Control Lead Nurse and Manager Samantha Moorehouse won the COVID-19 Award. Samantha has educated and trained staff in the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), lateral flow testing and working safely in both clinical and office environments, as well as supporting delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Volunteer Ted Wilkinson who has given his time, energy and enthusiasm to support the COVID-19 testing teams across Bradford, picked up the Service User, Carer and Volunteer Contributions Award.

A graduate management trainee who stepped up and beyond his role, bringing boundless energy and willingness to projects ranging from setting up a regular live broadcast for staff from the Trust’s executive team, to supporting the establishment of hospital and community vaccine sites, won the Unsung Hero Award – congratulations to Awais Siddique.

The Foot Clinic team from the Diabetes Centre at Airedale General Hospital in Keighley took the Improvements and Innovation Award for their use of ‘foot selfies’ to ensure patients who were shielding due to COVID-19 could be triaged appropriately, monitored, reviewed and even admitted to hospital if required during the pandemic.

Conversations with over 1000 members of staff about their experiences of the pandemic helped the Care Trust Way team to scoop the Working Together Award for their work on the Trust’s Learning Week, having also been finalists in the Health Service Journal Awards for this work.

With personal protective equipment being central to the Trust’s ability to deliver services during the pandemic, it was the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) team who scooped the

Non-Clinical Stars Award. They ensure regular, safe and consistent distribution of millions of items of PPE to all Trust services, including the staff vaccination centre at Lynfield Mount Hospital and public vaccination centres at Jacob’s Well and Bradford College.

Staff at the Acute and Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at Airedale Centre for Mental Health and Lynfield Mount Hospital have shown relentless courage, compassion and resilience over the past 12 months. Their ability to deliver outstanding care to people in acute mental health crisis, including caring for COVID-positive people whilst keeping staff and other service users COVID-safe, meant they were worthy winners of Team of the Year.

The Living our Values 2021 annual winners are selected from monthly award winners from the last 12 months who embody the Trusts values. They are:

We Care – Chris Andrew from the Early Intervention in Psychosis team who continued to work with service-users during lockdown on creative writing projects, demonstrating persistence and patience as well as caring and creativity.

We Listen – the Dental team – Anne-Marie Dorrington, Rohima Ali, Nadiya Suida and Sharon Walker working with Leeroy Golding, chair of the Trust’s Aspiring Cultures Network for recognising that listening is an important part of making meaningful change and creating a series of engagement events with all dental staff for an open dialogue around the issues highlighted through the Black Lives Matter movement.

We Deliver – Waddiloves Learning Disabilities Health Support team members – Michelle Munton, Charlotte Hammond, Noel Brown, Janette Irving and Tracy Gray, together with service user Jack James Allinson, who worked to ensure that people with learning disabilities and service providers across the district could keep up to date with news and information from Waddiloves during lockdown and supporting people with learning disabilities to share their stories and important healthcare experiences, such as having a COVID-19 vaccination or cancer screening to help others and reduce health inequalities.

Trust Chair Cathy Elliott said: “Each person and team who has won an award exemplifies the caring attitude and hard work of so many of our staff – as well the flexibility and determination we’ve all needed this year.

“Huge congratulations to all our winners and our nominees! We simply don’t have enough awards to reflect the work of all the shining stars across our Trust. I want to thank all our staff and volunteers for their commitment and hard work this year.”

She added: “This year’s winners have especially demonstrated how they meet the Trust’s vision of providing outstanding care to our diverse communities, creating better lives, together. They truly reflect our values of caring, listening and delivering.

“The You’re a Star Awards enable us to recognise the work of our staff, service users, carers and volunteers and the positive impact they have. Their dedication, enthusiasm and skills have been vital over these last difficult 12 months in helping us to continue to deliver high quality care, health and wellbeing to the people of Bradford, Airedale, Craven, Wharfedale and Wakefield despite the pandemic.”