Celebrating staff achievements in our Children & Women's Clinical Board

Our Children & Women’s Clinical Board held its annual celebration event on Tuesday 12th April, highlighting some of the fantastic contributions of staff over the past year. It has been another extremely challenging year, managing the impacts of COVID-19 whilst maintaining access to our services. Staff across the organisation have gone above and beyond to continue to care for people. Each Clinical Board holds a celebration event each year to recognise great work and give staff a much-needed morale boost.

Due to the pandemic, a scaled-down event was held with staff, hosted by Nathan Wyburn and Wayne Courtney, Cardiff & Vale Health Charity Patrons and local celebrities.

Catherine Wood, Children & Women’s Clinical Board Director of Operations, said: “I’d like to personally thank all of our staff and teams for their incredible work over the past year. Every single person has made an impact. I’m extremely proud of the care, compassion and dedication people show in the most difficult of circumstances. Congratulations to all of our winners and runners up on your achievements.”

Here is a round-up of the categories, runner ups and winners:

Wider Healthcare System

Working Across Clinical Boards to Support the Health Board and Wider Healthcare System

Runner-Up: Dr Jennifer Evans, Paediatric Consultant, Child Health (Children’s Hospital of Wales Directorate)

Winner: Dr Genevieve Thueux, Paediatric Consultant, Child Health (Children’s Hospital of Wales Directorate)

Dr Genevieve Thueux has been a constant support for staff on the Seahorse Ward. Through COVID-19 pressures the Seahorse Ward became an ever-changing and evolving unit, helping to alleviate wider pressures in the system. Dr Thueux was instrumental in planning, ensuring safe and effective treatment for paediatric patients.

Innovation and Transformation

Innovation and Transformation in the Face of the Pandemic

Runner-Ups:

Holly Tarren, Project Manager (Children, Young People & Family Health Services)

The Breast-Feeding Champions (Children, Young People & Family Health Services)

Winner: Donna James, Digital Midwife, Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Since coming into post Donna has transformed the working lives of midwives and medical staff, contributing to the quality and safety agenda. Donna has worked on several unique systems that have supported the directorate with efficiencies, revolutionising services.

Team of the Year

A team that has demonstrated innovation, which in turn has had a positive impact on our service users, improving patient satisfaction and quality of care provided. 

Runner Ups:

SARC Team (Obstetrics & Gynaecology)

Gynaeoncology - Nursing/Consultant Team

Winner: Immunisation Team

The Immunisation team, led by Cath Cawte and Jo Evans, were faced with a Directive to include all high school pupils in the school based influenza programme. A huge amount of effort was put into an e-consent form programme, which involved the team working intensively and consulting with schools and parents to inform them and support with the e-consent process.

Unsung Hero

An individual who has achieved great things and made an outstanding impact, who has yet to be recognised for their efforts. 

Runner Ups:

Deborah Lennon, Team Co-ordinator (Children, Young People & Family Health Services)

Marie Hopkins, Outpatients Ward Manager (Children’s Hospital for Wales)

Winner: Jen Thomas, Looked After Children Nurse (Children, Young People & Family Health Services)

As part of the celebration event, an anonymised letter from a family member of a young person Jen has worked with was read out. The letter talked about how Jen had been a constant professional in the young person’s life despite family trauma and having to go through the adoption process. The young person is now thriving thanks to Jen and wider support and says the care they received from Jen was “brilliant”. 

Inspirational Leadership

Runner Up: Nicky Evans, Band 7 Speech & Language Therapist 

Winner: Band 7 Delivery Suite Co-ordinators (Obstetrics & Gynaecology)

The team is made up of 15 highly experienced, dedicated midwives who go above and beyond to lead all staff to ensure the provision of safe and holistic care on the most complex Delivery Suite in the country. Over the last year, the Delivery Suite Coordinators have faced additional challenges, on top of their already extremely complicated work load. The coordinators went above and beyond as a team to be flexible, working at short notice and frequently changing their shift patterns to ensure shifts were covered to enable safety in the maternity department. The commitment they have shown has been exemplary.

Kindness and Living Our Values

Runner Ups:

Lynne Bray, Clinical Nurse Specialist (Obstetrics & Gynaecology) 

Ashleigh Trowill, Service Manager, Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health 

Winner: Zoe Roberts, Paediatric Emergency Medicine Consultant

Zoe is always positive, helpful and friendly in the Children’s Emergency Department, which is often a very busy and demanding workplace. Zoe goes above and beyond to meet the needs of the children who present to the department and liaises closely with the appropriate teams to make the experience as smooth and effective as possible, ensuring the best outcome and plan for the child’s needs.

Wellbeing

Runner Up – Michelle Mclachlan and the Wellbeing Team (Children’s Hospital of Wales)

Winner – Jayne Frank and the Cardiff RCM branch (Obstetrics & Gynaecology)

The branch has been extremely active for a number of years and was one of the first branches to sign the Caring for You Charter. Branch activity has continued right through the pandemic. Their main focus has been to look after the wellbeing of staff both physically and emotionally, to maintain learning and boost morale which ultimately improves the outcome for not only the members and multidisciplinary team but for the mothers and babies they care for.

Outstanding Contribution Medical Workforce

Runner Ups:

Summia Zaher, Obstetric Consultant & R&D Lead (Obstetrics & Gynaecology)

Muthukumaran Ravichandran, ST4 Paediatric Trainee (Children’s Hospital of Wales)

Winner: Dr Jennifer Evans, Paediatric Consultant (Children’s Hospital of Wales) 

Dr Evans is a dedicated, hard-working and committed Consultant in infectious diseases and immunology to the Children’s Hospital and across South Wales. Her dedication throughout the pandemic has been unfaltering, from the initial stages, through to the development of a pathway across the region for the administration of monoclonal antibody for COVID-19 for paediatric vulnerable patients.

Outstanding Contribution Nursing Workforce

Runner Up: Kate Sugrue, Practice Educator (Children’s Hospital for Wales)

Winner: Ceri Lovell, Senior Nurse (Children, Young People & family Health Services)

Since Ceri’s appointment, Ceri has worked incredibly hard to develop positive professional relationships both within the UHB and across Local Authorities. Ceri always has the child/young person at the heart of everything that she does. Ceri has led on the development of multi-agency pathways to improve the experience for children and young people coming into the Emergency Department in crisis, amongst a range of other projects.

Outstanding Contribution AHP

Winner: Kate Laats, Physiotherapist (Children’s Hospital for Wales)

Kate has been instrumental in the management of Major Trauma Centre patients in Paediatrics. She is extremely supportive of the ward staff in the management of these children. In the last year the team has had some very complex spinal patients.  Kate set up some teaching sessions and worked with the practice educator on Gwdihw to ensure that all staff were skilled in the use of spinal beds, scoops and collars.

Outstanding Contribution Health Care Support Worker

Runner Up: Paediatric Outpatient Team (Childrens Hospital for Wales)

Winner: Jodie Foran, HCSW (Obstetrics & Gynaecology)

Jodie Foran is a Maternity Care Assistant who specialises in supporting pregnant women to quit smoking. Jodie provides the patients with the correct information and suggests ways of replacing those things they fear losing.  Jodie tries to have an informal chat about their experiences and their smoking habits and works with them to make a plan going forward.  

Outstanding Contribution Administration Staff

Runner Up: Lindsay Lowe, Project Manager (Children, Young People & Family Health Services) 

Winner: Healios Admin Team – Luke Bonome Davis and Kayleigh Ancrum (Children, Young People & Family Health Services)

The Helios Admin Team has made an outstanding contribution to improving efficiencies, which have significantly improved access to primary mental health services. In what was a huge challenge, the team have made excellent improvements that they should be extremely proud of.

This Person Makes My Day Better Because…

Runner Up: Donna James, Digital Midwife (Obstetrics & Gynaecology) 

Winner: Adele Watkins, Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist (Children’s Hospital for Wales)

Adele strives to make the impossible possible. Young people’s mental health has been greatly affected by the pandemic, Adele’s role has vastly changed over the past two years. Adele has had to adapt and change her working role, supporting young people and their families in crisis, later with the support of Rachel who came into post to extend the service provision.

Adele provides care packages for the young people in her care, who often arrive scared and alone, with no comforts. These packages provide much needed support at a crucial time in their lives. As well as supporting the young people in her care, Adele has also provided much needed support for staff members within the children’s hospital.

Congratulations to all of the runners up and winners, as well as everybody in the Clinical Board for you work over the past year. Thank you to Cardiff & Vale Health Charity and Unison for supporting the event with treats for attendees and their teams.