Dame Caroline Dinenage, Member of Parliament for Gosport, is seeking nominations for the 2024 NHS Parliamentary Awards 2024, after the deadline for submissions was extended a week.
The NHS Parliamentary Awards offer a chance to celebrate NHS staff, carers and volunteers for all the hard work they do to provide excellent healthcare.
Caroline is searching for outstanding nominees for the 2024 Awards who have innovated, impressed, and made a real difference to how the health and care system provides care for patients.
This year there are 10 award categories, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and a new award, The Excellence in Education and Training Award, which will celebrate new, innovative approaches to recruiting and retaining NHS staff from a range of backgrounds.
Those who make the national shortlist will be invited to an award ceremony in Westminster to celebrate their fantastic achievements in July.
Caroline has a remarkable success rate with her nominations, having secured victories in each of the past two years.
In 2023 Caroline nominated the Pets As Therapy team from Portsmouth Hospital for the Volunteer Award. The group, set up to enhance the wellbeing of patients and staff by visiting hospitals with their dogs, not only won the award but stole the show with their canine companions.
Meanwhile in 2022 Caroline’s nominee Alice Hendy took home the NHS Rising Star Award. She came up with the idea of Ripple Suicide Prevention, which discretely intercepts harmful searches and provides signposting to 24/7, free mental health support.
This year, Caroline is calling for potential nominations in the following categories:
- The Excellence in Healthcare: This award recognises individuals or teams who go above and beyond to improve outcomes and experiences for patients living with and beyond major health conditions or work to prevent them.
- The Excellence in Mental Health Care Award: To the individual or team that has worked across organisational boundaries to develop new and effective services to help people living with mental health problems.
- The Future NHS Award: This award seeks to highlight individuals, teams and organisations that are successfully embracing the opportunities that come from advances in medical technology, data, and connectivity.
- The Nursing and Midwifery Award: This award is for any nurse or midwife, who has used their skills to ensure that patients experience care and compassion.
- The Health Equalities Award: This award is for an individual or organisation that helps the NHS to do its bit by bringing together different groups and organisations to reduce health inequalities and prevent ill health in different communities.
- The Excellence in Primary Care and Community Care Award: As the needs of patients and the wider NHS evolves, so does the role of these professionals, and this award seeks to recognise practitioners and teams in primary or community care that are working with patients to help them stay healthy and avoid long stays in hospital or being admitted in the first place.
- The Excellence in Urgent and Emergency Care Award: This award seeks to celebrate the amazing work of our emergency care services across the country and we are looking specifically for nominees who have made improvements to how the NHS treats people who need urgent care in their areas.
- The Excellence in Education and Training Award: This award recognises a team or individual that is leading the way in supporting the delivery of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan through innovative approaches to education and training.
- The Volunteer Award: Volunteers have supported patients and staff in the NHS since its creation, doing everything from sitting with patients who are anxious or alone, to helping to provide life-saving support after a cardiac arrest. This award recognises the crucial role of volunteers in improving our health and care.
- The Lifetime Achievement Award: This award is for an individual who has worked within a health or care setting for 40 years or more who has left a legacy.
Hopeful for a third straight success in the Awards, Caroline said:
“Almost everybody has a story to tell about a healthcare professional, team, or organisation that they feel should be rewarded for their efforts and care.
“We have already had nominations but as the deadline has been extended due to popular demand I am once again calling for nominations.
“We have had great local success over the last 2 years with these awards, and we can make it a hat-trick by recognising the folk who go the extra mile to improve our local health and care.”
Background Information:
- The nomination process is open from 29th February 2024 until midnight, 26th April 2024. Caroline can only nominate once for each category, so must review submissions before the deadline and decide which to nominate where she has received too many.
- After the nomination window close, nominations will be sent to the relevant NHS England teams for initial sifting. Successful nominations at this stage will then go forward to a regional panel comprised of senior regional NHS England representatives. The regional panels will each choose one nomination in each category to go forward to the national judging panel. A national judging panel will then score each of the shortlisted nominations and select an overall winner for each category.
- Information on how to nominate is available at – https://www.england.nhs.uk/nhs-parliamentary-awards/how-to-nominate/
ENDS
For more information contact [email protected]
