At a special virtual awards ceremony on Friday, Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT) recognised the outstanding achievements of staff, teams and volunteers.

Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust's (LPT's) annual Celebrating Excellence awards are an opportunity to highlight and celebrate examples of innovation and excellence across the Trust, recognising the huge contribution made by staff and volunteers to ensure the highest standards of care.

The trust, which provides mental health, learning disability and community health services across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, was due to stage its awards ceremony last April but it was unfortunately postponed due to the pressures of Covid-19.

More than 200 nominations were received for the awards, from members of staff, service users and the wider public across 13 award categories, from which 41 were shortlisted and invited to attend the ceremony. The winners were selected by a judging panel comprising directors, staff representatives, partners and service users.

Chief executive, Angela Hillery said "Our annual Celebrating Excellence Awards are an important opportunity to recognise the amazing work carried out every day by individuals and teams across LPT. We are pleased to finally celebrate those who were shortlisted for the 2019/20 awards' year and look forward to celebrating everyone's outstanding contribution during the Covid-19 pandemic in our Covid Heroes awards later this year.

"It makes me extremely proud to read about the difference our staff and our volunteers are making for the benefit of our patients, service users, carers, and colleagues. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those nominated for their excellent work and clear commitment to our vision of 'creating high quality, compassionate care and wellbeing for all'. Congratulations to everyone here tonight – you are all a credit to our LPT family and to the NHS."

More than 200 guests attended the sponsored ceremony, which was held on a virtual awards platform, to celebrate the fantastic achievements of the 41 shortlisted nominees.

Some examples of excellence from the winners were:

Delivering Exceptional Care

Sarah Latham, deputy head of nursing (community health services) - Sarah has engaged staff and service users to develop a new accreditation tool to support exceptional care across our community hospital wards.

Excellence in Quality Improvement

Clare Kozlowski and the acute recovery team (directorate of mental health) – for pioneering information cafes for patients undergoing electro-convulsive therapy.

Excellence in Leadership

Sara Lowe, transformation lead (community health services) – Sara's leadership has contributed to national recognition for the team's work to implement Autoplanner, a tool which has allowed clinicians to spend more time with patients and reduce waiting lists.

Trainee, Student or Learner of the Year

Sameer Thanki, place-based intelligence and performance lead (families, young people and children's services) – Sameer has supported colleagues across the trust to personalise their demand and capacity work to the needs of services and their service users.

Excellence in Research

Dolly Sud, senior mental health pharmacist (directorate of mental health) - for her research into the role of pharmacy in the management of cardio-metabolic risk and metabolic syndrome in severe mental illness. Dolly has brought a breadth of knowledge and clinical expertise into the trust.

Excellence in Patient or Service User Involvement

April Smith, service user - April's work has supported LPT to build on collaborative conversations and improve collaborative care planning and patient involvement even further.

Excellence in Partnerships

Recovery and Collaborative Care Planning Cafes (directorate of mental health) - based on the CHIME model, the cafes are a space for experts by experience, staff and partners to engage in collaborative conversations around care planning.

Team of the Year

The North Charnwood health visiting team (families, young people and children's services) - The team have pulled together, drawing on individual skills and strengths to achieve service targets and demonstrate outstanding commitment.

Volunteer of the Year

Our dedicated volunteers make an outstanding contribution to our services. The winner of the Volunteer of the Year award is Malcolm Heaven. Malcolm's bread baking sessions have supported the mental health of local people, created hours of conversation, and over 1,000 loaves of bread!

Unsung Hero of the Year

Sam Wilson, therapeutic liaison worker (directorate of mental health) - Sam is passionate about providing excellent care and is innovative in his effort to support patients through therapeutic activities such as the Let's Get Gardening project.

For more information about the winners and shortlisted nominees, click on the link here.

The trust has also reopened nominations for its new Covid Heroes awards, replacing the Celebrating Excellence 2021 awards, in tribute to staff and teams who have gone above and beyond throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, showing dedication and commitment to the trust's vision of 'creating high quality, compassionate care and wellbeing for all' and values of compassion, respect, integrity and trust.

Visit the following link for more information and to make a nomination. www.leicspart.nhs.uk/covidheroes

Nominations will close on 2 May 2021.