Shropshire nursing boss: Annual awards an opportunity to celebrate staff

Today we launch our annual Trust Celebratory Awards and once more we have teamed up with the Shropshire Star to ask its readers to take part too.

We are giving members of the public the opportunity to nominate teams or individuals from the trust who have made a remarkable contribution, showing exceptional compassion and dedication in their role.

Look out in the Shropshire Star and online for information on how to nominate one of our colleagues or teams for the fantastic work that they do at our trust.

The Shropshire Star Public Recognition Award is one of 19 categories. You don’t have long to get your nominations in with the closing date on Friday, August 18.

The nominations will be shortlisted and followed by a public vote, so you can choose your winner.

The winners will be announced at our virtual staff awards on Thursday, November 16.

We would love you to get involved as the awards are a great opportunity to recognise and celebrate the fantastic contribution that colleagues, volunteers and partners make, supporting our patients, families and communities, whether in frontline teams, or working behind the scenes.

I would like to thank three charities which have linked up to fund special software for the radiotherapy department at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, which will bring huge benefits for patients.

The League of Friends (LoF) of the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, Lingen Davies Cancer Fund and The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust Charity (SaTH Charity) have joined together to pay for a three-year subscription of more than £48,000 for the software.

It is such a positive step for charities to join together to fund this state-of-the art software, which will free up the time of radiotherapy staff to carry out other work and hopefully, it will lead to many other such collaborations.

The contributions from charity make such a difference to our patients and it is so good to see how they have worked together to provide funding for this software.

Thank you too to all those who have attended events, both in-person and online, where proposals for Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, as part of the Hospitals Transformation Programme (HTP), were displayed with members of the team on hand to answer questions.

Your feedback is so important to the Trust and will help us to shape future plans as the HTP moves another step forward with the Outline Business Case (OBC) on track to be submitted this summer.

The plans will ensure we improve care for everyone with the Princess Royal Hospital site specialising in planned care, and the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital site specialising in emergency care.

In addition to this, a 24/7 enhanced urgent care service (A&E local model) will be available at the Princess Royal Hospital site.

Finally, Jules Lewis, Swan End of Life Care Facilitator and Lead Nurse at the Trust, is featured in a special BBC series of Extraordinary Portraits to mark NHS75 and her episode will be broadcast on BBC One at 8.30pm on Monday (7 August).

Comedian and actor Bill Bailey is presenting the six-part series which pairs up Jules and other inspiring NHS staff with leading British artists. Make sure you keep an eye out for it.