Non-Emergency Patient Transport Service - North Powys
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I would like to nominate the North Powys NEPTS team. Over the years they have gone above and beyond on a regular basis covering not just the largest region in Wales but often cover various journeys to places like London, Birmingham, Liverpool and more. They work long hours to cover these trips at short notice and are always willing to work extra at the drop of a hat and help others.
Operational Delivery Unit (ODU) - South East I'm incredibly proud of the team, particularly in relation to the manner in which the team conducted themselves following on from the sad loss of our colleague Huw Phillips earlier in the year. The ODU team is a relatively small team and Huw's passing hit the team hard, despite this they continued to deliver an exceptional, professional service whilst coming to terms with the loss of a colleague who had mentored and supported many within the team during the implementation of the ODU. I have no hesitation whatsoever in nominating the ODU team for this award as they represent, live, and breathe our organisations ambitions in relation to our values and behaviours and are an example to others in how we can best support each other, our people and ultimately our patients |
Operational Team Leaders (OTL) - Cwm Taf
I have had the great pleasure of working with this team for a number of years. I honestly believe the team encompass all of the WAST behaviours and strive to improve the service. The six team members work coherently as a team using their individual strengths and skills to achieve a working environment that encourages their team to go above and beyond what is expected and give a fantastic patient experience.
Resource Team
The resource team is always behind every department offering support or guidance. The team recognises the stresses that the front-line colleagues EMS/Urgent Care Service/ Clinical Contact Centre and NEPTS all face and work hard to try to accommodate work life balance. The team has come a long way over the last three years, through Covid planning, Cymru High Acuity Response Unit, Industrial Action days. As a team they are always rising to the challenge to ensure that we achieve the best UHP possible.
Renal Hub
The Renal hub is a small team of six coordinators, two team leaders and a Manager, who arrange the transport for dialysis patients across the whole of Wales. I want to nominate my team, as they work extremely hard. We have a number of staff changes on the last year, but we have pulled together and work really well as a team, going above and beyond our normal daily routines, in order to provide the best service, we can for our patients, their families and dialysis units. I am extremely proud to be part of a team, who engage with our patients, whether it being wishing them happy birthday or by carrying out welfare checks to maintain patients’ wellbeing.
Mobile and Medical Response
Throughout the shifts in Cardiff City Centre, the MRT team are responsible for quick response and effective treatment to patients which might be delayed due to access. On reviewing the statistics, it is evident that every shift the MRT team examine and treat approximately 10 patients per shift and of those seven or eight are given effective care at scene and a further one or two are transferred to hospital or utilise the alcohol treatment centre. This resource is a fantastic resource to have within WAST, as several calls get made for the same jobs and MRT and the cycle response unit work effectively together to arrive on scene within the suggested times, subsequently reducing the amount of vehicles/emergency ambulances needing to come into the city centre and allowing them to respond in the community.
Duty Operational Managers - Tredegar
These DOMs are an absolutely vital part of our team, they turn their hand to absolutely everything, from providing civil contingency cover to having a boiler repaired at their stations. During the pandemic, I was wholeheartedly supported by the team, making my own role so much more manageable as I was able to entrust them with tasks, ensuring the safety of our wider team. Since the return to 'business as usual', the team have once again adapted their role from managing a pandemic, to concentrating on compliance, performance and staff welfare. Our sickness abstractions have reduced considerably, which I personally feel is due to the compassionate way in which these they support their teams, both personally and professionally.
Make Ready Team
We seem to be the forgotten part of WAST, and I believe we were the backbone to keeping the Trust vehicles, staff and patients protected before, during and after Covid. If it wasn’t for the teams in Tredegar and Barry, I believe that WAST and crews would have had a more trying and difficult time trying to protect every single patient. We were doing all the decontamination by hand and thrown into the unknown. Post Covid we continue to make sure vehicles, staff and patients have a more clean, fresh, clinical environment within the vehicles.
National NEPT/NET Centre
There has been such a lot of change within the National NET Centre over the last year or so. New processes have been introduced, resulting in challenging callers. Each member of staff has taken these on board and has executed them to the best of their ability making coming into work a pleasurable experience. We have a network of support from managers and staff alike. On a daily basis, the call takers will come across many difficult scenarios where they are subject to aggressive verbal abuse, some can become emotionally affected, but luckily, we have full support from our amazing supervisors (Beth, Kelly and Aimee) and manager (Anita) who are always there to assist us and help us through difficult times.
Operational Manager Team - Carmarthenshire
The team have been a fantastic support of the last 18 months while I have embedded myself in the Carmarthenshire Locality. They are proactive, constantly looking at ideas for improvement with the hospital, sickness, stores and continually strive to offer the best support to all the staff in Carmarthenshire. There has been a lot of tough times over the past few months and my team have dealt with this amazingly, one being the loss of a friend to them all and their pervious manager Huw Phillips. The way they all held their emotion, professionalism and standards of work during this time was a credit to Huw and WAST. I am extremely proud to lead this supportive, caring and professional team and would be very proud to see them receive some recondition for the hard work they have provided both during my time in Carmarthenshire.
Workforce, Education and Development Team
I am nominating the Education and Development team for their unwavering dedication and tireless efforts in ensuring the needs of the Trust have been met time and time again. Perhaps more importantly, I am nominating this team for their cohesion, camaraderie and support they provide to each other as well as their colleagues. Their remarkable collective efforts have transformed the educational experience for countless learners and colleagues, creating an environment that fosters growth, engagement and clinical excellence.
North EMD Mentor and Buddies
The North Emergency Medical Dispatcher buddies and mentors work tirelessly to support, guide and mentor new EMDs joining WAST. Not only supporting them with the 999-call handling process and their development through to being signed off, but they help them to settling in to all aspects of the role and continue that past the two week preceptorship period, whilst they continue to find their feet. At present, with regular recruitment over the past 12 to 18 months, this team move from one cohort to the next approaching each group of new recruits with the same enthusiasm as the last.
People Services Team
The People Services Team have worked tirelessly since the implementation of the new People Services Structure in May 2022, to support all things people related. From supporting sickness absence and employee relation cases, job evaluation, payroll queries, Long Service awards, changes to contracts to the roll out and implementation of the ESR Exception Form. The team have remained motivated, committed and resilient, and have continued to provide an excellent service to our customers during a period of change, both from a personal and team perspective.
Ambulance Care Assistant 1 - Neath
Despite a number of issues due to relocation, they have continued to provide the best possible service to our patients and external partners. They have remained professional and courteous throughout, always putting the patients’ needs as their focus. They have been well received by the Natural Resources Wales staff and they continue, daily, striving to maintain the Ambulance Care KPI’s and have throughout embraced and demonstrated the Trust’s values and new behaviours. Together my team has demonstrated that they are “OUR BEST”.
Specialist Paramedics and Advanced Paramedic Practitioners - South Powys
The South Powys Senior Paramedics have been instrumental in upholding and improving the clinical standard in the area since they have been in post. They have been ensuring staff keep up to date with Continuing Professional Development and their clinical skills. The North Powys SP’s have also been actively arranging CPD events with external members of the NHS including GP’s and midwives to improve clinical knowledge of the staff within Powys. Every member of the team is approachable and always willing to help.
Occupational Health and Wellbeing Team
Occupational Health and Wellbeing have been given the opportunity to grow and develop over the past couple of years and in doing so has benefited so many. The team now visit sites around Wales offering vaccines to colleagues, which is proving more effecting in keeping colleagues up to date with their health and vaccination status. There is more to come and lots happening in the background. The nurses are thriving, and the Wellbeing Team are at the heart of the team, offering support and signposting to so many colleagues daily, a little recognition would go a very long way.
Control Room Solutions Project Team
This national project overseen by the Ambulance Radio Programme required continual updates and changes to the process and configuration, training, and refresher training as well as significant systems training and fault finding until WAST were successful as the first large scale UK ambulance service to implement this new Integrated Communication Control System. It is testament to this small teams hard work that the transition to the new Life X Solution was seamless within the parameters of the operational plan and was non-service impacting for our service users and stakeholders alike.
Resource Services Coordinators - Central and West
A team that is set aside from the rest but vital for emergency care. From dealing with limited cover, and some days with no cover at all. They negotiate to cover shifts and borrow favours from colleagues that are already exhausted when they know the shift will sometimes result in sadness and chaos. I feel that the resource team go above and beyond daily. We ensure that colleagues' wellbeing and home-life balance is considered whilst ensuring the service is not affected. Dealing with all services from NEPTS to HART brings diversity and a sense of caring and commitment to patients.
Fleet, Capital Development and Estates
In June 2022 there were only a handful of older electric charging points across the estate which were incompatible with the new vehicles. The Trust moved to PHEVs for their Rapid Response Vehicles (in line with our Decarbonisation Action Plan commitments) and a team comprised of Fleet, Capital Development and Estate colleagues had to move quickly and work together to determine where the vehicles would be placed, and to ensure that there was a suitable EV charging infrastructure put in place. By April 2023 there were 67 chargers over 54 sites on the WAST estate due to the hard work and perseverance of this small informal team who work tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that our vehicles and supporting estate infrastructure are continually improved.
Education, Professional and Clinical Practice Team (EPCP)
This incredible team works in an environment of high standards. They support all staff working for NHS 111 Wales. In recent times, we have witnessed growth and development in the 111 service, and this team ensures that every new staff member is introduced to the comprehensive induction programme. The team delivers swiftly and adaptively to all objectives. They have adapted to technological changes, resulting in fundamental improvements in writing and delivering education material. Moving forward, the team will be training all staff with the introduction of Salus and supporting staff further through the introduction of clinical supervision.
NHS 111 Wales Call Handlers - Snowdon House
During the last 12 months the NHS 111 Wales team have faced many challenges from the system disruption that took down the CAS software and then the Strep A cases and increase in calls over the winter period. All staff in Bangor pulled together and they adapted to changes and difficult times. What was amazing to see was how they all came together to support each other, raised each other’s morale and stayed motivated through ever changing processes.
Clinical Support Desk
The Clinical Support Desk pan Wales have, in the last year, demonstrated exceptional resilience despite the rapidly increasing demands on the department. As a team, all clinicians and Duty Operational Managers try to support one another during shift, especially during times of extreme pressure. Even if they are not on the same site, the team reach out and support one another, and the wider Clinical Contact Centre colleagues.
Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response
The team have pulled together to lead some high profile challenges this year, including Operation Dragon - the Welsh response to the death of HRH Queen Elizabeth, and the subsequent proclamation of King Charles at Cardiff Castle. This team have taken on significant, high profile and reputation enhancing workload which has gone far beyond the fulfilling of our statutory and legislative requirements under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, keeping our organisation, our workforce, and the communities of Wales as safe as we possibly can in the most challenging of circumstances. This team are exceptional, and I am very proud of them individually, collectively and of these collective achievements.
Duty Operational Managers - Cwmbwrla, Swansea
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The team work very hard and even with all the challenges that are thrown at them they still find time to support one another. The Operational Managers must wear many hats, whether its spending time at the local hospital because of offload delays or attending a scene to provide support, they get on with it and do a sterling job. I am proud to work amongst them as part of the wider team.
Duty Operational Managers - Bridgend
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