Southern Health is delighted to announce that two of its teams have been shortlisted at the 2020 HSJ Awards, recognising their outstanding contribution to healthcare. The Frailty Admission Avoidance Team have been shortlisted in the ‘Primary Care, GP or Community Initiative of the Year’ category and the Trust’s Media and Communications Team is a finalist in the ‘Communications Initiative of the Year’ category.
Southern Health has been shortlisted despite the tough competition from over 1000 entries. The two shortlisted projects were selected based on their ambition, visionary spirit and the demonstrable positive impact that they have had on patients within the health sector.
The first short-listing is for the Frailty Admission Avoidance Service which provides joined-up, complex care for people living with frailty in the community - to avoid unscheduled hospital admissions. In one year, the service has helped more than 300 patients stay in their homes with the appropriate care they need, whilst also saving the NHS more than £1.1million in unnecessary hospital stays.
The second is for the Trust’s ‘Every Life Matters’ public awareness campaign, focused on suicide and self-harm prevention. The campaign reached more than 17 million people in just a few months and more than 34,000 people now carry the Trust’s ‘LifeCards’ with life-saving information detailed on them. The campaign also contributed to an uplift in the number of calls to the local NHS 111 mental health helpline and saw 92% of Southern Health’s workforce (the highest figure for any NHS Trust in England) trained in suicide prevention.
Paul Draycott, Southern Health’s Director of Workforce, Organisational Development and Communications, commented “Both teams are delighted to have been shortlisted - we are committed to delivering improved outcomes for our patients, and to be chosen among the other incredible nominees is a wonderful achievement. These short-listings have been a tremendous boost to colleagues across our NHS Trust and they will undoubtedly bolster our continued efforts to improve our services.”
Now in its 40th year, the HSJ Awards is the largest annual benchmarking and recognition programme for healthcare. Through a rigorous, fair and transparent judging process the awards produce a roll call of the best organisations, teams and people in the NHS and the wider health sector.