Staff recognised at Christmas Cheer Awards

Doctors, nurses and other staff at Chelsea and Westminster were the winners at the hospital’s Christmas Cheer Awards on Thursday December 17.

They were nominated in recognition of their outstanding contribution to patient care at the Fulham Road hospital which was named among the top 10% of NHS trusts nationwide in the recent Care Quality Commission NHS annual performance ratings. These annual awards aim to recognise staff who bring a cheerful, positive attitude to their work.

This year’s awards attracted a record number of nominations—398 in all—with 144 individual staff and four teams being nominated.

The hospital’s team of rheumatology nurses won the Team Award after being nominated by a number of grateful rheumatoid arthritis patients, one of whom said: “These nurses are excellent and always available—they are my lifeline. They instigated a rheumatoid arthritis support group which is still going strong after four years.”

This is not the first award won by the team—Clinical Nurse Specialists Sarah Collis, Antonia Greeves, Bridget Ryan and Ashlynne Van Vuuren, and Clerical Assistant Asma Istwani.

Last year they were named as ’Healthcare Champions in Inflammatory Arthritis’ by the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society after being nominated by patient Sheila Smith.

Individual staff winners of the Christmas Cheer Awards included nurse Cheryl Paul, Team Leader in the hospital’s Discharge Team, who received no less than 78 nominations.

Colleague Angela Honan said: “Without Cheryl’s help every day we would never get our patients home. No job is too small and she is always still smiling at the end of the day.”

Hospital Directors all made a monetary contribution to help buy some great prizes for the winners of the Christmas Cheer Awards.
The hospital would like to thank the following local businesses and companies that sponsored the awards through either gifts or cash donations:

• Blacks (High Street Kensington)
• Captivate Restaurants
• Gilmour’s Restaurant
• GMTV
• Headmasters
• Heaven V
• Idis
• Olympic South Limited (OSL)
• RUSH Salon
• SOMA
• Virgin Active