The Allocate Awards were launched in 2012 to recognise excellence and innovation across the Allocate Healthcare User Community which comprises over 300 organisations. The awards celebrate use of Allocate Software’s solutions and reward those who have made a difference, whether that is to patients, colleagues, to their entire organisation, or to the wider health service. The winners and runners-up of the Allocate Awards 2012 were selected by an independent judging panel of four leading figures in healthcare.
The awards ceremony took place during the gala dinner at the Annual Allocate User Group Conference in York on 12th June 2012. Trophies were presented by former Royal Marine, Lance Corporal Peter Dunning who, since losing his legs in Afghanistan, has become a member of the Combined Services Disabled Ski Team and British Disabled Ski Team.
Chief Executive of Allocate Software, Ian Bowles said, “These NHS staff are the first to be honoured by these prestigious awards in the year of their launch, for exceptional work and dedication over the past year. I would personally like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to each and every one for their inspiring achievement in receiving these awards; also my very best wishes for their on-going efforts and future projects.”
Allocate Innovation AwardWinner: Catherine Derrick, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Catherine has carried out a major piece of work around streamlining the rostering of nursing staff in one of the largest A&E departments in the country. She used both her people skills and her skills with HealthRoster to suggest dramatic changes, getting approximately 100 staff on board with new ways of working. Patients are now seen quicker and measurable savings have been made without compromising patient care or safety levels. |
 Winner: Steve Hutchinson & Matt Wiklo, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS TrustSteve and Matt extracted data from the Allocate solution Roster Perform and used Microsoft Excel to form a new management reporting tool which analyses ward unavailability. Our judges said: “These unavailability reports represent a simple, yet innovative and transferable way to use existing data to deliver a more efficient service.” |
 Runner-up: Ged Whitfield, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation TrustGed has developed a Good Rostering Workshop, Good Rostering Guide and Roster Analysis tool and has shared this with other trusts via the Allocate user group network, disseminating best practice throughout the NHS. |
Award for Outstanding Contribution by an Individual
Kerri is a Band 6 Midwife, seconded to an e-Rostering project to assist in successful implementation of HealthRoster in the midwifery directorate. She has encountered challenges to improve rostering within the department, but her motivation and effort have been unwavering. The resulting efficiencies have saved the trust approximately £130K per annum which can be redirected to better patient care, and her review of working patterns has not only meant fairer rosters for all staff, but also a better skill mix on the unit ultimately benefiting women and babies. (Award collected by Janet Jarram on Kerri’s behalf) |
 Winner: Andrew Wilmer, East Kent NHS Foundation TrustManning an e-Rostering helpdesk which receives over 1,000 calls a month Andrew is described by his colleagues as having exceptional support and technical skills and inexhaustible patience. Many users ask for him directly as they trust they will receive sound advice. He has encouraged users who are frightened of computers and stretched users he thinks can get more out of the system. His amazing memory and his recall of all the trust’s varied units and their users has helped build a very personal relationship with several thousand different people and his colleagues are inspired by his exemplary customer service skills and technical ability. (Award collected by Janet Jarram on Andrew’s behalf) |
Runner-up: Margaret Fahey, University Hospital Southampton NHS Trust  Margaret Fahey has worked tirelessly to implement many new processes for driving the continued improvement of consultant job planning within the trust, improving communication and staff engagement. |
Award for Leadership through Challenging TimesWinner: Caroline Marshall, University Hospital Southampton NHS Trust Caroline Marshall made massive improvements to the Critical Care Department, realising her vision to create an award-winning department outstanding in clinical outcomes, teaching, research and wider community impact. An essential feature of her efforts was to introduce electronic job planning for every consultant using the Allocate solution e-JobPlan, immediately improving productivity by matching job plans to service need and resulting in over £100,000 in efficiency savings from just the first job planning round |
| Runner-up: John Peers, East London NHS Foundation Trust John has led the introduction of Allocate solutions HealthRoster and BankStaff at the trust. He has overseen the saving of £1.2 million by changing roster patterns in inpatient units whilst ensuring that staffing levels were maintained and quality and safety were not compromised. |
Award for Improving Care and Patient Safety through Technology
This Infection Control team has worked hard with Allocate at customising the software system HealthAssure for their specific needs, resulting in a bespoke solution they are very proud of. This innovative system will assist in delivering high standards of infection control. Among other benefits, infection control rates and exception reports are provided at ward level, allowing staff to act quickly when infections are reported. |
Allocate Efficiency Award for Rising to the £20bn Challenge
The team has led a move to an approach called ‘Rostering in Partnership’ across all of the trust’s 24/7 inpatient units. This new approach was put forward by the team in response to a need to reduce bank and agency spend whilst not reducing time to care. By using their specialist skills and best practice in the use of Allocate solution HealthRoster, after 6 months the team were able to demonstrate a £90k reduction per month in bank and agency spend, a reduction in overtime usage, as well as other measurable benefits which have vastly improved the patient experience. Judges were impressed by the range of supporting materials the team has produced to help other NHS organisations benefit from their learning. |
 Runner-up: Rostering Team; Amy Dimer, Jeanette Goodman, Angela Hayward, Penny Vigden, Colin Weller, Western Sussex Hospitals NHS TrustThis team has been implementing Allocate’s range of solutions Healthsuite and has enabled inpatient ward managers to reduce their bank and agency spend by £97K a month in contrast to the £54K that was originally predicted. Substantive staff are being better utilised giving improved consistency on the wards and driving up the quality and safety of patient care. |
Project Team of the Year Award
The team is making use of Allocate solution HealthAssure to track actions that staff agree to undertake as a result of quality improvement activities. Through the development of bespoke accountability templates and milestones within HealthAssure these quality improvement actions are now monitored through to completion. This way the team has enabled the trust to reach exceptional performance levels and has improved quality of care for patients. |
 Runner-up: e-Rostering Team: Kerri Eilerstsen-Feeney, Janet Jerram, Matt Jones, Philippa Kime, Sarah Murphy, Sarah Scottand Vickie Whitewood, Andrew Wilmer, East Kent NHS Foundation TrustIn little over a year this team established an interface between HealthRoster and ESR for payroll and absence recording across all 505 departments in the trust, covering 8,000 staff. In 6 months they completed the implementation and training of 430 units, handling a rise from approximately 100 to over 1,000 support calls a month during this intensive roll-out period. |
Award for Staff Engagement
The team decided to support their use of the Allocate solution HealthAssure by providing staff with a booklet which highlights how the CQC’s essential standards of quality and safety relate to their day-to-day jobs. Based on a resource originally produced by Jane Burgess of Eastern Coastal Kent Community Services, their newly designed booklet was carefully tailored to Nottingham CityCare Partnership’s needs and was proactively promoted within the organisation, resulting in positive organisational change. (Award collected by Rosemary Galbraith and Fiona Branton on the teams behalf) |
 Runner-up Governance, Risk and Compliance Team: Sue Chapman, Arthur Green, Sarah Watkins Ridgeway Partnership – Oxfordshire Learning Disability NHS Trust The team drastically evolved its assurance processes around CQC compliance with use of the Allocate Software solution HealthAssure. Key to the project was the need to communicate safety and quality standards to frontline staff across four counties, to gather evidence and information from disparate services, and to give staff local ownership of demonstrating compliance. |
The judges of the Allocate Awards 2012:
Dr David Foster – Deputy Director of Nursing, Department of Health
Dr David Foster’s portfolio includes responsibility for acute nursing, nursing and midwifery workforce and education issues, measuring the quality of nursing and midwifery care, implementing clinical academic research training programmes and advice on midwifery issues. Click to read more
Dr John Bullivant, Chairman, Good Governance Institute
Dr John Bullivant is author of ‘Integrated Governance: A guide to risk and joining up the NHS reforms’ (HFMA, 2011). He is an experienced board facilitator, with an excellent knowledge of policy, governance and the commissioning of quality in the four health administrations in the UK as well as overseas. Click to read more
Professor Paul Stanton, CEO, Southminster Consultancy Associates
Professor Paul Stanton has worked directly with the Boards of more than 100 Public Sector organizations in the UK to improve their governance, having spent a number of years as National Director of NHS Board Development and as a Senior Strategy Adviser on health regulation in the Department of Health. Click to read more
Dr Yasmin Ahmed-Little, Founding Co-Chair of The Network
Dr Yasmin Ahmed-Little is passionate about developing emerging clinical leadership and has established many pioneering initiatives enabling junior clinicians to engage in NHS leadership and management. She is Founding Co-Chair of an online community connecting over 2,000 medical students, doctors and other healthcare professionals to improve the quality of care in the UK and beyond. Click to read more
For information on how to nominate yourself, your team or a colleague for the Allocate Awards 2013 click here
