Publish date: 28 December 2022
Northumbria Healthcare ends 2022 with award recognising commitment to care
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust ended the year by winning a top prize at the Health Business Awards.
The trust, which runs hospitals and community services in Northumberland and North Tyneside, won the Outstanding Achievement in Healthcare category at this month’s virtual awards ceremony.
This is presented to an NHS organisation which ‘has achieved success in its role and brought benefits to the wider NHS through the dedication and expertise of its staff’.
The awards citation highlighted three of the trust’s achievements this year; its performance in the national NHS staff survey, the opening of the new procedures unit at the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital (NSECH), in Cramlington, and its involvement in the HOPE leadership exchange project.
Northumbria Healthcare was rated the best acute and combined acute and community trust in the country based on the experience of its staff when the national survey results were published in March. The results also revealed that staff morale was the highest of any NHS trust in the country.
Meanwhile, the procedures unit opened earlier this year and sparked positive feedback from both patients and staff for its calm and relaxed environment for patients having planned procedures, mainly day cases.
The new purpose-built unit means that a range of procedures have been taken out of the emergency stream, helping to improve capacity and flow in the hospital. Cardiology procedures such as the fitting of pacemakers also take place, freeing up ward space elsewhere.
And in June, the trust played host to three healthcare professionals from Portugal, Spain and Italy as part of the HOPE project (Hospitals of EurOPE), which is a European exchange programme that offers those with healthcare managerial responsibilities an opportunity to spend time in another country’s healthcare system for several weeks.
Since 2010, the Health Business Awards has been staged annually to recognise the many examples of innovation and excellence that happen every day in the NHS.
Supported by Health Business magazine, the award categories cover facilities, technology, human resources, hospital management and transport, as well as the Outstanding Achievement in Healthcare award, which is presented to an NHS organisation that has achieved sustained success in its role and has brought benefits to the wider NHS through dedication and expertise.
At this year’s awards, the trust was also commended in the Transport & Logistics category for NHS Fleet Solutions, its salary-sacrifice lease car scheme for the public sector, which works with around 40% of the UK’s NHS trusts and other public-sector organisations, such as councils, police forces and universities.
In 2021, almost 10,000 electric vehicles were registered through Fleet Solutions, which at the time represented around one in 20 of all the electric vehicles registered in the country that year.
Media contact
Ben O’Connell, media and communications officer, Northumbria Healthcare
Benjamin.O'Connell@northumbria-healthcare.nhs.ukor 07833 046680.