Voting is now open
Voting is now open for our People’s Choice Award at our annual Time to Shine Awards. This award will recognise those individuals who have been recognised by their peers as "Shining Stars" who have gone the extra mile or via our weekly staff recognition scheme.
The best nominations have been shortlisted and now we need your help to decide our winner (staff and members of the public can vote). Take a look at our final four candidates below and cast your vote.
You have until midnight on Wednesday 28 September to cast your vote.
Judith started her career with the NHS twelve years ago. Judith had previously worked in retail but felt she could put her skills to better use. Judith returned to her studies and qualified in 2009 before taking up her current position as an Occupational Therapist at the Trust in 2010.
Judith’s nomination doesn’t focus on one event but centres around her everyday passion for helping service users and fellow team members.
The role is very fast paced and time management and diary management can be really challenging. Judith’s colleagues commend Judith on her ability to manage her time effectively and how you will never hear Judith complain. Judith is a natural problem solver and will always find a solution to make the demands of the job happen whilst ensuring all her service users feel like they have her uninterrupted and undivided attention.
Judith really enjoys getting to know service users and finding out their passions and hobbies meaning she looks to find ways to develop these into the treatments and care offered. Whether this is arts and crafts, making blankets or knitting these activities are proven to help with anxiety and can improve a patient’s mental health making them feel appreciated and valued again.
Judith has worked with other local organisations to introduce some of her patients to other activities, such as litter picking in the local community so Judith tireless effort to help her patients helps them but also in turn benefits the community too.
When Judith isn’t working she also finds time to support Homeless Hounds, a local charity which helps rehome abandoned dogs with Judith rescuing her own puppy, Olly last year.
Judith is the unofficial office party planner which includes arranging desk decorations and sweet treats to celebrate birthdays, baby showers and anniversaries and Judith now has a reputation for making her own personalised bunting.
Judith’s team members commented that it is often the small thoughtful things that make the biggest difference and we can always rely on Judith to cheer us up and keep us motivated. Her passion for caring for the service users is so evident and we can all learn from Judith and her positive outlook.
When Judith found out she was nominated she was genuinely shocked saying:
"I feel really honoured to have been nominated for this award by my colleagues. I love going home at the end of the day knowing I have helped improved a patient’s life by looking for real solutions to their problems but sometimes more importantly it enhances their outlook on life.
I feel it is important to say I think of us as one big team and without the team work this wouldn’t be possible."
Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist Dr Lucy Bacon is based at our secure mental health hospital at Guild Lodge in Whittingham, Preston.
On the evening of Wednesday, July 6, this year she was off duty and relaxing watching her partner’s cricket team Preston Grasshoppers playing 20 overs in the grounds of Guild Park. (Barton Grange)
It seemed like an ordinary veterans’ cricket match – but just 20 minutes in, her friend and husband’s team-mate - Steve Kerry, a former Rugby League star, was batting, when he suddenly collapsed in front of shocked spectators.
Lucy immediately ran onto the pitch and began to check Steve’s airway and breathing. Finding her friend unresponsive, she instantly began delivering CPR to try and restart Steve’s heart.
As a Medical Director in our Secure Services, Lucy hadn’t performed CPR in a number of years and only recalls performing it before as a junior doctor despite annual training here at LSCft. A number of spectators ran to our Guild Lodge hospital and a neighbouring social club returning with a number of Guild Lodge staff and two defibrillators. Inside the defibrillator bags were oxygen probes and blood pressure cuffs.
Three other people including a member of the other cricket team, believed to be a police officer, had then joined Lucy and they alternated the delivery of CPR to Steve for around 15-20 minutes in total. Lucy was able to use a defibrillator to deliver a shock to Steve’s heart before resuming CPR and before too long - her friend Kez began to respond.
Lucy remained calm and was able to talk to the 999 control operator as well as chatting to Steve to keep him conscious, when an ambulance and later air ambulance arrived.
They were able to inject Steve with adrenaline and cannulate him and he was taken from the Grasshoppers ground to The Royal Preston Hospital before being moved to Blackpool Victoria Hospital two days later. Steve received heart bypass surgery and was in critical care for 6 days - but the former Salford, Oldham, Huddersfield and Whitehaven Rugby League star has since made a good recovery and is back home watching Rugby again.
When Lucy found out she was nominated she said:
"I feel surprised and a little embarrassed to be nominated, I’m a doctor so was just ‘doing my job’ but I am so glad that my friend Steve, or Kez, as I know him, is still with us.
I remember thinking at the time, ‘My gosh, he’s collapsed in front of all these people watching who love him, this has to work – I just can’t let him die.”
Ellie-Jo Parkinson is a Homeless Healthcare Practitioner who works in the Integrated Neighbourhood Team in Pennine Lancashire.
You only have to speak to Ellie-Jo to understand why she was nominated as her passion for helping the homeless – almost 500 people in fact - shines through to anyone who encounters her in her role and indeed, her day-to-day life.
As the only dedicated Homeless Healthcare Practitioner across the Trust, she has seen the harsh reality of poverty, addiction and homelessness, and felt compelled to help and represent those in shelters, hostels and trying to find somewhere to call home with their mental and physical health issues.
In practice, she carries out holistic healthcare assessments on the homeless, getting to the heart of what matters to the individual on their journey to recovery. She has gone above this by asking charities and other departments to donate socks, toothbrushes, toothpaste and mouthwash to be given to homeless people, so they have something to help them stay warm and maintain their dental health, which she acknowledges has an impact on people’s self-esteem.
She also represents the homeless on various Trust groups and has contributed to the Trust policy and NICE guidelines linked to this vulnerable group, advocating for them in any way she can.
She always finds the time to help, is a great listener and acknowledges that just by speaking to a service user and really listening to their story, she can change their day and assist them in changing their life for the better.
A trained occupational therapist by background, Ellie-Jo is particularly proud of a veteran she helped who had an undiagnosed learning disability. She was able to assist in securing him accommodation near to his family, which was incredibly important to him. He is now feeling happy, settled and is involved in a veteran community group.
When Ellie-Jo found out about this award nomination she said:
"I am honoured to have been nominated for this award, and am pleased it is highlighting the work that we do as a Trust to help and support the homeless.
The news came during an especially tough time for me personally having just suffered the loss of my beloved grandma, however, I know she would have been really proud of me.”
Sharon has worked for the trust for 23 years and earlier this year joined the newly created Reconnect Team.
After attending a family party in Warrington in August, Sharon, her partner and daughter were returning home when they spotted a figure slumped by the side of the road at around 11pm. Sharon turned the car around and drove back down the dark lane to realise the figure was a young woman in her early twenties on her own.
Getting out of the car Sharon approached the girl and found her unconscious and unresponsive laying on the side of the pavement. Sharon began to use her life saving training to establish if the woman was breathing and to open up her airways, this was made more difficult by the non-existent natural light. Another car stopped to help and Sharon quickly directed them to call an ambulance. Shortly after arriving on the scene the woman began to react to Sharon’s voice and began to move and attempt to talk but Sharon placed her in the recovery position as she was beginning to splutter and choke when attempting to speak.
After several minutes and following Sharon’s reassuring and caring manner she began to become more responsive and managed to tell Sharon she was in crisis.
Sharon used her expertise and training to reassure the young woman and comfort her whilst they waited for help to arrive. The girl was taken to Royal Preston Hospital where she received treatment.
Learning she had been nominated Sharon said:
“I feel really shocked to be nominated but also very pleased, at first I didn’t think I had done anything extraordinary but on reflection and from speaking to other people I feel proud that I managed to help her.“
