A PRESENTATION of the work undertaken by NHS Shetland during the past year was held on Friday (8 March) celebrating the improvements made to various areas of health care services. The event was organised by director of nursing and acute services Professor Kathleen Carolan, showcasing the improvements brought to various health care services in Shetland during the last year. During the presentation, staff presented eleven projects to their colleagues and the board for the 2023/24 edition of the Excellence in Care Awards. The five categories included practice education (award won by Dr Dean O’Dwyer, Jane Astles and Daniel Mainland for emergency care training) and innovation in practice (won by Claire Bisset and Megan Hibbert for dietetic service). Another category was person-centered care, won by health visitor Lynn Ritch), while there was also prevention (won by clinical pharmacist Jen O’Loan) and the impact of partnership working (won by bereavement midwife Hannah McCluskey). Professor Carolan said: “A common theme in many of the presentations was that teams in Shetland were leading the way in
Scotland, with lots of examples where they are developing new ways of working that other health boards could learn from.” This, she continued, meant that the high quality of the improvement work made it a “very difficult decision” for the panel to decide on the winners. Anne Armstrong, chair of the judging panel, said that the presenters and their teams “demonstrated a very high calibre of improvement work that deserves to be shared nationally to spread new ways of working and good practice.” “What really shone through was the focus on putting the patient and their families at the centre of care and how that had such a positive impact on the quality of the patient’s experience and their care,” she said. The other judges included Anne Armstrong, deputy chief nursing officer and Prof Carolyn McDonald, chief allied health professions officer, of the Scottish Government, and NHS Shetland non-executive board members Kathy Hubbard and Bruce McCulloch.