October’s You Made a Difference awards go to a physiotherapist working hard to keep our elderly patients moving and a cardiologist who is always willing to step in and support her team.
Emma Pearce-Slade joined the Trust as a physiotherapy assistant in March 2014 and within six months had moved into a permanent rotational physiotherapy post.
Described as truly dedicated, Emma’s nomination reflected her time on ward G4, department of medicine for the elderly.
‘We know how important it is to "use it or lose it" and "end pyjama paralysis" especially on the care of the elderly wards. Keeping mobile reduces avoidable de-conditioning, promotes independence and minimises delays.
'Emma has gone the extra mile to prioritise frail, older people for proactive physiotherapy intervention, and in many instances I have no doubt this has shortened lengths of stay and reduced the number of patients waiting for formal care. In addition, Emma is extremely compassionate and a great advocate for patients' best interests in the geriatric multidisciplinary team meetings, she has also pays great attention to psychosocial complexity and provides extremely valuable professional opinions to help with the discharge planning of frail, older patients.'
Emma firmly believes in the home-first approach and has been able to recognise and anticipate risk as well as being very proactive in providing information and support to frail patients' families. Well done Emma!!
Dr Sharon Wilson joined the cardiology department, from Australia, in January 2015 as a senior clinical fellow. She went on to be a locum consultant and was then offered a substantive post at the Trust.
Although initially appointed to help with standard and complex echocardiography she is now the driving force behind delivery of that service as well as being the first proper educational supervisor for colleagues within the department. Despite a busy weekly schedule colleagues say she will always ‘roll up her sleeves to help out at short notice in the event of sickness and unexpected events.’
‘Last Thursday she took this to an extreme level when, at short notice, she attended to help out at a very complex surgical case. She somehow managed to source the equipment required, assist with the clinical need and then rearrange the cardiology resources in order to continue with her own clinical work. Finally - she was able to step back and offer solutions so this did not happen again.'
Sharon was nominated by the pre-assessment anesthetists, the PRIME anesthetists and the vascular surgical team.
It is the norm for Dr Wilson to go above and beyond in helping other clinicians (and therefore their patients) solve challenging cardiological problems. You phone, text or email her and she responds as soon as she can with a solution.