Award for Children’s Acute and Ongoing Needs Service

The Children’s Acute and Ongoing Needs Service: Sarah Labrow, Paula Raishbrooke, Lisa Hill, Diane Caipa, Anna Oddy, Sarah Fisher, Janice Fidler

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The Children’s Acute and Ongoing Needs Service, part of Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, has won an award for improving services to keep children and young people out of hospital and making a real difference to the lives of local families.

The service is made up of lots of different health professionals, including community nurses, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and a range of specialist nurses such as respiratory, diabetes, epilepsy and more.

Historically each of these professionals worked as part of separate services. However, in September 2016 they were brought together to create one service – with a single point of contact.

This joined up and streamlined approach helps to make sure that children and young people can quickly be seen by the right professional and receive care and support that is appropriate for their individual needs. This helps to ensure they remain healthy and can avoid an unnecessary stay in hospital.

Rochdale mum Carole Kelly has benefitted from the care and dedication of the team. Her son Joshua, who had mitochondrial disease, died on 27 August 2017 at just 15-months-old.

Nurses from the service cared for Joshua for many months and Carole has praised the real difference they made to the whole family.

She said: “Joshua used many of the services and they have exceeded our expectations. Everybody went above and beyond to support, not just Joshua, but the whole family. They engaged with my three-year-old daughter, by teaching her what all the tools in her doctors kit were, which helped her to understand the care that was being provide to Joshua.

“We have received a lot of love. It means such a lot to our family – they have been amazing for us.”

The team was recognised at Pennine Care’s recent awards evening, where the winners of the Trust’s CARES Awards were announced. They took home a certificate and a cash prize to invest in service improvements.

During the evening, a series of short films were unveiled which showcase the winning teams’ achievements. Carole and Joshua feature in the film, which was completed over the summer, prior to Joshua dying.

Paula Flint, Head of Service, said: “It was not an easy task to bring together so many individual services, each with its own unique processes, paperwork and so on.

“However, one thing everyone had in common was a desire to provide the very best care and to make a difference to local families. This is something the team achieves on a daily basis. I am absolutely delighted that their hard work has been recognised with a CARES Award.

“I am also so pleased that Carole and Joshua were able to take part in the filming and that we could provide her with such a lovely and moving video of her beautiful son. I would like to thank her for allowing us to share her story.”

As a lasting legacy to Joshua, Carole has established a toddler group in Rochdale. This is for children aged from birth to four years, especially those with a disability or additional needs. The aim is to provide a supportive network, where families can share information and socialise.