CHuFT Awards 2026

This award is about kindness.  

Nominate someone / a team whose first thought is “are you ok?” every day.

 

This is the kindness and compassion category.

This colleague is a true credit to our Trust, she has helped drive and develop the MacMillan Cancer information Service into what provides exemplary support and advice to our cancer patients and their families. She will, without any hesitation go above and beyond for our patients, interacting with other services and agencies on behalf of our patients and her colleagues. She has a wealth of knowledge in regard to what support is available across both Calderdale and Kirklees as well as nationally. Recently we were caring for a patient who originated from Sri Lanka and could not speak any English, the language she spoke was regional to her local community and we were not aware of any agencies locally that could help support her. The patient, her husband and their two young children were refugees, and had no form of social support. Our amazing colleague was able to lease with local agencies and introduced the patient to Halifax Opportunity Trust and St Augustine's Centre who had volunteers and support workers who could speak the language and have gone on to help support this family and have included them into their community.  Without her help, this patient would have undoubtedly struggled to complete chemotherapy, and then successfully recover from surgery. As a team we questioned whether it was safe to offer this patient treatment without putting her at risk from the same. There were concerns regarding communication barriers, for example the patients understanding of the potential risks associated with chemotherapy, and the patient having the ability to advise the team of any signs of infection. We were further concerned that the family would be isolated and would not have the ability to access help or support when needed. Thanks to our colleagues help and dedication we were able to successfully treat this lady. We were able to arrange for her to have a community key worker who spoke her language, and who helped to involve the patient in her care and to assure us that the patient was understanding of her diagnosis and the potential risks associated with her treatment. We were able to ensure the patient, and her family had care and support in the community and access to the right care at the right time. Without her help this patient may not have been able to access the best care and treatment available. This is just one example of the difference she makes to the overall outcome of care for our patients and service users.

The unwavering support and abundance of advice provided by her helps elevate the distress and uncertainties that our cancer patients face following there diagnosis, and throughout there treatment pathways. She is always on hand to guide and support patients through what is one of the most difficult journeys many of us will have to make. Her kindness, support and the time she makes to speak with patients means that she develops an established relationship with them, they trust her and she is there to help answer some of the complex and difficult questions and have conversations that our patients may not want or be able to have with there families or with clinical staff. This enables her co-workers to prevent inequalities in care and improve treatment pathways for our service users. Preventing patients from declining treatment and ensuring patients and their carers have an understanding of their diagnosis and proposed treatment plan which then enables them to make informed treatment decisions. It goes without saying, this supports our team to provide the best possible care, providing and co ordinating care across multiple services. She works with us to achieve the appropriate help and support for patients often at short notice, and due to the timely process and work involved in achieving this, she helps take tremendous pressure off our team. She will help and support anyone that needs her, and that includes patients, their families and her co-workers. She is an absolute credit to our Cancer Service and enriches the care we all strive to provide.

There are so many examples of our colleague going above and beyond for patients and co-workers, including co ordinating a wedding on Ward 12 for a young breast cancer patient who became acutely unwell and sadly wasn't going to make it to her planned wedding. The patient’s fiancé and their family were overwhelmed by what she was able to achieve and the help and support she provided to ensure they were able to have their special day. But one more recent example of her kindness and compassion was when she cared for and helped one of our volunteers who very sadly became unwell. He lived alone and didn't have any family or social support in place to help care for him or to help put things in place for his death. He trusted in our colleague to help him, and she truly went above and beyond to do so, she ensured he wasn't alone and that he was cared for and supported. Again, her compassion, empathy and care for others shone through, she helped care for him in her own time and did her absolute best to comfort him. Every patient that has had the benefit from her advice and support is always so thankful and patients cannot speak highly enough of her. I truly don't believe she is aware of how grateful we are for the help and support she offers our service users and us. The Breast Care Nursing Team count on her time and time again, as I'm sure other CNS Teams do also. We are proud of the service and care we provide our patients, from there diagnosis, through treatment and recovery and when the time comes to support them to move forward following completion of treatment and beyond. This valuable colleague is an integral part of making sure we can do so to the absolute best of our ability, and we are proud to have her as part of our team. Her dedication, professionalism, care and compassion, deserves to be highlighted.