Publish date: 4 November 2022
September's Employee of the Month winner is John Atherton from the South Sefton Neighbourhood Team - Bootle . John was nominated by Phil O'Donohue for the value of Support.
"I would like to nominate John for the employee of the month for the support that he gave me when we both he and I had to write a report for the coroner’s court and were told that we would have may have to attend the court. There were many times throughout this whole process that I was so overwhelmed that I broke down and John was there the whole time supporting me putting me first before his own needs.
I have never in my 37 years of working for the NHS come across a member of staff who is so unassuming and caring and the fact that his support was so invaluable to me at this very stressful time, I will be forever grateful for the support that he gave me at this extremely difficult time. I feel that nominating John for employee of the month is the perfect platform to let John know how grateful I am for the support that he showed me at this stressful time. I feel that the support that john gave me was immeasurable he always made time for me be it supervision or just a chat when things got stressful for me, I feel that without john constant support I may have needed to take some time off but with John's support I was able to remain in work.
I note that john not only supports me he supports our team he is always there for all of our team he always makes time for everyone he so thoughtful to all of the team he is an excellent team member and is there for everyone. He always makes himself available and is so approachable even when he is extremally busy within his own role. I also see John support other team when they approach him with a problem, he will always go out of his way to support that staff member and if he can help, he will do his best or he may signpost staff to places that might be able to help them. John also organises our student nurses he is so helpful to the student and always takes time to explain things to them."
September's Team of the Month winner is the Young Onset Dementia Team. The team was nominated by Jody Taylor for the value of Continuous Improvement.
"There has previously been no provision of Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST) specific for people with a diagnosis of Young Onset Dementia (YOD) within Merseycare. Our YOD team have developed a CST group that comprises of 7, 2-hour sessions and will be held in the community at Sedgemoor Community Centre. CST is unique as it is one a select few, non-pharmacological therapies recognised by NICE guidance. We are not aware of any other CST groups specifically for YOD running in the northwest of England.
Anybody that works within the field of dementia care will appreciate the long-lasting benefits of CST, the positive impact on people’s cognitive function and subsequent quality of life improvement is remarkable. Carers will benefit greatly from having their loved ones engage with the group and developed their own support network / skills. We are extremely proud of the team to get to a position to developed and deliver the group in the heart of the community enabling people to easily access it.
It’s also worth noting the specialist skills in the YOD team are continually shared / passed on to new starters. This set of skills will be rolled out to our 5 x newly qualified B5 nurses. We would love to mark this great achievement with a team of the month nomination - our complex care services have never made previous submissions and much of their amazing work goes unnoticed. I would like to change this and what a start this could be."