14/10/2021
We are celebrating winning a prestigious national Healthcare People Management Award (HPMA) for Excellence in Organisation Development (OD) for its Working Safely Together Echo Network.
The annual HPMA Excellence in People Awards recognise and celebrate the work of Human Resources (HR), Organisational Development (OD) and workforce professionals across the UK.
In total 16 separate awards were judged across a range of categories that recognise and celebrate best practice and showcase the professional achievements of organisations within the health and care sector.
This year’s award had particular significance due to the critical importance of HR management in dealing with the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and its role within the recovery of healthcare services across the UK.
Speaking about the event, Western Trust Assistant Director of OD and Echo Lead, Riona Santiago, and Joanne Quinn, Assistant Director of Facilities Management said:
“We are delighted to receive this national recognition of our Working Safely Together Network. On behalf of the Team I would like to thank all of our Safety Leads who have shown such commitment to share learning across hierarchies and boundaries over the last 12 months. They have made a real difference to their facilities and teams.
“Our aim was to create a safety culture within the Trust and despite the hugely challenging circumstances we achieved this through our Echo Network. The Trust worked in partnership with Project ECHO NI and Hospice UK to use the ECHO virtual platform and methodology to connect expertise and best practice through the concept of moving knowledge not people in regular collaborative sessions.
“We created a forum focused on all aspects of safety – physical, environment, organisational and psychological, and invited 110 staff from all professions and all levels to meet as a safety network for 1 hour every week.
“These staff were nominated to become Safety Leads representing their facilities across our wide geographical location. Their role was to share learning within the Network and apply any subsequent peer learning within their own facilities / wards.
“Term 1 focused on ‘Working Safely through Covid’ and ran from November 2020 to March 2021. Term 2 commenced in April 2021 and is focused on ‘Working Safely through Rebuild’ and over this time we have grown from 110 staff to 180 staff in Term 2.
“Our most notable achievement was ultimately our organisational performance in reducing outbreaks and nosocomial incidents. The WHSCT had one of the lowest nosocomial rates in Northern Ireland and reached zero community facility outbreaks.