Norfolk Community Health and Care

Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust (NCH&C) is celebrating after being shortlisted for three Health Service Journal (HSJ) Awards. The annual awards celebrate excellence in healthcare, highlighting the most innovative and successful achievements in the NHS.

Being selected as finalists in multiple categories is yet another huge achievement for the Trust which has recently been rated ‘Outstanding’ by the CQC. 

The categories the Trust has been shortlisted for include, staff engagement, creating a supportive staff culture and compassionate patient care.

The Trust is also part of The Norwich Escalation Avoidance Team, or NEAT, which has also been shortlisted for the category of ‘Improved Partnerships Between Health and Local Government’.

The HSJ Awards has celebrated, promoted and recognised the finest achievements in the NHS for 37 years. With 26 competitive categories to choose from, the awards cover a full range of NHS services and its challenges.



Two of the awards the Trust has been shortlisted for relate to a bespoke crowdsourcing platform which was launched to enable all staff who are geographically spread to have a voice in shaping the future of the organisation.

Laura Palmer, Staff Engagement Manager, explained: 

“Providing a positive experience for staff is part of our Trust’s annual priorities and strategic objectives. However we recognised that staff did not always feel involved, engaged or valued and their experiences were inconsistent, so wanted to change this.

“As a community Trust where our staff are geographically spread, we needed a ‘tool’ where staff could contribute to a shared ‘conversation’. Following detailed research we invested in a crowdsourcing platform, hosted by Clever Together, launched as ‘Your Voice Our Future’.

“Your Voice, Our Future has proven very successful and it enables senior management to engage with staff at every level and gather views on important questions, including helping to shape the future direction of the Trust.”

The other award category the Trust has been shortlisted for is compassionate patient care. This is in recognition of a new service which has been set up collaboratively between Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust (NCH&C) and the Central Norfolk CCGs (North Norfolk, South Norfolk and Norwich) known as the ‘Frequent Attenders Service’. 

Nick Pryke, Assistant Director Community Services (Norwich), said: 

“The service aims to understand the reasons why some individuals are attending the hospital so frequently.  By taking a multidisciplinary and holistic approach to identifying the issues and using specific skills in health coaching, our Health Improvement Practitioners are able to empower these individuals to use their own strengths to find new and positive ways to get help and support when needed.  Emergency services are not always the right place to offer help in every circumstance and using our knowledge of the local community and help available, we are able to link the person to their own network of support, their local community and alternate services. 

“In the first five months of operating this service we were able to prevent 543 A&E attendances which was a very positive outcome for the individuals getting the right help and allows our very busy emergency services to focus on people needing their emergency care.”

Josie Spencer, Chief Executive, praised the nominations:

“To be shortlisted for three HSJ awards in the same year as being rated outstanding by CQC is an incredible accolade. This achievement would not be possible without the dedication, passion and innovation of our staff. I am very proud to be leading such an inspirational trust.”

www.norfolkcommunityhealthandcare.nhs.uk

About Norfolk Community Health and Care (NCH&C)

NCH&C provides community-based NHS health and care to everyone, from babies to the elderly, via more than 70 different service locations across Norfolk as well as providing a specialist Early Supported Discharge service to stroke patients in Norfolk and Suffolk. Serving a population of nearly 900,000 people, the trust delivers community dentistry, services for children, young people and families, therapies, community nursing, end of life care and specialist nursing.

We believe that people are better looked after locally and this belief drives us to work hard to bring our expert care to patients in our seven community hospitals, within GP surgeries and in their own homes. 

We are proud to be the UK’s only standalone NHS community trust to have achieved an ‘Outstanding’ rating by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Our focus is on continually improving the quality of care we offer to local people and on improving access to that care, helping people to move seamlessly from one service to another.