The Palliative Residential Care Provider Award

Winner: The Gables Residential Home
Ann demonstrated a heartfelt commitment to the residents, fulfilling their wishes and treating them with the utmost respect. Her exceptional attention to their families and other residents truly stands out.

Highly Commended: Adamscourt Care Home
Vanessa displayed meticulous care in honoring both residents and their families during times of passing, making the experience both meaningful and celebratory.

The Palliative Nursing Home Provider Award

Winner: The Old Rectory Nursing Home
The Old Rectory Nursing Home distinguished itself with passion and dedication, exemplifying exceptional care and service, making it a deserving winner of this award.

Highly Commended: St Mary’s Care Home
St Mary’s Care Home goes above and beyond in providing outstanding palliative care, diligently working to ensure the best outcomes for all in their care.

The Palliative Care at Home Provider Award

Winner: BelleVie Care
BelleVie Care displayed remarkable compassion during the interview process, showing a deep belief in their mission and a strong passion for their roles, staff, clients, and families.

Highly Commended: The Peaches Healthcare
The Peaches Healthcare exhibited a deep commitment to their staff through gifts, compassion, support, and training. They showed genuine care for their clients and families, taking pride in their accomplishments.

The Palliative Care Worker (Residential & Nursing) Award

Winner: Enzinne Martha Onwughara, Ridgeway Rise
Enzinne is an exceptional end-of-life carer whose compassion is evident in every action. She consistently goes above and beyond, singing soothing songs to ease residents’ distress and gently rubbing their hands and legs. Enzinne’s unwavering dedication and heartfelt care profoundly impact the lives of those she supports.

Highly Commended: Mary-Rose Scott , Northern Ireland Hospice
Mary-Rose is a deeply compassionate and caring individual who makes a significant difference in the lives of those she supports. Her complementary therapies are hugely beneficial to her patients, both at home and as in-patients, with effects that last long after her visits. She is a beacon of hope for people at the end of their lives and their families.

The Palliative Care Worker (Community) Award

Winner: Violet Lowther, Marie Curie
This palliative care specialist tirelessly advocates for clients and their families, providing culturally sensitive and attentive care. Her extensive expertise, combined with a gentle and respectful approach, ensures robust daily support. Her unwavering dedication to high standards makes her an invaluable asset to compassionate end of life care.

Highly Commended: Angela Polley, The Good Care Group
Dignity, respect and care lie at the heart of Angela’s approach. She is exceptional in her role and much deserving of high commendation.

The Palliative Care Manager (Residential & Nursing) Award

Winner: Kelly Susans, The ExtraCare Charitable Trust
Kelly is very passionate about her role, takes her job very seriously and her dedication to making a difference shows through the work that she has done. Kelly has created a culture of openness and person centred care and support which is very important to family members and residents

Highly Commended: Ann Kathrine Lloyd-Owen, The Gables Residential Home
Ann is very proud of her team and work they do. She is clearly very dedicated to her role and wanting to make a difference to her residents and is an asset to the sector.

The Palliative Care Manager (Community) Award

Winner: Sarah Armstrong, Bluebird Care Stevenage
Caring, passionate, and enthusiastic, Sarah is a shining example of why people should work in social care. She has a remarkable energy and belief in her work, which was evident during her interview. Her level of commitment after many years in social care is truly humbling.

Highly Commended: Lynn Rogers, The Good Care Group
Lynn is a great ambassador for social care. Her core values and beliefs underpin everything she does, showing real commitment to her team and the people she supports. She speaks with great consideration and empathy, leading from the front and caring deeply about everyone around her.

The Palliative Care Manager (Not for Profit) Award

Winner: Lisa Roberts, United Lincolnshire Health Trust
Lisa impressed the judges with her initiative to bring Christmas to a young mother who couldn’t go home, arranging donated presents and respecting her culture. She also ensured her young children didn’t associate Christmas with their mother’s death by clearing away the festivities. Lisa’s instinctive care and respect for people’s wishes, including allowing pets, highlight her exceptional dedication.

Highly Commended: Mel Butcher, Barnsley Hospice
Mel arranged for a person’s horse to visit twice, fulfilling a final wish. Her natural way of making people feel welcome turns fear into comfort. She brings professionals and families together, ensuring everyone has the same information, which helps with family dynamics.

The Palliative Care Team (Residential & Nursing) Award

Winner: Lijo & Team, Maven Healthcare
The team are clearly focused on ensuring that each resident has the best passing that they can. They will ensure that it’s all about their choices and will personalise the care provided for each resident in order to fulfil their last wishes.

Highly Commended: St Mary’s Care Home
St Mary’s Care Home, under exceptional management, has transformed into a place providing the best possible palliative care for residents and their families, ensuring the end-of-life process is not to be feared.

The Palliative Care Team (Community) Award

Winner: Samantha Davis-Wright, Wright Care at Home
Wright Care at Home provides an amazing service, ensuring the best outcomes for those nearing the end of life with a thoroughly person-centered approach. Samantha and her team are much deserving of this award.

Highly Commended: The Team, Bluebird Care Reading
Bluebird Care Reading offers a fantastic service with real commitment and passion. This team is highly deserving of commendation in this category.

The Palliative Care Team (Not for Profit) Award

Winner: Lisa Hunt, Garden House Hospice Care
Lisa and her team at Garden House Hospice Care have tirelessly implemented an innovative pathway addressing significant inequalities in hospice support access. This achievement is truly remarkable and worthwhile.

Highly Commended: Adult Hospice In-Patient Multi-Disciplinary Team, Northern Ireland Hospice
The team exuded passion and drive to make people’s last days the very best they can be. They gave many inspiring examples of ways in which they support their patients to celebrate life events with those they love and have worked hard to make the hospice a community hub.

The Ancillary Worker Award

Winner: The Catering Team, Barnsley Hospice
The team is led by colleagues that have seen the service change and grow over the last 30 years, this length of service demonstrates their love and commitment to the hospice and their passion and creativity were so obvious to see throughout the interview.

Highly Commended: Sylwia Borejsza and the Housekeeping Team
The judges were left speechless after meeting Slwyia! Sylwia’s growth and development over 17 years are admirable. Her energy, character, and tenacity are truly inspiring, making her and her team deserving of high commendation.

The Excellence in Palliative Care Nursing Award

Winner: Maria O’Neil, HMP Littlehey
Maria bought her hospice experience into the prison environment, ultimately changing the way the prison service supports those with a life limiting illness. Maria’s passion and dedication to her role has caused a positive ripple effect which will leave a permanent legacy of improved palliative care for prisoners.

Highly Commended: Leanne Fahy, Lincolnshire Community Health Services
Leanne is a dynamic and impressive nurse who has achieved a huge amount in her role. Sometimes working in challenging circumstances, Leanne has improved access to end of life care for marginalised members of the community, taking direct action to bring the “no barriers” project to Lincolnshire. A fantastic achievement- well done Leanne..

The Excellence in Palliative Care Nursing (Not for Profit) Award

Winner: Siobhan Aris, Cornwall Hospice
Siobhan displays excellent care in all that she does whether it be providing education to others or providing support within the community. An outstanding candidate and asset to the sector!

Highly Commended: Helena Loynes, Barnsley Hospice
Helena uses her learning and implements new systems in order to enhance the care of all those within the hospice. She works hard and shows her dedication to all.

The Workforce Development Award

Winner: Jess, Nicola & Beth, MacIntyre Charity
This team introduced bespoke loss and bereavement training across their services, demonstrating a deep commitment to meeting service users’ needs. Their innovative training is a sector first and has received exceptional feedback.

Highly Commended: Thessa Verwolf, Nightingale Hammerson
Thessa described brilliantly all the benefits of working for an organisation that truly engages its staff in the wellbeing of their residents. She gave delightful accounts of innovative use of projects within these well-run care homes.

The Diversity & Inclusion Award

Winner: Nicole Satullo, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust
A dynamic and refreshing approach to raising awareness of EDI in palliative care. An amazing project and worthy winner of this award.

Highly Commended: Diversity & Inclusion Team, Myton Hospice
This team’s dedication and passion really shone through alongside their commitment to EDI objectives. They should be proud of themselves and the impact they are having.

The Innovation in End of Life Social Care Award

Winner: Trudi, BelleVie Care
Trudi has taken the traditional end of life care system and turned it on its head, putting what matters to patients at the very heart of BelleVie’s services, which are underpinned by a nurse-led holistic care model. At the same time, Trudi is leveraging the latest tech advancements and R&D funding to continuously build on BelleVie’s successes to date.

Highly Commended: Nusrat Feroz Aman, AYAT Education
Innovation is defined as the process of bringing new ideas, methods, products, services or solutions which have a significant positive impact and value. It involves transforming creative concepts into tangible outcomes that improve efficiency, effectiveness and address unmet needs. The multi-faceted approach which Nusrat has adopted in the betterment of end of life care services in Bangladesh is truly commendable.

The Bereavement Support Award

Winner: MacIntyre and ARC England
A force to be reckoned with! This collaborative sets the standard for project delivery in the industry, boldly improving end-of-life and palliative care conversations. Their strong relationship demonstrates their commitment and passion.

Highly Commended: Sheryl Smith, Jewish Care
Sheryl is one of the most humble candidates I have had the pleasure of meeting. She lives to help people and offers unwavering support to the residents, their families and the staff within the care homes. She is highly skilled and knowledgeable but this does not take away from her humility and kind nature.

The Support for Family Carers Award

Winner: Cedars Care Home
A wonderful team that should take pride in their work. The organisation’s culture emphasises care and meticulous attention to detail. They not only support the residents and their families but also care for each other.

Highly Commended: Kelly Field, NHS University Hospitals of Southampton
Kelly deserves to be recognised for what they do and the support they provide to extended families and team members. A true inspiration, it was an honour meeting them.

The Best Influencer & Campaigner Award

Winner: Katie Costello, Soul Midwife
Katie should be recognised for her exceptional energy, passion and unwavering commitment to advocate for people at and beyond the end of their lives. She is making a vital contribution to the field and is a true example of perseverance and believing in yourself.

Highly Commended: Mark Taubert, Velindre University NHS Trust
Mark is an exceptional and inspirational leader who goes above and beyond to pave the way for palliative care. His sense of humour is infectious and calming, along with his skills and knowledge he builds trust and enables quality of care amongst his team for those on the palliative pathway.

The Best Fundraiser Award

Winner: Les Reid, Beaumond House Hospice Care
Les is an inspiration, a resourceful and driven man! He is a retired and is now working to raise funds for his hospice in recognition of their care for his beloved wife and the support they gave him. Les understand the value of so many things as a service user, his personal experience is now helping the current patients.

Highly Commended: Dawn Jenkinson, Barnsley Hospice
Dawn is clearly very passionate about her role the organisation, she is very humble and appears to live and breathe fundraising! She is a real community spirit and feels very proud to work for the Hospice. Dawn really is making a difference, not just for the Hospice but for the wider community too.

The Partnership Working Across Health & Social Care Award

Winner: The Getting to Outstanding PEOLC project, Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB
This is a worthy winner, an outstanding exemplar of partnership working. They demonstrate big picture partnership-working across health and social care, extensive consultations, workshops, interactive sessions, involving over 100 organisations. They can build on this success to develop even stronger metrics, bigger ambitions and even greater spread.

Highly Commended: ReSPECT Steering group, One Gloucestershire
A well developed region-wide focussed piece of work in promoting advance care planning across a variety of stakeholders including the public, people with learning disabilities etc , well resourced , well audited and a successful project

The Integrated Care Systems Award

Winner: Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care System
This finalist affirms the importance of whole-system EOLC , joined-up population-based thinking across health and social care, encouraging tangible outcome measures , innovative digital solutions plus consistent committed leadership. Focussed training enabling the whole health and care workforce is key here .They are worthy winners of this ICB Award.

Highly Commended: Suffolk and North East Essex ICS
This highly commended finalist demonstrates committed leadership, a collaborative approach across health, social care and hospices , a dashboard of metrics, Compassionate Community, and particularly good patient-carer feedback. They are worthy exemplars of the kind of energy and population-based EOLC perspective we need in ICBs now.

The Outstanding Volunteer Award

Winner: Jean Thompson-Banks, Barnsley Hospice
With over 30 years of volunteering under Jean’s belt, its fair to say she is now part of the furniture at Barnsley Hospice! Her long-standing passion and commitment to the role marks a most wonderful achievement.

Highly Commended: Jewish Care Pastoral Volunteers
This team of 7 volunteers work tirelessly to give resident’s a voice and platform to share their views. Their compassionate and person centred approach is truly exceptional.

The Lifetime Achievement in Palliative Care Award

Winner: Ann Ayris, Ebury Court Care Home
Ann has been an invaluable member of the Ebury Court team for 35 years, dedicating her career to enhancing the lives of residents, especially those at the end of life. Her commitment to delivering exceptional palliative care led to her pivotal role in achieving and maintaining GSF accreditation since 2009. Ann’s expertise and compassion make her an outstanding mentor, guiding staff through complex emotional issues. She coordinates advance care plans and leads initiatives like Namaste Care, significantly improving end of life experiences. Ann’s unwavering dedication has transformed our palliative care standards, ensuring residents receive compassionate, person-centered support.

Highly Commended: Professor Keri Thomas, Gold Standards Framework
Keri Thomas is a leading figure in global end of life care, recognised for democratising best practices and shaping strategic initiatives. As founder and Chair of The GSF Centre CIO UK, her 25-year dedication ensures exemplary care for individuals in their final years. Awarded an OBE in 2016 and the RCGP President’s Medal in 2017, Keri’s leadership is further underscored by her FMLM Senior Fellowship in 2019. Her profound personal journey fuels a commitment to holistic care, advocating for living fully amidst the reality of death.