We were the first Trust in the country to introduce a robotic colonoscopy machine and now we’ve been shortlisted in the Modernising Diagnostics Category of the HSJ Awards, recognising how this procedure has transformed care for our patients.

Around 10 to 15% of patients are unable to tolerate traditional colonoscopy, whereas our machine offers a safer and painless experience, while reducing recovery time as patients do not need to be sedated. Watch a video of our team trialling the machine above.

We’ve also been shortlisted, alongside the London Ambulance Service (LAS), for Provider Collaboration of the Year. This is for a rapid offload model we worked on together, which has helped reduce delays when handing over patients from ambulance crews to our A&E teams at King George Hospital.

Within less than a year, hour plus handovers dropped significantly from 38% to less than 1% helping improve patient care, experience and health outcomes. It also meant ambulance crews were released from A&E to respond to patients in the community more quickly.

Winners will be announced on Thursday 21 November.

Our work with LAS has also been shortlisted in the NHS Parliamentary Awards’ Excellence in Urgent and Emergency Care category. Winners of these awards, where nominations are submitted by MPs, will be announced on Monday 14 October.

As well as our work to improve care for our patients, we’ve also been recognised for efforts to make our Trust a more inclusive place to work. Our Chief People Officer, Janine La Rosa (above), has been shortlisted for Compassionate and Inclusive Leader of the Year in the BAME Health & Care Awards.

These awards recognise leaders who strive to ensure views of BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) colleagues are heard, and ask the difficult questions to change the system. The winner will be announced on Thursday 26 September.

And our efforts to improve recoveries for stroke patients via our Stroke Team Recovery Improvement Through Volunteer Engagement (STRIVE) project, has been shortlisted in the Personalisation of Care category of the Patient Experience National Network Awards (PENNA).

The programme offers daily volunteer led activity sessions tailored to the needs of our stroke patients. Launched in April 2023, around 150 patients have already benefitted from these sessions.

The awards will be held on Thursday 3 October.