North East London shortlisted for two HSJ Awards

North East London Cancer Alliance is delighted to announce that the work of the alliance and its partners on cancer performance recovery, and the You Need to Know womb cancer campaign, have both made the shortlist for this year’s HSJ Awards. This recognises their outstanding contribution to healthcare and secures them a place at the prestigious awards ceremony on 21 November 2024.

Over 1,300 entries were received for this year’s Awards, with only 234 projects and individuals from these reaching the final shortlist. The high volume and exceptional quality of applications showcases the impressive levels of innovation and care continually being developed within the UK’s healthcare networks.

Performance Recovery Award

Following a thorough judging process, the hard work and dedication across the three providers in north east London - Barts Health, Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (BHRUT), and Homerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust - has been recognised through being shortlisted for the Performance Recovery Award.

‘Cancer Recovery Against The Odds’ is programme of work which set out not only to achieve the national cancer performance standards (from a very challenging position), but also to exceed this to deliver exceptional cancer care and an enhanced patient experience.

Through collaboration with patients, partners, clinicians and primary care, the team has been able to collectively exceed the backlog targets, achieve the faster diagnosis standard, and delight local patients. The Faster Diagnosis Standard sets a target that at least 75% of people should not wait more than 28 days from referral to finding out whether they have cancer or not.

Each of the providers went above and beyond to deliver this, holding regular operational meetings to keep things on track and focussing on the cancer tumour groups that really needed support. A special thank you goes to all cancer care staff in north east London, and in particular the Chief Operating Officers - Fiona Wheeler (BHRUT), Rebecca Carlton (Barts Health) and Emma Rowland (Homerton), the Cancer Leads - Mark Warren (Barts Health), Janet Robinson (BHRUT) and Charlotte Rowe (Homerton), and the Clinical Directors - Sas Banerjee (BHRUT), Angshu Bowmik (Homerton) and Angela Wong (Barts Health).

Wayne Douglas, Diagnosis and Treatment Programme Lead for the cancer alliance, said: “I’m so pleased that all the hard work, extensive collaboration and innovation across a wide range of partners over the last year has been recognised by these prestigious awards.

“Most importantly, it is our residents in north east London who are benefitting from quicker cancer diagnosis and improved cancer care. This is reflected in our cancer performance results, where all three of our Trusts in north east London – Barts Health, Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, and Homerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust – have exceeded targets for reducing the backlog of patients, bringing it down by nearly 40% over the last year.”

NHS Communications Initiative of the Year Award

The team who worked on cancer recovery will be joined at the Awards by the Early Diagnosis team, who successfully made the shortlist for the NHS Communications Initiative of the Year Award.

This was for their inspiring campaign ‘You Need to Know’, which aims to improve early diagnosis of womb cancer for Black African, Black Caribbean, and South Asian women. The campaign is in partnership with leading gynae charity Eve Appeal and communications agency AKT Health.

Caroline Cook, Early Diagnosis Programme Lead for the cancer alliance, said: “We are delighted to be shortlisted at the HSJ Awards 2024. This is a huge boost for our dedicated and hard-working team, which includes our local communities and volunteers, especially in a year when the competition was so tough with an unprecedented volume of entries from so many other equally deserving Trusts and individuals.

“We hope that the increased profile of the campaign through being shortlisted for these awards will help others come forward and seek life-saving help if they have symptoms. The main symptom of womb cancer is bleeding after the menopause and anyone experiencing this should contact their GP immediately."

'Winners already'

Femi Odewale, Managing Director for North East London Cancer Alliance, said: “Whatever the result ‘on the night’, we already feel like winners for getting this far and are so proud to have the opportunity to share our success with colleagues from across the entire sector, as well as showcasing everything we’ve learnt through implementing our project.”

HSJ editor Alastair McLellan, adds; “It always gives me great pleasure to congratulate our finalists at this stage of the judging process and this year is no exception as we acknowledge North East London Cancer Alliance for being shortlisted for these two awards.

“However, it’s always important to remember that the HSJ Awards are not just a celebration of success stories but also a platform to shape the future of the NHS.

“We can’t wait to welcome our finalists to the awards ceremony in November and to recognise and applaud such impressive achievements across the sector. Huge thanks also go to our headline partner, Vodafone Business, who share our mission of driving the standard of healthcare excellence and creating better patient experiences.”

The selected winners will be announced during the awards ceremony at Evolution London on 21st November 2024.

The event will not only reflect the HSJ Awards’ enduring ethos of “sharing best practice, improving patient outcomes and innovating drivers of better service” but will also serve as a timely and well-deserved thank you to the sector.

The 2024 awards judging panel was once again made up of a diverse range of highly influential and respected figures within the healthcare community, including; Stephen Powis, National Medical Director, NHS England, Rosa Waddingham, Chief Nurse, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB and Matthew Style, Director General, Secondary Care and Integration Department of Health & Social Care, as well as a range of esteemed Chief Executives from NHS Trusts across the UK.

For more information

The full list of nominees for the 2024 HSJ awards can be found at https://awards.hsj.co.uk/  alongside details of the Awards partners at https://awards.hsj.co.uk/partners.