Thanks a Bunch Gemma and Paulina!
This week’s Thanks a Bunch went to Clinical Service Manager, Gemma Cannon and Management Support Officer, Paulina Kotwas. They were nominated by Operational Lead, Janine Ledger for their amazing dedication, relentless support and hard work during a difficult time in the Night Service.
The Night Service is an exceptionally busy service with an average of 24 call outs and 6 planned visits to complete overnight. They aim to operate with 3 registered staff nurse led teams and a Senior Nurse to triage the incoming calls and allocate the work alongside the Administrator.
Janine described how on 16 August 2021, Gemma had numerous members of the team report absent from work throughout the course of the day and it became apparent quickly that there was a serious problem for that night, as there was no Senior Triage Nurse or Administrator working overnight for the Night Service (essential roles to manage the incoming crisis call outs and allocate the workload to the team).
To ensure that a Senior Clinician and Triage Nurse was available, this would have reduced the number of teams working overnight to one Staff Nurse - for the whole of the city of Leeds.
Faced with the impossible dilemma of what to do and having exhausted all avenues of support, Gemma stepped into the Senior Triage Nurse role alongside Paulina, who stepped into the Administrator role, and they worked throughout that day until 5am the next morning to ensure that they could remain to have two nurses working overnight to deliver urgent patient care. This was a whopping 20-22 hours at work. After only a few hours break, Gemma even proceeded to attend urgent meetings the following day.
Janine praised the staff members saying, “This went over and above what is expected of a Clinical Service Manager and Management Support Officer and shows the absolute dedication and passion Gemma and Paulina have for the service and the support they provide to the team to ensure the best possible outcome for the patients they serve.”
Executive Director of Finance and Resources, Bryan Machin surprised them at Killingbeck Court and commended their efforts saying, “It’s a delight for me to come here and recognise this and to know the tremendous efforts you made to ensure the patients received the best possible service and care, so we would like to say thank you!”
Gemma and Paulina are acknowledged for demonstrating the Trust behaviours of: Leading Caring for our patients, Making the best decisions, Leading by example, Caring for one another, Adapting to change and delivering improvements, Working together, Finding solutions.
