Michael Howard Award for Hospice Team of the Year

This award recognises the importance of collaborative partnerships and services to reach more people and deliver better outcomes at the end of life.

The winners have been announced at the Hospice UK National Conference.

Winners - 2023

The Pendleside 'Meals on Wheels' Team

The judging panel were impressed with how this team has expanded the hospice’s care into the local community. As well as delivering meals to vulnerable, isolated, and frail people it also provides a welfare check-in on them – all the while generating income for the hospice.

The service was meant to be temporary during COVID – avoiding furloughing its catering team and standing down its volunteers – but subsequently became a permanent service, operating seven days a week, 365 days a year. Its largely volunteer workforce consistently show commitment and outstanding service. The “Meals on Wheels Team" provide valuable links to help vulnerable people benefit from hospice care.

In addition, in the last two years the service has generated a £35,000 surplus which has been used to fund patient care at the hospice.

The Awards Panel commented:

“We were particularly impressed with this entry, and how the largely volunteer workforce consistently show commitment and outstanding service to the community, all year-round. We also recognise their collaborative work with other hospice teams, passing on any concerns about people they service back to them, and that they work closely with national food waste and hunger charity FairShare. Well done to all involved!”

Winners - 2022

St Columba's Hospice Care: Family Support Team

As a self-styled small team with big impact, the Family Support Team at St Columba’s Hospice Care in Edinburgh has continued to expand and adapt over the past year, offering a successful, blended model of delivery which has improved accessibility for patients and family members.

Find out about St Columba's Family Support team

They delivered 19% more one-to-one sessions to patients and their family members this year compared to last year (a 60% increase compared to the preceding year), and demonstrated a positive impact on standardised and validated tools used to evaluate their services. As well as their direct work with patients, they have provided training to hospice colleagues and have influenced national guidance and policy.

Judges were impressed by “the sheer range of work that this small team were doing, not just working with bereaved young people and adults but also offering training to nursery and school staff, student nurses and facilitating ECHO sessions for district nurses”.

A final comment from the judges, who said, “they are a shining example of a team who have gone above and beyond, who have had to adapt and evolve and have embraced integrated team working all whilst being willing to transparently evaluate their impact which has been significant”.

Mountbatten Community Team won the Towergate Hospice Team of the Year Award in 2021

Winners - 2021

Mountbatten Community Team underwent huge transformation in an already difficult year.

Over the past 18 months, the team was completely restructured to provide a specialist hospice at home, domiciliary care nursing service for people in their last years and at end of life.

This is a great example of transformational change, resulting in increase efficiency and a huge positive impact on the community it serves. This has been achieved by working differently and more efficiently as a team, using a range of different skill mixes and experiences, rather than by increasing the staff numbers or budget.

The changes made at Mountbatten could help other hospices address the demand for more community led nursing services.