Awards Nomination Criteria

The Awards are open for UHUK members only. Submissions can be made through a form emailed to members. Any queries, please direct to the returning officer: Sarah Fletcher.

The following outlines the awards process, and can be downloaded for information below:

Timeline:

• Award submissions will open on 13th August and will close on 20th September
• There will be no extension to this period unless this is made at the discretion of the UHUK Returning Officer
• Shortlisted candidates (three per category) will be advised on 14th October
• Award Gold, Silver and Bronze winners up will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on 5th November at the Annual conference Awards and Conference Dinner.
• A showcase will be held in London in March 2025 when all shortlisted awards will have the opportunity to present their case study at an event attended by members and other interested stakeholders.

Award Category Descriptions:

1. Workforce: A partnership, team or individual that has worked to implement an innovative project to support workforce development. This could include a workforce initiative of any kind that has impact on workforce i.e. culture, leadership, recruitment, training and development, attrition or staff wellbeing. The proposal must demonstrate innovation with clear, measurable evidence of achieved outcomes.
2. Partnership: A new partnership or exiting partnership initiative that can demonstrate a benefit to service delivery, joined up systems and patient care. The member must be able to demonstrate that they were leaders or describe how they were instrumental in the partnership. The submission must provide clear evidence of how clear the aims objectives were set and include evidence to demonstrate how outcomes were achieved.
3. Health Inequalities: An innovative project that has identified that certain patient groups in the are not receiving equitable care. The project demonstrate improvement in access, delivery or improved care to that group/s. The project should outline how the problem was identified and should demonstrate evidence for improved, measurable outcomes for the group/s identified.
4. Social Impact: An initiative within the organisation that demonstrates commitment to social impact and can shows that it is held in high value held by the organisation. The submission should clearly articulate the social impact and benefit/outcome of the initiative with evidence of such.
5. Patient Engagement: An initiative or project that can demonstrate the benefit of enhanced patient engagement or a best practice initiative. The submission must clearly demonstrate how this has gone over and above the usual patient engagement expectations and can provide evidence of achievements or positive outcomes as a result.
6. General Innovation: A project that demonstrates true innovation in its approach but not a technology-led innovation. This could include innovation to improve patient care, make services more cost effective, improve teams, enable improved efficiencies in service delivery; data/business intelligence or improved communication to support patient care. The submission must include measurable evidence to support the outcomes achieved.
7. Technological Innovation: A technical innovation that has been designed or co-designed and led by the organisation’s Tech team internally or in partnership with a technical provider. This may include; system or organisational efficiencies; data or information; improved communication; improved patient care; improved patient pathways; enhanced service delivery; cost efficiencies; support teams to achieve better outcomes. The submission must include evidence to demonstrate the process and demonstrate evidence of positive outcomes achieved
8. Quality and Safety Initiative (operational): Demonstrates a change in safety and/or quality systems that was driven by operational risk and operational delivery. The change would have been justified by evidence that previous systems or process may not have been optimised and shown to be ineffective by some form of audit/analysis. The submission must include measurable evidence to demonstrate the positive outcomes and reduction in risks achieved.
9. Quality and Safety Initiative (clinical): Demonstrates a change in safety and/or quality systems/risk management that delivered improvement clinically within the organisation. The change would have been justified by evidence that previous process or system may not have been optimal to patient care and carried patient quality and safety risks; show this was identified through audit/analysis. The submission must include evidence to demonstrate the positive outcomes and reduction in risks achieved.

In addition, there will be a Chairman’s Award which will look at the Silver winners across all categories and that with the highest score will be awarded the Chairman’s award.

Submission Guidelines:

• Use the category descriptions above to assist you to write your statement
• Only organisations who are members of UHUK qualify to enter
• There is no cost to any member to submit an award
• Members do not have to be present at the Award ceremony to receive their award, but it is encouraged if possible
• 90% of the initiative must be delivered and led by member’s organisation unless clear partnership arrangements can be described fully
• Work must be funded by member organisation; if funded jointly, by ICB, supplier or other grant this should be described in the submission
• Entries cannot be a re-submission of entries submitted in any previous years
• Submission applications should be in line with CAR (Context Action Results) case study method. Using this framework against the criteria for each category, will illustrate the impact of your work and allow the judges to fully evaluate and score your submission
• Supporting documentation must support “R” in CAR method and be focussed on proven outcome, benefits, or evaluation
• Project must be delivered or concluded during years 2023/2024
• Each member organisation can submit a maximum of 6 entries and a maximum of 2 different entries in any one award category. E.g. 2 entries into one category will leave you 4 entries to submit to other categories
• Members cannot submit the same entry into more than one category
• Each submission must identify the Executive Lead and named Lead for the work programme or initiative
• A maximum word count of 1000 will be required for each submission (excluding additional measurable evidence which can be added to support Results i.e. additional tables, graphics/survey results etc to demonstrate impact

For information and support on your entry - Please see helpful document written by NHS employers put together for NHS award entries: www.nhsemployers.org/publications/guide-writing-nhs-award-entries

Judging Panel and Criteria:

The Judging panel for 2024 is made up of the UHUK Chair; Dr Simon Abrams, plus 4 independent judges, who will bring urgent health operational, technical and strategic expertise, plus an experienced patient representative.

Judging of Award submissions will take place after final submission deadline, and will follow these criteria:

• The judging panel will review entries virtually and independently of each other
• The judges will be provided with a template by which to score against the award criteria:
  • 0 – no evidence
  • 1 – some evidence
  • 3 – good evidence
  • 5 – excellent evidence
• There will be three shortlisted entries per category which will comprise the entries that were awarded the highest mean scores by the judging panel
• From the three shortlisted finalists, there will be awarded Gold, Silver and Bronze, based on the highest to lowest scores
• In the event of a tie, we will award to the highest median score. If still tied, we will ask the judges who have awarded the lowest score to review their scoring on each submission
• The Chairman’s special award will go to the highest scoring Silver winner across all categories. In the case of a tie, the Chairman will have over-riding discretion
• Sarah Fletcher will act as the Returning Officer for the panel and will collate the scores of each judge for each award category entry

UHUK have met the criteria necessary to earn the Awards Trust Mark Accreditiation, awarded by The Independent Awards Standards Council. Valid from Aug 2024- Aug 2025