Celebrating the absolute best of team working across the health service

It takes a whole team to deliver patient care and that’s why UNISON celebrates the vital contribution of all the staff in the health service. Though it might be a doctor performing an operation or a nurse providing treatment, there’s always a wider team behind them to make their work possible and make sure patients are looked after properly.

Modern healthcare is complex and intense. Maintaining safety and quality while coordinating care and meeting the challenges of hospitals and services is always demanding. It’s simply impossible without effective collaboration from staff working together as a whole.

The team of the year prize, sponsored by UNISON, celebrates the absolute best of team working across the health service. High-performing teams always show a high level of respect for the contributions of every member and their disciplines, providing opportunities for development and learning for each. They actively listen to patients or clients and work together to make healthcare work in a way that meets needs compassionately and safely. They often innovate and disrupt to sidestep bureaucracy and any other challenges to deliver the care required.

Last year’s winners, the acute oncology service at the North Devon District Hospital, were a shining example of this sort of working. Understanding the painful, arduous journeys of their patients receiving cancer therapies, the nurses and their colleagues in the team re-designed their service with a relentless patient focus to minimise pain and distress, while boosting the chances of completing the full round of treatment.

We know such innovation is possible all across the NHS and in primary and social care, but too often it’s stifled. Teams with leaders that think creatively and innovate over the longer term are the ones that make a big difference.

Nursing practice remains enormously challenging in the UK with treatment backlogs, stretched finances and exhausted members of staff struggling to keep up with demand. But many services have stepped up and overcome these challenges, using new ways to reduce waiting times while improving quality and safety.

We still need more. With more than a million staff in the NHS across the UK, we must continue to unlock everyone’s potential if we’re to meet the challenges ahead. Team working allows everyone to flourish and, importantly, to deliver.

With a new government in Westminster and a fresh start, we also need the best ideas and the best innovations to help us begin to rebuild for the future. From judging this prize every year, I know the ideas, innovation and commitment we need are already out there. It’s with huge pride that UNISON offers this opportunity to celebrate team working and we all appreciate the chance to learn more from the amazing teams who enter.

Well done to all the finalists and the winners.

Stuart Tuckwood is national officer for nursing, UNISON