An NHS trust in Norfolk has been shortlisted for three awards celebrating excellent healthcare around the country.

Eastern Daily Press: Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust staff celebrate their outstanding rating. Pic: NCH&C NHS Trust.Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust staff celebrate their outstanding rating. Pic: NCH&C NHS Trust. (Image: NCH&C NHS Trust)

The Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust (NCHC) has been shortlisted in the Health Service Journal (HSJ) awards, in the staff engagement, creating a supportive staff culture and compassionate patient care categories.

The Norwich Escalation Avoidance Team, which NCHC is part of, is also up for an award in a category noting partnerships between health and local government.

The HSJ awards have been running for 37 years, with 26 categories of NHS achievements to celebrate. Two awards that NCHC has been shortlisted for are being put down to a crowdsourcing platform for staff across the trust, to give them a voice regarding the future of the organisation.

Laura Palmer, staff engagement manager, noted some staff hadn't felt valued, engaged, or involved.

She said: 'As a community trust where our staff are geographically spread, we needed a tool where staff could contribute to a shared conversation. Following detailed research we invested in a crowdsourcing platform, hosted by Clever Together, launched as Your Voice Our Future.'

MORE: What makes an outstanding healthcare trust?

The third award the trust is up for, compassionate patient care, is in recognition of a service created between NCHC and the Central Norfolk Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), the Frequent Attenders Service.

Nick Pryke, assistant director of community services (Norwich), said they were trying to find out why some patients were visiting hospital, and using emergency services, so frequently.

The aim of the service is to direct people to places where they can receive more appropriate care – for example, their own support system, the local community or alternative services.

'In the first five months of operating this service we were able to prevent 543 A&E attendances which was a very positive outcome for the individuals getting the right help and allows our very busy emergency services to focus on people needing their emergency care,' Mr Pryke said.

NCHC provides care for a population of almost 900,000, ranging from newborns to the elderly. It became the first community NHS trust to be rated as outstanding by health watchdog the CQC earlier this year.