Outstanding NHS staff recognised in national awards
Posted: 15 August 2023
Clockwise from left: Dr Niall Keenan, Mitra Bakhtiari, Dr Mohan Thapa, Safeguarding team
The calibre of staff and services at West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has been recognised nationally as teams and individuals enjoy shortlisting success in three prestigious awards.
The accolades include a double nomination in the BAME Health and Care Awards and shortlisting in the Nursing Times Awards and Health Service Journal (HSJ) Awards.
Mitra Bakhtiari, director of midwifery, gynaecology and nursing and deputy chief nurse at West Herts, has been shortlisted as ‘BAME Midwife of the Year’ in the BAME Health and Care Awards.
Since joining the trust in March 2022, Mitra has influenced several changes and improvements in West Herts’ maternity service, working with patient groups to improve health inequalities, especially for BAME patients.
Dr Mohan Thapa, consultant in acute medicine and clinical director for the acute admissions unit (AAU), has been shortlisted for ‘Clinician of the Year’ in the BAME Health and Care Awards.
Working at West Herts for nearly nine years, Dr Thapa has used his passion for acute medicine to improve acute and urgent care services for patients.
He developed and played a key role in implementing the ‘physician assistant programme’ at West Herts, helping many international medical graduates gain experience in the NHS whilst they pursue their registration in the UK.
Dr Niall Keenan, associate medical director for innovation and quality, is a finalist for ‘Clinical Leader of the Year’ at the 2023 HSJ Awards. Dr Keenan was nominated in recognition of his pioneering work leading the trust’s nationally recognised virtual hospital programme.
At the forefront of the virtual ward development in the UK, Dr Keenan and his team have demonstrated that virtual wards free hospital beds, provide safe care for patients at home, and a patient experience of the highest standard.
The trust’s safeguarding team are celebrating reaching the final of the ‘Integrated Approaches to Care’ category for the Nursing Times Awards 2023.
They introduced the innovative independent sexual violence adviser project into West Herts and are now able to provide compassionate, effective support to inpatients who are victims of sexual abuse or violence.
Congratulations to all the trust’s finalists.
Ends
- For media enquiries, please contact the communications team on: 01923 436280 or email: westherts.communications@nhs.net. For out of hours media enquiries please call the Watford General Hospital switchboard on 01923 244366 and ask for the on call communications manager.
- West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves people from across Hertfordshire, north London and further afield. It operates from three hospitals; Watford General, St Albans City and Hemel Hempstead. The trust has a catchment area of over 500,000 people and is one of the largest employers locally, with around 5,000 staff and volunteers.
- For more information about our hospitals, visit www.westhertshospitals.nhs.uk. You can also join our followers on Twitter (twitter.com/westhertsNHS) and find us on Facebook (facebook.com/westhertsNHS).
