Margot and Audiology win Extra Mile awards for December

Congratulations to the winners of the Extra Mile award for December 2023.

The Individual winner is Margot Innocent. Her nomination is:

"Margot works tirelessly to promote the inclusion agenda. She engages staff to participate and inform them about initiatives including staff networks, See Me First, Freedom to Speak Up and Health and Wellbeing.

"In the last year alone, Margot has arranged and run over ten staff engagement activities reaching hundreds of staff to help involve staff and help spread the word about equality, diversity, and inclusion.

"Margot often goes above and beyond in creating innovative opportunities and activities to involve staff and generate interest in creating a fairer workplace. She puts an unlimited amount of enthusiasm and dedication into planning events from the inclusion calendar, ensuring that all relevant groups can participate.

"Margot has a warm and welcoming personality that you cannot help but feel drawn to and is a massive asset in her work of engaging staff. She has always been willing to help and support colleagues throughout the Trust, using her skills as a Mental Health First Aider and Freedom to Speak Up Advocate with kindness and respect; and advocating and amplifying voices that are not always heard.

"I am nominating Margot, as she plays such an important role, is an asset to the Inclusion Team and Trust, and exemplifies the ICARE values every day in her work. With her aptitude, personality and commitment to the Trust and her work, is a model employee who should be showcased in Whittington through this award scheme".

The team winners are the Audiology team.

At the start of 2023, acute and community Audiology diagnostic performance was 35.5% within 6 weeks, well below the target of 99%, affecting over 900 patients.

The stretched and understaffed team set about improving this. They showed great flexibility, working beyond their specialties and running overtime clinics. They rang patients ahead of appointments, to make the most of their face-to-face time.

Thanks to this dedication, their November performance increased to 80.5%, with just 154 patients waiting more than 6 weeks for a hearing test, down by 83%.

Beyond this, the team has also campaigned to increase awareness of the needs of the deaf and hard of hearing and has introduced a new referral pathway from the memory clinic in Haringey to our adult service, to help cut cognitive decline.