Awards glory for NHS '˜silent service' staff

But the support services staff quietly keep essential aspects of hospital life moving efficiently along, and to do so must adhere to rigorous procedures at all time.

And this month NHS Lanarkshire is celebrating a hat trick of awards for its focus on health and safety.

Gold Awards from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) went to three teams - hotel services, maintenance and West of Scotland Laundry.

They are all part of the health board’s property and support services division (PSSD).

It’s the seventh time the laundry team has won the award, meaning the staff have shown continual improvement over the period.

The laundry processes more than 240,000 items a week for all hospitals and care centres within NHS Lanarkshire, NHS Dumfries and Galloway, NHS Ayrshire and Arran and the State Hospital.

Meanwhile it’s the third time hotel services (which oversees catering) scooped a Gold Award, while the maintenance team were delighted to strike gold for a second time.

General manager John Paterson said: “Health and safety is always uppermost in our minds at NHS Lanarkshire so we’re really encouraged by the approach all three services have taken.

“It’s shown great teamwork, involving all the staff, who’ve collectively found a number of solutions to potential health and safety challenges.

“To secure gold standard at all is a considerable achievement, but to be able to retain this high level of recognition several years in a row is even more challenging and impressive,.

“So congratulations to all those whose hard work is underlined by this achievement.”