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Michael Howard Award for Hospice Team of the Year
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2025 Winner: Crafting Volunteers Team, Helen and Douglas House
The remarkable Crafting Volunteers Team at Helen and Douglas House stood out for their extraordinary blend of creativity, compassion, and practical impact. They produce a wide range of handcrafted items for the hospice, from neckerchiefs that bring dignity to mealtimes and reversible bucket hats for hospice parties, to intricate quilts that become treasured keepsakes for families.
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2024 Winners: The Family Link Team, Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice
The Family Link Team at Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice in Barnet is a relatively small team with a huge impact. The team have continually received exceptional feedback for their dedication to the children and families they support, often with unmet needs beyond palliative care.
Pictured: Sophie Andrews OBE, Chief Executive of Noah's Ark Children's Hospice, receives the award.
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2023 Winners: The Pendleside 'Meals on Wheels' Team
The judging panel were impressed with how The Pendleside team has expanded the hospice’s care into the local community. As well as delivering meals to vulnerable, isolated, and frail people it also provides a welfare check-in on them. The service has generated a £35,000 surplus which has been used to fund patient care at the hospice.
The Awards Panel commented: “We were particularly impressed with this entry, and how the largely volunteer workforce consistently show commitment and outstanding service to the community, all year-round."
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2022 Winners: St Columba's Hospice Care: Family Support Team
As a self-styled small team with big impact, the Family Support Team at St Columba’s Hospice Care in Edinburgh continued to expand and adapt, offering a successful, blended model of delivery which has improved accessibility for patients and family members.
Judges were impressed by “the sheer range of work that this small team were doing, working with bereaved young people and adults and offering training to nursery and school staff, student nurses and facilitating ECHO sessions for district nurses. They are a shining example of a team who have gone above and beyond.”
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2021 Winners: Mountbatten Community Team
The Mountbatten Community team underwent huge transformation in an already difficult year. It was completely restructured to provide a specialist hospice at home, domiciliary care nursing service for people in their last years and at end of life.
This is a great example of transformational change, resulting in increase efficiency and a huge positive impact on the community it serves. This has been achieved by working differently and more efficiently as a team, using a range of different skill mixes and experiences, rather than by increasing the staff numbers or budget.
The changes made at Mountbatten could help other hospices address the demand for more community led nursing services.
