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This award recognises the importance of collaborative partnerships and services to reach more people and deliver better outcomes at the end of life. 

The winners are announced at the Hospice UK National Conference.

About the award

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This award celebrates an outstanding team that has made a positive impact to its hospice, its service users or staff.

Open to all teams within a hospice from fundraising to finance, from HR to clinical, this award honours a hospice team that has gone gone above and beyond, made transformational change or shown commitment to collaboration and innovation.

If a team at your hospice has had a significant positive impact on the community it serves, nominate them for the Michael Howard Hospice Team of the Year award.

This award is named in honour of Michael Howard, Rt. Hon. Lord Howard of Lympne, CH, KC, former Chair and currently a Vice President of Hospice UK's Board of Trustees.

What the judges are looking for

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We suggest you consider the following information when making your nomination:

  • What makes this team outstanding? 
  • What has the team delivered?
  • Why have they been successful?
  • How has this team delivered a positive impact? 
  • What difference has the team made?

General Criteria and Guidance

Read our submission criteria and general guidance before you submit an entry.

Entries for the 2024 Hospice UK Awards will open on 1 July 2024. Enter now

The deadline for submitting entries and nominations is 5pm on Monday 9 September 2024. 

The winners will be announced at our National Conference in Glasgow from 26-28 November 2024.

Previous winners

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Find out more about previous winners of the Michael Howard Award for Hospice Team of the Year (formerly named Towergate Hospice Team of the Year Award).

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The Pendleside "Meals on Wheels" Team are the winners of the 2023 Michael Howard Award for Hospice Team of the Year

Winners - 2023

The Pendleside 'Meals on Wheels' Team

The judging panel were impressed with how this 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. In the last two years the service has generated a £35,000 surplus which has been used to fund patient care at the hospice.

The service was meant to be temporary during COVID – avoiding furloughing its catering team and standing down its volunteers – but subsequently became a permanent service, operating seven days a week, 365 days a year. Its largely volunteer workforce consistently show commitment and outstanding service. The “Meals on Wheels Team" provide valuable links to help vulnerable people benefit from hospice care. 

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. We also recognise their collaborative work with other hospice teams, passing on any concerns about people they service back to them, and that they work closely with national food waste and hunger charity FairShare. Well done to all involved!”

Find out more about Pendleside Hospice
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St Columba's Hospice Care: Family Support Team are the 2022 Towergate Hospice Team of the Year

Winners - 2022

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 has continued to expand and adapt over the past year, offering a successful, blended model of delivery which has improved accessibility for patients and family members. 

They delivered 19% more one-to-one sessions to patients and their family members this year compared to last year (a 60% increase compared to the preceding year), and demonstrated a positive impact on standardised and validated tools used to evaluate their services. As well as their direct work with patients, they have provided training to hospice colleagues and have influenced national guidance and policy.

Judges were impressed by “the sheer range of work that this small team were doing, not just working with bereaved young people and adults but also offering training to nursery and school staff, student nurses and facilitating ECHO sessions for district nurses." 

A final comment from the judges, who said, “they are a shining example of a team who have gone above and beyond, who have had to adapt and evolve and have embraced integrated team working all whilst being willing to transparently evaluate their impact which has been significant”.

Find out about St Columba's Family Support team
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Mountbatten Community Team won the Towergate Hospice Team of the Year Award in 2021

Winners - 2021

Mountbatten Community Team underwent huge transformation in an already difficult year.

Over the past 18 months, the team 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.

Find out more about Mountbatten Hospice