The annual HSE Health Services Excellence Awards represent an  opportunity for staff  to share and showcase their innovative and exceptional work.   They promote team work, facilitate staff to establish their service as an exemplar and help demonstrate how staff are valued for the work that they do. A record number of entries – totalling almost 700 – were received this year with 80 staff members nominated for their outstanding contribution.  Entries featured both Covid and non Covid related services and all winners in the eight categories were worthy recipients.

Congratulating award recipients and entrants, HSE CEO Paul Reid noted how staff had showcased their “impressive skills and their can do attitude in every aspect of their work.”  Commenting on the quality of the entries, the CEO said that patients and the public were  “already reaping the efforts of staff to prioritise and improve patient care. This is what the health service is all about.”

Describing it as a privilege to add his congratulations, An Taoiseach Mr Micheal Martin TD, noted how the country was now “slowly emerging from one of the toughest years our health service has experienced.  I want to express how grateful I am and how grateful the entire country is for the leadership, commitment, resilience and adaptability demonstrated by health service staff – you have my admiration and respect and the admiration and respect of the Government.”

Commenting specifically on the awards, the Taoiseach said the “innovation and ambition demonstrated by all the projects submitted is emblematic of the quality of service you provide.”

The winner in the Excellence in Quality Care category was the National Gestational Trophoblastic Disease Centre in Cork University Hospital.   Explaining the background and thanking those involved, Dr John Coulter, Consultant Gynaecologist and Clinical Lead explained that: “In this disease a malignancy can occur in the placenta which requires multiple courses of chemotherapy for cure in many women.  Over many years in Ireland the management of gestational trophoblastic disease and molar pregnancy has been quite inconsistent and many patients have had to travel to the UK for treatment.  But with the help of the National Cancer Control Programme and the HSE we set up a National Gestational Trophoblastic Disease Centre here in Ireland to provide excellence in care for all women diagnosed with molar pregnancy in Ireland.

“Since going live in 2017 we have managed over 500 women in Ireland with gestational trophoblastic disease and molar pregnancy with 100% success rate.  Many of these women have required multiple courses of chemotherapy but all have been cured thankfully.  Most patients give us feedback telling us that as well as receiving professional and expert medical care, they also feel minded by our nurse specialists. To me,  this peace of mind that the patients have,  while being medically managed on this dangerous journey, means that the establishment of our national centre has been a success.”