A mental health nurse has been honoured at a prestigious award ceremony for her work in supporting people in Gedling borough with working age dementia.
Lisa Chadwick scooped the outstanding care and compassion award at last night’s Nottinghamshire Healthcare’s OSCARS Awards evening.
The 37-year-old from Mansfield works as a Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) in Mental Health Services for Older People, and has a role within the Gedling and Hucknall community mental health team.
She supports patients at Hazelwood House at Highbury Hospital, which provides outpatient facilities for older people who have mental health issues as well as patients of any age diagnosed with dementia.
Lisa was praised for her kind, honest and caring nature with her patients, especially with Dan, a patient who was referred to the service following a diagnosis of Alzheimers at the age of just 31.
Lisa has supported Dan to achieve his own goals following his diagnosis, one of which was to have some memories with his two young twins before his illness became worse. Lisa suggested crowd funding to Dan to help with the financial cost of a dream trip to Disneyland aiming to raise £10,000. This snowballed into Dan being offered an interview by a national newspaper to talk about his condition and raising awareness about Alzheimers on a TV show and how it can affect young people.
Dan’s wife, Jordon, who contributed to Lisa’s nomination, explained just how much Lisa’s support and compassion means to them as a family.
She said: “From the moment we met Lisa we knew she was a kind, compassionate and motivating person.
“Before going public about Dan’s diagnosis to raise awareness, Lisa suggested a few ways we could stay proactive and talk about Dan’s condition to open up a few support networks and help us meet others alike. From this experience, we are now in touch with others who have been affected and have also helped the Alzheimer’s Society raise vital funds for a cure.
“We are so happy to be assigned Lisa as Dan’s CPN. She’s a perfect match for our needs and she shows us light in our darkest times. We are thankful to have her helping us.”
Lisa’s support doesn’t stop there. She has set herself a 365 day challenge, taking part in 40 5k park runs, a 3k night run and a water wipeout event to name just a few. She hopes the money raised will make a difference to those with working age dementia, not only today but for generations to come.
Lisa said: “I am really humbled to have won and hearing Jordan’s comments made me cry. To share this [award] with everyone made it a very special night.
“I have always enjoyed working with older adults as they have such a vast array of life experience, life lived and stories to tell and can teach us all valuable lessons about life. However, over the 15 years that I have been qualified there has become a more apparent increase in diagnosis of working age people with dementia. Being able to just make ‘some difference’ to their lives is better than them fighting the terminal disease alone.”
The outstanding care and compassion award recognises those who go that extra mile to ensure their service is caring and compassionate and makes a difference to the lives of patients, service users and carers.
Nottinghamshire Healthcare hold the Outstanding Service Contribution and Recognition Scheme (OSCARS) Awards each year. They recognise and rewards staff and volunteers who have gone the extra mile to deliver high quality healthcare services across the City and County. There were nine award categories including outstanding care and compassion, team of the year and lifetime achievement.
