OUH Palliative Care team winners at national awards

A member of the OUH Palliative Care team at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (OUH) was victorious at the recent Palliative Care Awards.

Nicole Satullo, Palliative Care Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Officer for Katharine and Sobell House Hospices at OUH, walked away with the award for Diversity and Inclusion for her contributions to promoting diversity and inclusivity among staff, patients, and their families in palliative care.

The Diversity and Inclusion Award celebrates initiatives that have successfully pushed boundaries, addressed obstacles, and are working to ensure equitable access to care with cultural sensitivity, and create an environment that respects and values individual differences.

Over the past year, Nicole has worked with frontline teams to address the challenge of capturing full ethnicity data from palliative care patients, which has allowed the team to identify areas where needs aren’t fully met and to also further tailor their care for individual patients and their families.

She has also led efforts to capture the perspectives of individuals who may be homeless, or for patients with learning disabilities.  Following these investigations, she has helped the Palliative Care team tailor the support in place for these patients so that it meets their needs.

Nicole worked with the wider Palliative Care team, as well as members of the team who work on the RIPEL programme – an initiative to allow patients to die at home, rather than in hospital care, provided that is their choice.  RIPEL is a partnership between OUH, Sobell House Hospice Charity, Macmillan Cancer Support, and Social Finance.

Kerri Packwood, RIPEL Programme Manager at OUH, said: "Nicole's work goes beyond data capture – her expertise and sensitivity in terms of patient experience have allowed us all to improve the care we provide to our patients.

"We are always looking to learn and improve, and her work has enabled us to diversify and expand our care – ultimately ensuring that our patients have the most personalised and appropriate care possible.  The RIPEL project has a huge focus on patient agency and choice, and her work very much feeds into this.  Congratulations, Nicole!”

Further to her work in EDI, Nicole has been paramount in facilitating the recently launched Patient Participation, Inclusion and Experience (PPIE) group for palliative and end of life care. This group seeks patients, carers, and members of the public to feed into the design and delivery of the Palliative Care team’s work, ultimately to ensure it is meeting the needs of the populations they serve.

Nicole said: "At the end of someone's life we have one chance to get it right – everyone in our catchment that needs palliative care should be able to access it regardless of who they are, where they live, or the circumstances of their life. But we know too often, there are barriers that prevent people from accessing that care. I am thrilled to be honoured with this award, and thank the entire palliative medicine team as we continue to work together on improving equity."

Members of the wider Palliative Care team were also shortlisted for awards, including:

• Mary Walding, Lead Specialist Nurse for Palliative Care, in the Innovation in End of Life Care category
• Home Hospice Care Team in the Palliative Care Team (Not for Profit) category
• RIPEL Team in the Palliative Care Team (Not for Profit) category
• Charlotte Harrison, Internal Medicine Trainee as a finalist for the Influencer & Campaigner Award
• Karen Dalton, Family Support Worker, as a finalist for the Support for Family Carers Award

Yvonne Christley, Chief Nursing Officer at OUH, said: "A huge congratulations to all of our Palliative Care team for this incredibly impressive list of nominations, and of course Nicole’s win.

"These go some way to highlight the breadth of talent and commitment within our team, and their collective efforts to improve palliative care services."

Pictured: Nicole and her award.