Wigan Carers' achievements celebrated at awards ceremony

Colleagues at Belong’s Wigan and Atherton care villages along with their corresponding home care service – Belong at Home, scooped no fewer than five trophies between them on the awards night held at Cheshire’s Peckforton Castle.

Laura Rideout, a senior support worker at Belong Atherton was named Mentor of the Year for her coaching skills, helping oversee new starters as part of the organisation-wide recruitment drive, nurturing new talent into the care sector.

Lead nurse Jemma Sharratt took home the End-of-life Care Award for her relationship with Wigan and Leigh Hospice and spearheading the village’s Dying Matters week.

Nurse team and support workers, Katie Whalley and Hannah Buller also made the finalist shortlists for team, compassion and dementia champion awards respectively.

Meanwhile at Belong Wigan, Kathryn Pimblett received the Innovation Award for her approach to care as the former bistro assistant swiftly progressed to a host role in order to work more closely with customers in their household kitchen.

The village’s nurse team and support worker, Karon Wallace, was shortlisted for end-of-life care and leadership awards, respectively.

Belong at Home Wigan earned the Team of the Year accolade for their dedication to supporting customers in their own homes and the groups business manager, Andrew Shield, acquired the Leader of the Year title for his management style.

His work has resulted in the service being ranked amongst the country’s top 20 for the fifth consecutive year.

All winners were determined by an external independent judge panel, who conducted a series of interviews as part of the rigorous process.

Belong’s chief executive, Martin Rix, said: “We’ve had a fantastic evening celebrating our colleagues’ hard work and success. Congratulations to all of our finalists and winners!"

This follows a hugely successful 2022, after Belong were awarded platinum status by the Gold Standards Framework for demonstrating excellence in standards and showcasing best practice in end-of-life care, holding the feat of being the only care providers in the borough to achieve this status.