Salford Dining Companionship volunteers nominated for honorary award

A group of volunteers at Salford Royal Hospital have been nominated for the Academy of Fab Award.

The Academy of Fab offers a platform where NHS groups and workers can share their ways of dealing with pressured situations, and can try to share and find solutions together.

One of these groups is the Salford Royal Dining Companion Volunteers, who have been shortlisted for the TNT Award.

The Salford Royal Volunteer Dining Companions started in May 2021 with 10 volunteers on 3 Wards. They now have 100 plus volunteers across 13 Wards, and have a waiting list of 15 wards.

The dining companions support vulnerable patients during meal times. The companions work to encourage and assist with eating and drinking as they build relationships with patients on the ward.

The Academy of Fabulous Stuff is further a social movement for sharing health and social care ideas, services and solutions that work.

The Academy of Fabulous Stuff said: “Often the biggest impacts are made by the smallest actions, hence the TNT or Tiny Noticeable Things’ award project or person that has embodies this sentiment.”

Roy Lilley is the founder of the Academy of Fab Stuff. Roy added: “We try to move the whole paradigm of quality up the graph and improve peoples performance by sharing the good things they do rather than digging around looking for the bad things they do.”

Dining companions were introduced into the Salford Royal wards in 2019. Francis Silock was a long-serving volunteer at Salford Care Organisation. Francis’s husband was admitted to hospital at the time, and Francis witnessed first hand how busy workers on the wards were.

She travelled to the hospital every day by bus and helped her husband every lunch and teatime. Unfortunately, Francis’s husband passed away. From here, the dining companions group was born. Francis passed away in May 2023, but her legacy still lives on through the work of these volunteers.

Public voting has opened today and will close 10pm on November 5. The Fab Awards prize giving event will take place on December 4, 5:30pm-8pm at the Giant Health event in London.