2015 Winner of the Steve Hugh Award

A Powys urgent response service has been named as the 2015 winner of the Steve Hugh Award. The award is given annually by urgent care organisation Shropdoc in memory of Dr Steve Hugh, who was medical director of the organisation in the early years of the service. The Powys Urgent Response Service at Home (PURSH) was this month (February) announced as the winner of the award and representatives presented with a £1,000 award to support their services.

PURSH is available to provide short term urgent domiciliary care services in people’s own homes 24 hours a day, seven days a week. PURSH was launched in a bid to solve the problem of avoidable admissions to hospital.

Dr Russell Muirhead, chairman at Shropdoc, said:
“PURSH is a fantastic, dedicated service which provides short term support in situations where hospital admission is inappropriate. They are also available to support a carer in the event of illness. Avoidable admissions to hospital were taking place when the GPs had no other option to admit someone when further continual medical observation of the patient was required. The PURSH service was launched in North East Powys on October 2010 to meet that need and was rolled out to mid and parts of south Powys in June 2011. Through contracting a registered provider of such a service, considerable savings
and efficiency in bed stays, ambulance costs, emotional upheaval and more immediate service provision have been achieved. PURSH is a very worthy winner of The Steve Hugh Award. We are particularly pleased that this is the first time a Third sector voluntary organisation has been recognised. Voluntary and charitable organisations are an increasingly important part of the health and social care provision for patients.”

The aim of PURSH is to provide short term support and care within people’s own homes, in emergency situations when hospital admission is deemed inappropriate.
They provide support to carers to enable them to sustain their caring role and personal well-being and contribute to a coordinated approach between medical, social and third sector services to enable patients to remain at home, to support return to previous level of independence. The service also enables individuals to overcome an episode which involves deterioration in their health and well-being and contributes to the provision of information to the care team which will inform the planning of future services. The PURSH team received The Steve Hugh Award at a presentation on 2nd February. Dr Hugh was committed to improve the quality of patient services and set the highest standards in clinical excellence for Shropdoc. He was a major influence on the development of Shropdoc from a GP out of hours service into the complex range of services the organisation now coordinates and delivers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Dr Muirhead said:
As the Medical Director of Shropdoc, Steve showed great interest not only in the services provided by ourselves but also those of other Allied health professionals. With his ethos of clinical excellence we thought it would be a fitting tribute to his memory to institute an award that is open to any health professional or organisation who can be nominated by a colleague as an example of someone providing or developing a service that goes beyond normal expectations to the benefit of patients.”

To nominate a person or organisation for the Steve Hugh award please go to our Nominate Someone page