Barts Health celebrates five HSJ Awards 2025 finalist places
Barts Health is proud to have five initiatives shortlisted in this year’s HSJ Awards, recognising innovation, leadership and dedication to delivering outstanding care for patients and staff.
Staff Wellbeing Award - The Royal London Hospital, JoyWorks
Appreciation. Recognition. Thanks. The art of ensuring wellbeing at work is to listen to staff about what matters to them and show we care as much as we do for patients.
At The Royal London children’s hospital, colleagues put this into practice through the JoyWorks project. Born during the pressures of the Covid-19 pandemic, JoyWorks was co-created with staff from domestics to doctors, identifying what mattered most: feeling valued, showing kindness and building mutual support.
Initiatives ranged from appreciation stations and celebration boards to welcome gifts for new starters, birthday presents, and sharing positive stories at handovers. The team also improved rest spaces with Barts Charity funding and used Greatix to recognise everyday acts of kindness.
Dr Susie Minson, consultant paediatrician at The Royal London, said:
This was a true multidisciplinary effort, and we want to recognise the dedication and passion of the team who brought it to life. By involving staff in every step of the process, from identifying priorities to co-designing solutions, the project ensured that staff voices were central to the changes. This led to significant improvements in staff wellbeing, retention, and a positive culture, demonstrating that even with limited resources, effective, staff-driven change is possible.
Data-Driven Transformation Award - Newham Hospital, M-BRACE
M-BRACE (Morning-huddle, Board Round, Afternoon Check-in Excellence) is a quality improvement project boosting in-patient safety and speeding up discharges at Newham Hospital.
Starting as a pilot on Thistle Ward in January and now rolled out across three more wards, M-BRACE takes a structured, data-driven approach to improve communication, efficiency and safety.
The impact was immediate. One key measure, the proportion of patients receiving blood thinners (VTE) early in their stay, rose by a third. Discharge efficiency also improved dramatically, with the percentage of patients ready to leave before 5pm each day rising from 20% to 90%, reducing emergency department congestion and improving patient flow.
Ward staff praised the new process:
It’s very, very good. We know what’s going on in the ward. We can know which patients are going and what’s pending for them. Before, discharge was pending due to missing information. Now, we can easily see on the whiteboard what’s pending.
Following its success, M-BRACE is now being scaled to other wards, aligning with the hospital’s wider Quality Management System to ensure ward-level actions meet hospital-wide priorities.
Clinical Leader of the Year - Rehan Khan
Rehan Khan is a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology, specialist in maternal medicine, and director of medical education, honorary senior lecturer in women’s health at Queen Mary University of London and chair of women’s health clinical board at Barts Health.
Mr Khan has a special interest in multi-professional health education, simulation training and human factors in women’s health.
Digitising Patient Care Award - Respiratory virtual ward
The respiratory virtual ward, established in January 2024, supports patients experiencing acute deterioration of chronic respiratory conditions to remain at home rather than being admitted to hospital. Using digital remote monitoring, the team created 'virtual beds' to reduce pressure on hospital capacity. The service has since evolved into a long-term remote monitoring project, identifying patients with COPD exacerbations early to prevent crisis and emergency department attendance.
Within its first 10 months, the respiratory virtual ward saved The Royal London Hospital3,217 inpatient bed days and delivered £314,952 in savings to the ICB through admission avoidance and early discharges. In the first six months of the long-term digital remote monitoring service, COPD-related bed days were reduced by 30%.
Through this work, the team has shown that digitisation of healthcare can push the frontiers of medicine, bringing specialist care into the community and helping patients remain independent and out of hospital.
Dr Ketan Patel, consultant respiratory & integrated care physician, said:
Being shortlisted for this award is a great honour and gives the team a sense of achievement and recognition for the hard work they do every day.
Medicines, Pharmacy and Prescribing Initiative of the Year - START-HF, Structured Titration and Rapid Treatment for Heart Failure
Prognosis following a diagnosis of heart failure remains poor, with one-year mortality at 20–30%. The START-HF programme delivers a novel, pharmacist-led, virtual model of care designed to rapidly titrate and optimise prognostic medications, reducing mortality by up to 64% across multiple hospital sites and a large geographical footprint.
By combining remote monitoring, structured medication adjustment and personalised virtual reviews, patients reached maximum tolerated therapy in just nine weeks - a dramatic improvement on traditional timelines.
The impact is best expressed by patients themselves:
I just want to thank you for the excellent care and attention you gave me. I feel so much better now. You are doing a wonderful job!
Thank you all for your care and support. Our great granddaughter-to-be will really enjoy having her great Nanna for longer.
This scalable, sustainable approach is already embedded across multiple integrated care boards, demonstrating the power of virtual, pharmacist-led intervention to save lives, improve outcomes and give patients more precious time with their loved ones.
These five shortlisted teams and individuals demonstrate the breadth of innovation at Barts Health - from digital care and system leadership to medicines optimisation, staff wellbeing and data-driven transformation. Together, they reflect our commitment to improving outcomes and experiences for patients, staff and the communities we serve.
The awards will be held on 20 November 2025. Best of luck to our Barts Health finalists!
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