Keith Wapplington – Unsung Hero Awards

Nomination

Award Category:

Corporate Services

Individual or Team Nomination?

Individual

Qualifying Qualities

In these challenging times, nominators were asked to show how the nominee had demonstrated the following qualities:

Exceptional work ethic - going above and beyond their job description, especially in the past 12 months.
Outstanding achievement/s in work or outside of the organisation where relevant.
Drive for innovation and proactive leadership in these challenging times.
High level of interpersonal skills, such as kindness, empathy, loyalty and thoughtfulness to staff and patients.
A resilience considering Covid to their role and to the health and wellbeing of their colleagues.

Nominators Answer

Nominee's story :

Keith has worked for the NHS as a Nursing Assistant for over 20 years following employment as a Carer at a Nursing Home. Prior to this Keith had various employments – Miner for 20 years, working at Toyota, for another car company making car seats and as a Bricklayer. Keith enjoyed working as a Health Care Assistant on Alton Ward, he found the work very rewarding and enjoyed building a rapport with patients and hearing their stories, particularly those that were involved in the war as Servicemen or WRENs. As a person deemed vulnerable, Keith was required to shield when the COVID pandemic began. Rather than stay at home, Keith wanted to work to contribute and support the NHS through the pandemic crisis, and often contacted his Manager asking if there was a safe place where he could assist. When the opportunity arose, Keith was redeployed to work for the PPE Team, where he has worked as Storeman/Driver since June 2021. He quickly adapted to a completely new job role. Keith has provided a calm and steady approach to overseeing the PPE stock and taking deliveries to DCHS sites. Keith has a very wise and kind personality, and nothing is too much trouble. We have many younger people helping the team, and Keith provides a fatherly figure, treating everyone with care and compassion leading to mutual respect with everyone who works with him. Keith oversees the deliveries of PPE coming into the store, ensuring the goods in are counted accurately and he uses a methodical approach for absorbing items into current stock. He also assists with preparing PPE for the daily deliveries, keeping track of stock control with daily stocktakes, and keeping Stock Count Down sheets up to date. As well as stock control, Keith drives to DCHS sites across Derbyshire to deliver PPE, Lateral Flow Test kits and other items as required. Keith has developed a network of contacts with his approachable and friendly personality and often offers to take deliveries to places that are not on the daily schedule. The PPE Team are taking over the procurement of Emergency Equipment consumables. Keith’s knowledge of these items from his work on wards has been invaluable to the team and he has provided training to the staff, talking through what each item is and what it is used for. The PPE team often employ ad-hoc bank staff to help with orders and stock control. Keith has helped to train these staff, something he has not done before, and his methodical approach comes to the fore when undertaking this role. Keith is due to retire at the end of 2021 and he will be sorely missed by both the PPE team and Alton Ward. His Ward Manager says Keith was always calm and reliable and is missed by the team. Keith is looking forward having more time to spend with his family and granddaughter who he dotes on following his retirement from the NHS. His family’s gain will be our loss.