Philip Astell – 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 :

Headline South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, is a regional provider of urgent and emergency care, our prime purpose is to respond to the immediate needs of our patients and to improve the health of the communities we serve As a Trust, we: • Receive and respond to 999 calls from members of the public • Respond to urgent calls from healthcare professionals e.g. GPs • Receive and response to NHS 111 calls from members of the public We provide these services across the whole of the South East Coast region – Kent, Surrey, Sussex and parts of North East Hampshire and Berkshire Philip Astell is the Associate Director of Finance for South East Coast Ambulance Service. He is responsible for the management of the finance function and oversees a team of 20 finance specialists. During this past year, and with the pressures that COVID has brought, Philip has been exceptional in steering his team and the wider Trust through some very complicated and difficult financial issues whilst ensure the organisational focus remains on delivering excellent patient care. South East Coast Ambulance Service is spread across the three counties of Kent, Surrey and Sussex, serving a population of around 4.5 million people. The Trust has 117 operating sites and its workforce and patients come from across the region. Philip oversees the Trust budget of £252m from both and income and expenditure perspective. As well as this stewardship of funds, Philip also looks after our Statutory requirements. COVID has meant that the pace has been fast the Trust have been required to react quickly and to ensure that operational momentum has been maintained and ensure the safety of our Patients and Staff. Philip has represented the Finance Department on all of the COVID related issues. His calm and assured approach has given comfort to colleagues at all levels that so that they can continue to deliver front line patient care without having to worry. He has displayed exceptional resilience, despite the pandemic creating gaps within his team. Philip heads up all meetings in relation to Finance, and oversees the Capital Investment programme, this has ensured that our commitment to develop our Estate and Vehicle fleet has been able to continue despite the challenges that COVID has brought, overall last year our Capital Investment of £14m was a 12% increase on the previous year. Due to Philip, we were also in a position to deliver £7.1m of cost improvement last financial year, this was due to his diligence, oversight and persistence in aligning accountability to budget holders and ensuring they delivered. Philip has been an asset to the Trust ensuring that we meet our financial obligations and also ensuring that our accounting and auditing remains in the highest regard. In addition to all of this, Philip was unfortunately hospitalised and tested positive for COVID and yet still made sure that there was nothing outstanding or that would fail whilst he was out of the organisation. IT will also be no surprise that as soon as he was able he was straight back to work.