Alana Ricketts – Unsung Hero Awards

Nomination

Award Category:

Estates & Ancillary

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 :

We are nominating Alana for going above and beyond her job description and for demonstrating a high level of interpersonal skills, including compassion, care and kindness, towards an elderly visitor and his wife at Northampton General Hospital. Alana, who works in our hospital restaurant Eat Street as a Restaurant Food Service Assistant, went above and beyond to support the elderly man who had been coming to eat in the restaurant daily, as his wife was an inpatient in the hospital. Alana noticed the gentleman was a frequent diner and so every morning made the effort to chat to him and listen to updates about his wife's care. She also asked other colleagues to check in on him regularly so the whole team were there to provide support during a really challenging time. Despite working in a very busy department she took the time to speak with him and make sure he has someone he could talk to. One day when the visitor came into the restaurant Alana went to speak to him as she usually did and then returned with a card and a bag of gifts for the man and his wife. She had bought the gifts herself as a thoughtful gesture to bring some joy to the man and his wife. Working in the restaurant is a fast paced environment with hundreds of customers every day, so getting to know customers can be challenging. Alana went above and beyond her job description, demonstrating compassion, empathy and kindness towards an elderly man and his wife during a particularly difficult time for them both. He was so touched by this gesture and kindness that he wrote to the manager of the restaurant to thank her and said that in 74 years he has never had anyone do such a kind thing for someone they barely knew. We have attached a copy of his letter which explains Alana's compassion and kindness far better than we can in this nomination.