Nicky Langford – 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 :

Nicky has just celebrated 40 years working in the NHS. Starting in admin roles she worked her way up to PA to the Chair and Chief Executive. But this nomination is about her last 8 years of service working for the Trust charity. Nicky was transferred into a fundraising role during a restructure and although welcomed and supported by the Trust Communications team where she now sat, she became a sole fundraiser with no experience at all. She laughs now that she googled the word "fundraising" on her first day in the role! Tasked with raising £500,000 to introduce robotic surgery to the Trust she set to work. She managed to build fantastic working relationships with the surgery division and local community partners including the Prostate Cancer Support Group of which she is still an active member. The appeal was challenging. Changes in Trust management and commissioning priorities looked to derail the project many times and it was Nicky's interpersonal skills that kept everything on track. She is open and honest, tirelessly enthusiastic and the epitome of a people person. The stakeholders all stuck with her and after many years hard graft robotic surgery was introduced to the trust to the huge benefit of hundreds of patients already. Nicky is very resilient to change and when a new role was introduced to grow the charity and manage her existing role she was welcoming, generous with her vast NHS knowledge and keen to learn and innovate for the good of the charity. She began to specialise in community fundraising and worked to introduce many firsts for the charity as well as transfer long standing “robot supporters” to support other areas of work across the Trust. She is an absolute pleasure to work with and as the charity team has grown she has continued to welcome new members, foster a brilliant team dynamic and is the glue that keeps us working hard with a smile on our faces. Over the last 12 months she has done anything but wind down towards retirement! Her work ethic is exceptional and she shows such commitment to her role, the charity and the Trust. She regularly works evenings, weekends, makes journeys well out of her way and jumps on board with new ideas and events. She has been integral member of the team throughout the Urgent and Emergency Care Appeal that charity launched this year bringing her community contacts on board to help smash our £50,000 target. The appeal raised over £120,000. Nicky is a real Unsung Hero and had dedicated her working life to our wonderful NHS.