A city based organisation which provides meals for older people in their homes has been shortlisted for a major national award.
COPE Galway Community Catering is one of five organisations which have been shortlisted for the national HSE Achievement Awards which take place later this year.
The service delivers about 45,000 hot nutritious meals using a team of more than 120 volunteers delivering to 14 city routes and to two outlying rural routes.
A voluntary organisation, it receives 33 per cent of its funding from the HSE 50 per cent income from meal receipts, 12 per cent from fundraising and five per cent from other grants.
The HSE Achievement Awards 2010 in association with Quest Diagnostics were created to recognise and celebrate outstanding work by health and social care staff and ultimately reward best practice and raise standards within health service settings directly run or funded by the HSE.
A total of 328 healthcare projects and initiatives from all over the country have applied for this year’s awards and five HSE West entries have been chosen to go forward to the HSE Achievement Awards 2010 National Event at Dublin’s Mansion House on November 24.
Speaking at a special regional recognition event to acknowledge the efforts of the applicants from the HSE West area, John Hennessy, the health authority’s regional director of operations, thanked them for submitting their applications.
“You gave us the opportunity to see firsthand the hard work, innovation and dedication every one of you has given to the health service. The entries for this competition clearly demonstrate that innovation in our health and social care services is being led by staff who are committed to finding new and better ways of delivering improved care despite the many challenges we face.”
More than 80 applications were received from the region and there was a huge range of projects from the clinical services, primary care and social services, support services and management initiatives.
Mr Hennessy added their efforts were designed with patients and clients in mind.
“I think these awards are a wonderful way of encouraging everyone to continue to strive to do the very best for our service users.”
Five entries from each of the four HSE Regions (HSE West, HSE South, HSE Dublin Mid Leinster and HSE Dublin North East ) have been shortlisted to go forward to the national event in November when the overall winners of the HSE Achievement Awards 2010 will be announced. Regional Recognition Events have also been held in Cork, Dublin and Tullamore.
The other projects shortlisted in the west for the National Achievement Awards are: the Primary Care Occupational Therapy (OT ) Splinting Clinic in Castlebar; the new Regional Anaesthetic Facility at Galway University Hospital; “When Nature Calls” continence management service in Roscommon; and the Paediatric High Dependency Unit at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital.
