What is #Conversations?

Launched in 2016, #Conversations is a collection of activities and events which aims to encourage patients, families, visitors, Trust members and staff to talk about their experiences and stories. Through these conversations, we want to discuss with as many people as possible how we could develop and improve services at the hospital. Our events and activities include division staff awards, fun activities for families and patients, listening events staff fancy dress and much more!

Latest updates:

2023

Staff Awards

Nominations for our 2023 staff awards programme have now closed. Watch this space and keep an eye on our Facebook page for the latest updates.

Fancy Dress

The Fancy Dress competition will be taking place on Wednesday 27th Sept. You can find out more information here.

Fancy dress is returning for 2023!

In partnership with our hospital charity, The Grand Appeal, our wards, departments and staff teams are invited to take part in our fancy dress competition on Wednesday 27th September 2023. Patients and families are also welcome to join in with their wards/areas or simply cheer them on!

The theme for 2023 is 'Musical Theatre'

There are 8 awards up for grabs! This is to provide more opportunities to win and encourage thought about different elements of the fancy dress event. All awards are based on judges' votes (except the Facebook award):

The Fancy Dress Challenge Trophy; first place overall winners, second place and third place.
Creativity Award - creative interpretation of theme
Sustainability Award - use of resources, including environmentally friendly approach.
Patient Partnership Award - evidence of team working, including patients and families (patient facing areas only)
Staff Engagement Award - engagement of all staff participants (non-patient facing areas)
The Facebook Trophy - this will be based on Facebook 'likes' on photos of teams and awarded a week after the fancy dress photos have been posted, no judge input applies to this award.

The judges:

One patient or parent/carer representative
One member of The Grand Appeal team
One senior staff member

The judges voting process:

Criteria for judging and the points available:

Creative interpretation of theme (5)
Use of resources, including environmentally friendly approach (5)
Evidence of team working including patients and families (patient facing areas only) (5) OR
Engagement of all staff participants on the day (non-patient facing only) (5)
Judges extra discretion points (5)

Further informtion:

Each judge ranks the teams/areas and allocates a maximum of 5 points per criteria/award category that applies to them. There will also be 5 extra discretionary points for any other aspects of a team's/area's fancy dress which they feel deserve noting.
Scores from all judges are added together to give a score out of 60. The highest score will confirm the winner of the Fancy Dress Challenge Trophy, together with prizes for second and third place.
The highest scores in the individual criteria/ award catergories will also receive an award. If this is the overall Challenge Trophy winner or a runner up, the award will go to the next highest scoring team/area, to avoid multiple awards per team/area. No team/area will recieve more than one award.
In the event of tie, a decision will be made based on further deliberation by the judges.
Photographs will be taken. All patients and families must consent to be in photos and sign a publicity consent form (these can be obtained by emailing bchinfo@uhbw.nhs.uk). Staff, families and patients should be aware that the images will be used for social media, Trust webpages as well as other hospital based media (reports, newsletters etc).
Photos of each participating team/ area will be posted on the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children Facebook page with a closing date of 1 week from the date of posting. Photos will be ranked according to number of likes to decide the winner of the Facebook award.

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You can find photos of our previous fancy dress competitions in our archives here or head to our Facebook page and search 'fancy dress' in the page search box to find more. For any further questions or queries please email bchinfo@uhbw.nhs.uk or call 0117 3428158.

The Women's and Children's division staff awards are an awards scheme for any staff member or team whose main role benefits patients and families in the Women's and Children's division, based at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, St Michael's Hospital or Weston General Hospital.

2023 Staff awards

Nominations for the 2023 staff awards have now closed. Winners and runners up will be announced soon.

Archive: 2022 award winners and runners up

We were delighted to recieve over 200 nominations from families, patients, parent/carers and staff for the 2022 awards. Staff and teams are nominated within the following categories:

Being Supportive
Being Respectful
Being Innovative
Being Collaborative
Chairpersons Award

Information on our 2022 staff awards can be found on our Facebook page.

Archive: 2021 award winners and runners up

We were delighted to recieve over 300 nominations from families, patients, parent/carers and staff for the 2021 awards. Staff and teams are nominated within four categories, which are based around the University Hospitals Bristol and Weston Trust values (which were in place at the time the 2021 awards were running. Click on the categories below to find the winners and runners up of each category:

Chairperson's award - two additional awards selected espeically for 2021
Recognising Success / Reputation / Excellence
Working Together / People
Embracing Change / Innovation
Respecting Everyone / Dignity

Staff awards 2021 presentations

Archive: 2020 awards winners and runners up

The 2020 Women's and Children's division staff awards ran from the 14 September to Friday 2 October in 2020. We were so pleased to have received over 200 nominations. You can look at our Facebook post for the images of our winners and runners up.

2023

Staff Awards

Nominations for the 2023 staff awards have now closed.

Fancy Dress

The Fancy Dress competition will be taking place on Wednesday 27th September.

2022

Staff Awards

The Women's and Children's division staff awards 2022 winners and runners up can be found on our Facebook page.

2021

Fancy dress:

The Bristol Royal Hospital for Children staff fancy dress competition took place on Wednesday 22nd September 2021 and the theme was 'decades'. Patients and families were also welcome to join in with their wards/areas or simply cheer them on! You can find out more and see photos on our Facebook page by searching for 'Fancy Dress 2021'

Staff Awards:

The Women's and Children's division staff awards 2021 winners and runners up can be found here. There were over 200 nomination and the categories were

2020

Despite the set backs with coronavirus (covid-19) we were pleased that we were able to continue #Conversations activities in 2020.

In 2020 we made a few changes to the way #Conversations run. Going forward we are spreading out our events and consultations throughout the year, instead of running everything at the same time of year. Based on your feedback, we think this will make this clearer and easier for everyone.

2019

#Conversations in 2019 took place on 16^th - 20^th September 2019 in St Michael's Hospital and 23^rd - 28^th September 2019 in Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. It was a fantastic two weeks of activities, staff awards and conversations! Our events were genorously supported by the Grand Appeal.

2017

Our 2017 #conversations initiative ran from 25^th to the 29^th of September. We encouraged staff, patients and parents to talk to us about our services. Here are some of our photos from 2017:

ED Group Photo

Thankyou Marta

We think continuing communication is important and part of this process is including everyone in the discussions that affect them. The 2017 #conversations week encouraged us to spend the time having conversations, big and small, and with different people who are invested in our shared vision. This all contributes to how we want our services to develop and how we can all work together to achieve this.

Thank You Marius

We focused on discharge and how we can work to make it better. In 2016 we designed our Partnership Charter and this was launched during #conversations in 2017. We also gave everyone the chance to say a Big Thank You to anyone who made a real difference to their hospital visit.

Thank You Parent

The week was kindly supported by Above and Beyond.

2016

In its first year #Conversations ran from 14th to 23rd September and at the heart of the campaign was an aspiration to change current thinking and embed a new way of working in partnership.

47 staff and 40 volunteers gave their time to participate in 57 separate activities all designed to engage children, young people, families and staff in different ways including ward roadshows, hospital based well being sessions, dolls dress up sessions in play areas, reception events, job shadowing, and a fete in the hospital garden. The event was launched by a music video starring patients and staff, which reached 50,000 families on Facebook.

Well done to all the wards and departments in the children's hospital who got involved with #conversations in 2016 by fancy dress day! Take a look at the photos:

Therapy Department - 101 Dalmatians

101 dalmatians