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Connect wins BUPA Communication Award 2008
14 November 2008
Connect has been awarded the BUPA Foundation Communication Award 2008
Connect have won The BUPA Communication Award for Connect's ‘Training Together,’ programme, a training package developed and delivered by people with aphasia to train healthcare staff, to analyse their communication skills and give constructive feedback using specially designed visual aids.
The programme has been trialled in different locations across the UK, training over 100 people with aphasia as communications skills trainers and successfully teaching over 500 healthcare workers from hospital porters to stroke consultants.
The 'Training Together' module is used on many of Connect's training courses including 'Develop your Communication Skills and 'Working with people with stroke and aphasia'.
Connect views people with aphasia as experts in their condition and focuses what people with aphasia can do to improve other people's communication skills and not on their own impairment. This increases the confidence both of the people with aphasia and the staff who care for them.
Bupa’s group medical director and vice chairman of the Bupa Foundation, Dr Andrew Vallance-Owen, said: “Some people with aphasia comment that their disability means that they become ‘invisible’ and are excluded from discussions and decisions about their own care. This training will help to prevent this situation and gives invaluable guidance to all members of the stroke team.”
Connect will use the £15,000 prize money to extend the 'Training Together' programme to other areas. Carole Pound, Connect's Director of Innovation said, 'We are delighted to win this award because it means we can now extend our training to a wider range of health and social care staff in a broader range of settings, for example, care homes.'
At the awards ceremony on 12 November 2008. Left to right: Carole Pound (Director of Innovation, Connect), Dr Andrew Vallance-Owen (Deputy Chairman, Bupa Foundation), Catriona Grant (Communication Skills Trainer, Connect), Phyllis Campbell-McRae (Chief Executive, Connect)
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