Published on: 3 July 2025
Have you, or someone you know, experienced exceptional care from Derbyshire Healthcare and want to celebrate a Trust team or staff member? 
Nominations for Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s 2025 HEARTS (Honouring Exceptional and Really Terrific Staff) Awards are open for members of the public to recognise the care and support of Trust staff and volunteers.
There are 10 award categories including ‘clinical team of the year’, ‘rising star’ and ‘patient focus’. Carers and service users can nominate in eight of the 10 categories – (with only two categories, the Inclusive Leader Award and Lifetime Achievement Award reserved for nominations from Derbyshire Healthcare colleagues.
Recognise the fantastic work of a Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust team, employee or volunteer by nominating them using the short form on the Trust’s awards webpage.
Nominations close on 28 August 2025. The nominations will then be judged by a panel and the chosen finalists in each category will be invited to the awards ceremony in October where a winner will be announced.
Take a look at the categories below:
Team categories
- Clinical Team of the Year Award – for rising to the challenge of working in ever-changing circumstances and delivering compassionate, safe, responsive and effective care to patients.
- Non-Clinical Team of the Year Award – for working effectively for the wider benefit of the Trust and patients, demonstrating ambition and a desire to support our patients and our people.
Team and/or individual categories
- Making a Positive Difference Award – for a team or individual that has made a positive difference to the lives of the people we serve or work with every day by creating a positive culture and by embodying our values: Caring, Inclusive, Collaborative, Ambitious, Belonging.
- Patient Focus Award – for a team or individual that excels in being respectful of, and responsive to, the needs and values of our service users, patients, children, families and carers, resulting in positive feedback or service outcomes and high levels of satisfaction.
- Productivity and Innovation Award – showcasing individuals or teams that have found new ways to deliver projects or services that demonstrate best value for our population, encourage prevention and self-care, embrace technology and/or result in efficiencies.
Individual categories
- Outstanding Care and Compassion Award – this award is for an individual who goes the extra mile to ensure their service is caring and compassionate and makes a difference to the lives of patients, service users, carers and colleagues.
- Partnership and Collaboration Award – for an individual that has gone to significant lengths to involve experts by experience, members of our communities or system partners in shaping their services or their work.
- Rising Star Award – this award recognises outstanding performance within the organisation and celebrates growing talent at Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. This person will be new to the NHS or their profession and have made exceptional and ambitious contributions to their team and service.
- Inclusive Leader Award – for showing real care and compassion for colleagues, recognising and celebrating the positive impact of inclusion and diversity and creating a sense of belonging. Open to colleagues from all levels of the organisation (Derbyshire Healthcare staff nominations only).
- Lifetime Achievement Award – this award seeks to recognise colleagues with over 40 years’ service who have dedicated their career to the NHS. They will truly reflect the Trust values and will have demonstrated a commitment to providing support and care to both patients and colleagues. (Derbyshire Healthcare staff nominations only)
For more information about the HEARTS Awards, please contact dhcft.engagement@nhs.net.
