Sandwell Council’s Adult Social Care, Health and Wellbeing service has achieved a prestigious President’s Award from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

The service earned the accolade for achieving 12 consecutive gold awards. One of the key elements of this latest award-winning submission shows how ASCHW is leading on safety in the community through its Enhancing Health in Care team.

The main aim of the team is to reduce the number of avoidable hospital admissions for residents in nursing and residential homes, especially in the areas of health and safety, fire prevention,  medication, and nursing care.

The team uses a variety of information about falls, hospital admissions, ambulance call-outs, safeguarding information, and health and safety and fire prevention documentation to improve standards in nursing and residential homes, and the quality of life for residents crucially reducing unnecessary admissions to hospitals. Councillor Ann Shackleton, cabinet member for social care, said:

“This is excellent news for our Adult Social Care, Health and Wellbeing service. A key requirement of the award submission was to show strong leadership round community safety. 

“The team has made excellent progress in making links with providers, supporting, advising and offering skilled expertise to nursing and residential care managers and staff,  providing better outcomes for vulnerable people in Sandwell. I’d like to thank everyone involved for their hard work.”

The RoSPA Awards not only focus on commitment to accident and ill-health prevention, but occupational health and safety management systems, including practices like leadership and workforce involvement. It receives entries from organisations around the world and is also the longest-running industry awards scheme in the UK.

The award was presented at a special ceremony in Birmingham.