CONNECT: West Yorkshire Adult Eating Disorders Service announced as an NHS Parliamentary Awards Regional Winner

The NHS Parliamentary Awards celebrate and recognise the staff, volunteers and carers who go above and beyond the call of duty to put patients first and develop exciting new innovations which help provide a better service.

Earlier this year, MPs from across the country were asked to find and nominate the individuals or teams they thought had made the biggest improvements to health services in their constituencies, across ten categories

From over 700 nominations, MPs have handpicked 70 regional nominees to be considered for their skill, dedication and the incredible work they’ve been doing in their constituencies.

One of these regional nominees is Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust’s CONNECT: West Yorkshire Adult Eating Disorders Service, which has been shortlisted for The Excellence in Mental Health Care Award.

This award recognises the individuals or teams that have worked across organisational boundaries to develop new and effective services to help people living with mental health problems in their community.

The CONNECT service, which provides early intervention, outpatient, inpatient and intensive home-based treatment for people aged 18 and over with eating disorders from across West Yorkshire, was nominated by its service user for its innovative support during the Coronavirus pandemic

In order to meet national guidelines and restrictions the service had to make some significant changes to how care and support was delivered.  This included innovations in the use of social media channels and other methods to keep in touch with service users.

The service offered #ConnectConversations three times daily via Instagram to provide additional support and resources for those suffering with eating disorders.  They also converted all of their usual therapy to “teletherapy” within a week of lockdown commencing and moved their open access support group “The Hub” online and promoted this via Instagram.

Dr Monique Schelhase, Acting Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Lead for CONNECT said: “The nomination of CONNECT for an NHS Parliamentary Award in The Excellence in Mental Health Care Award is an honour and comes at a time of considerable difficulty for all healthcare providers. We have used the last few months to drive innovation within the service and to continue to enhance service delivery, despite the challenges presented to the service. We are most grateful to our service users for their recognition of the dedication of the team and thank them for initiating the nomination.”

The CONNECT service, along with other teams and individuals in the regional shortlist, will now compete with each other for a national award, which will be presented at a special ceremony in the Palace of Westminster in July next year.

You can find out more information on the awards, including the full list of regional winners on the Parliamentary Awards website.

You can also follow the CONNECT service on Twitter or on Instagram.