Success at Great South West Care Awards!

Community Integrated Care has secured another win at the Great British Care Awards, taking home the ‘The Social Care Covid Hero Award’ with our partners Pompey in the Community.

This award celebrates those who have gone above and beyond during the Covid-19 crisis, and have shown consistent dedication to maintaining the safety, physical and emotional wellbeing of people we support and our colleagues.

Awarded to Community Integrated Care and Portsmouth FC, this recognises the pioneering partnership between our organisation and the charitable arm of Portsmouth Football Club, as we came together to support the local community during the height of the pandemic.

Pompey have been partners of Community Integrated Care since 2019, delivering innovative community-based sports and activity sessions for the people we support. When the pandemic brought that to a halt, we looked at new ways to continue to make an impact.

Firstly, Fratton Park swapped football for PPE as Portsmouth’s home stadium became a distribution hub for our services in the South of England. The Foundation incredibly coordinated and managed deliveries of hundreds of thousands of items of PPE and essential items to our services – relieving pressure on our frontline teams across the local area, at the height of the crisis.

With in-person sport sessions put on hold, Pompey became an integral part of our charity’s engaging online activity programme, as their Community Head Chef, Gavin, served up a weekly series of cookery sessions via Zoom. Helping the people we support across the nation to cook up a storm in the kitchen and giving them the skills to make low cost, healthy meals.

Whilst across Hampshire, the two organisations arranged the distribution of fresh fruit to tens of thousands of people, assisted by Pompey first-team player, midfielder Ben Close. Drawing upon Community Integrated Care’s corporate relationships, we were able to secure fresh fruit for local care services, schools, foodbanks and community groups at a time when supermarkets were bare – receiving praise from the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth for the impact of our work.

John Hughes, Director of Communities and Partnerships at Community Integrated Care says,

He continued, “We’re thrilled that this partnership has been recognised at the Great British Care Awards, and we hope it demonstrates how thankful we are for Pompey’s support. We will continue to demonstrate that together we are stronger.”

“Partnerships such as those with Pompey in the Community have not only brought smiles to so many people but have also allowed our heroic frontline colleagues to continue to focus on the most important thing, providing the best care and support.”

The award ceremony took place in Bristol and forms part of the Great British Care Awards’ regional events that celebrate excellence across the sector. The ceremonies continue to take place throughout this month across other regions, with Community Integrated Care celebrating 24 finalists in total.

Winners from the regional events will go through to a National Finals taking place later this year.