THE way in which Salisbury District Hospital patients and local people are involved in the development of local health services has been recognised by the NHS Leadership Academy.

Maggie Cherry, the hospital’s head of patient and public involvement (PPI), received a regional award at the NHS Thames Valley and Wessex region’s NHS Leadership Recognition Awards in Reading.

She said: “In many ways Salisbury is in the forefront when it comes to patient and public involvement and this award reflects the breadth and quality of the work that our staff do with our patients across the hospital.

"Our patients instinctively know what works best for them, so it’s only right that we use every opportunity to gather their views and use these to improve our services for them.”

Over the last 11 years 400 PPI projects have helped improve patients’ experiences of hospital care and ensure their views and ideas are used in redevelopment and redesign of services.

Projects include major developments such as the new children’s unit, where children played a key role in the overall design of the building, to ongoing initiatives that improve inpatient care and access to hospital services.

The Governors’ Patient Experience Group and charge nurse Gary Cleeve from Redlynch Ward were also highly commended in two other categories of the awards.