Amy Cunningham, Specialist Community Podiatrist

Amy’s nomination

Many podiatry patients remain on caseloads for significant periods of time due to the nature of their vascular status, meaning wounds can take a long time to heal and sometimes do not heal at all.

I am nominating Amy for this award because of the lengths she went to in her attempts to raise concerns and mitigate risk for a particular patient she had been caring for.

It came to my attention when Amy raised an incident (207525) in October 24. Amy was frustrated by her inability to change and influence positive care steps and felt that there was more that needed to be done to support her patient.

Amy had already reached out to multiple partners with little progress; head of care at the patient’s supported accommodation, his SW, GP, AMHT, turning point and safeguarding, some multiple times and she remained concerned for her patient’s well-being.

The gentleman had nasty foot wounds, was soiling himself, was often intoxicated and abusive but had capacity when sober to understand the risks he was taking, was recently bereaved and his mental health was deteriorating, placing him at risk of making himself voluntarily homeless.

SCAS crews were not always able to convey this gentleman for treatment due to his behaviour. His care culminated in a hospital admission.

The Service Manager, Emma Howard and I met with Paula Har to discuss whether there was anything that could be learnt from this sad case.

Paula expressed that Amy could not have done any more, and in fact went over and above to secure care and support for her struggling patient.

Amy advocated for her patient in an exemplary manner to ensure he could access the right support when he was ready to accept help.

This took persistence and tenacity and Amy is a credit to the podiatry team and the patients they serve.