Sophie Anderson, Speech and Language Therapist OSRU

Sophie’s Nominations

One

This time last year, I started work as an SLT Assistant to Sophie at OSRU. I am in my mid-fifties and was completely new to healthcare.

Sophie started as SLT at OSRU at about the same time, so found herself not only getting to grips with a new role and working in a new country, but she also needed to train a ‘green’ assistant!

Sophie has been nothing but calm, competent, supportive and empowering. She always makes time for me, makes me feel valued and gives me exactly the right level of guidance.

Sophie leads by example and takes patient care and her role as SLT both seriously and in her stride. She interacts with patients, families and staff with honesty, understanding and humour, always looking to build bridges to overcome whatever problems might arise.

Notably, she has instilled in me the importance of building rapport and ‘getting to know’ our patients and I have come to fully appreciate that this is instrumental in delivering good care and therapy.

For our communication patients (especially those who are newly nonverbal) this helps them to feel heard, which can be transformative. Sophie is a breath of fresh air and a sound voice of reason.

Although she will return to Australia shortly, I would like to nominate her for a BEE Award in recognition of the significant and positive impact she has had on patient care and staff morale at OSRU.

Two

Sophie has been amazing mentor, during my time in OSRU in the past few months. she has been consistent, approachable, inspirational in her way of including other professional and working together as a team player.

Sophie has great interpersonal skills, and able to transfer knowledge at any levels to rehab assistant, family member, or a volunteer. Sophie is open minded and works together with MDT professionals along with the patient to bring out what’s best for that client.

Sophie personally has been a great support to me- in showing various stroke cases in rehab stage – how its progression with communication and swallow and factors that impacts them. She comes in to work every day with a positive attitude and such a joy to work with!

Three

Sophie has been an integral part of the team since joining OSRU earlier this year. She is extremely hard working, always striving to provide the best care possible to our patients.

She comes to work each day with positivity, carrying the team along with her, and making some difficult days much easier to bare.

Sophie has taught the team so much about her area of practice and in the time she has been with us, she has made all those around her better practitioners for it.
She is a huge asset to OSRU and to Oxford Health as a whole and she will be greatly missed when she leaves later this year.

She has not just been a fantastic work colleague, she has also been a friend and someone I have been able to lean on when needed, for which I will am truly grateful for and will miss greatly.

Four

Sophie has been a breath of fresh air ever since she accepted the job offer as SLT on OSRU over MS Teams all the way from Australia.

Her reason for wanting to work at OSRU was that her family member had been treated here and she wanted to give back something to the community. What a great reason for wanting a job!

She has fitted in so wonderfully to the MDT which I know would have been challenging as they had been without an SLT for a long time, so the expectations were high and awareness of the role of SLT was not consistent.

In her time on OSRU she has achieved an impressive amount. She has been instrumental in the SLT volunteer to career pathway; successfully training two volunteers who are modelling effective communication throughout the ward.

Before this volunteers would be wary of patients with aphasia, meaning that they missed out on communication and interaction opportunities.

She is a keen advocate for patients, making sure that their swallowing and communication needs are considered within the MDT goals and actively engages with evidence-based practice, for example looking into the novel non-surgical neurostimulation therapy ‘Phagenesis’ – for the ward.

Rather than thinking in problems she focuses on solutions. She has gone out of her way to build links with the OUH and establish improved pathways and communication.

She volunteered to do a talk at a recent HCA event which was so well received. She has done all these with very little leadership support – instead demonstrating her own strong leadership and personable skills- something she should be proud of.

She is returning to Australia next year and I want her to know what a big impact she has had and how she is appreciated by us all.