“The team are delighted. The award will take a place of pride in the admin team office,” said team manager Teresa Curtis.

She managed to get almost all of the team to the group photo: Back row from left: Alex Robbins, Wolfgang Fuchs, Chloe Simpson, Debbie Powell. Middle row from left: Keir Garrett, Hannah Hibbert and Caroline Reeves. Front row from left: Diana Benavides, Teresa Curtis, Elizabeth Cook and Dee Kyaagba. Missing from photo are Jasmine Watts, Lesley McFarlane, Dominic Pinion and Andy Allsop, who are also part of the team.

The team were nominated by locum consultant psychiatrist Sophie Behrman who wrote:

“The admin staff are exceptionally caring and navigate a tricky path of balancing requests of patients and staff members to ensure that patients receive safe and excellent care and clinical staff are afforded time and facilities to do their jobs. With the outage of Carenotes, the admin staff worked tirelessly behind the scenes to get processes in place for patient safety to be maintained and took on without complaint a huge increase in workload.

“Admin are the glue keeping the AMHT together. They make the clinical job pleasurable and the team a positive working environment. My patients and their carers are confident that when they contact the team, they will be managed efficiently, effectively, and professionally.

“Admin seem to magically read clinicians mind and smooth out difficulties before they even occur. They never seek praise or recognition but are the driving force of the team and make a huge unseen positive impact on quality of life for patients and staff alike.

“It isn’t glamorous work, but it is a team like this which encapsulates all the best bits of the NHS!”