Nominations are now open for Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust’s (LPT) Celebrating Excellence Awards 2026, marking another year of recognising the extraordinary individuals and exceptional teams who make an outstanding difference working and volunteering across our Trust.

Angela Hillery, chief executive of LPT, said: “Every year we see remarkable examples of dedication from our staff and volunteers; and this year is no different.

“These awards are an opportunity to recognise and thank them for the outstanding commitment and compassionate care they demonstrate to the people who use our services across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

“If you have received care from any of our community health, mental health, or learning disability services, whether in children and families’ services, adult services, or older people’s services, we encourage you to take the time to nominate those who have made a difference to you.”

Judges will be particularly interested in nominations that reflect LPT’s values of compassion, respect, integrity and trust.

Award categories open to public nomination in 2026:

  • Delivering Exceptional Care award
  • Volunteer of the Year award
  • Special Recognition – CEO/Chair award
  • Excellence in Patient or Service User Involvement award

Nomination forms and further details about the Celebrating Excellence Awards 2026, including full award criteria, are available on our website.

Nominations close at 5pm on Monday 11 May 2026.

Winners will be announced at a fully sponsored evening awards ceremony in early October.

Previous winners of the Celebrating Excellence Awards include:

  • Consultant community paediatrician Dr Annette Shawcross, who was nominated for delivering exceptional care to one of her young patients with complex needs. Annette’s nominator, the patient’s parent, said that Dr Shawcross had individually contributed to a better quality of life for her daughter.
  • The Mental Health Neighbourhood Leads, a team who have set up 25 neighbourhood mental health cafes across LLR to help support local people in mental health distress. Their Getting Help in Neighbourhoods grant scheme has helped more than 11,000 people.
  • Volunteers Caroline Love and Hugo the therapy dog, who visit many of our sites to bring much-needed smiles to the faces of our patients and staff. They helped support an inpatient who felt unable to leave their room to engage with therapy and spent a day offering reassurance and support to help another patient overcome their fear of dogs.

Nominators of the three finalists in each category will be invited to attend the ceremony and join in the celebration of the outstanding achievements of individuals and teams across LPT.

The headline sponsor for the 2026 awards is UK building and infrastructure company Tilbury Douglas.

Businesses interested in sponsoring one of the 14 individual awards to help support the event and recognise the contributions of our NHS staff and volunteers can contact Magda Korytkowska, fundraising manager, at Magdalena.Korytkowska@nhs.net.

For general enquiries about the 2026 Celebrating Excellence Awards, please contact: lpt.communications@nhs.net