A LOCAL worker from Launceston Community Hospital has been named the winner of a national award from the Community Hospital Association.

Anna Mitchell has been awarded the 2022 Innovation and Best Practice President’s Award by the Community Hospitals Association(CHA). Anna works for Launceston Community Hospital as a Meaningful Activities Coordinator (MAC), a role which is new to even the best of us.

Speaking to the Cornish and Devon Post, Anna explained what the role of a MAC entails, she said: “We work with ‘level 3’ patients, which is primarily those with dementia. During lockdown, we saw a lot of those patients taking falls and needing assistance. A lot of these falls happen due to a lack of stimulation, so we work with people to create activities to keep them stimulated.

“A lot of our work is social prescribing, spending time with patients, to get to know them, their background and personalities instead of just giving them medication. If you have a patient who persistently gets up for at four o’clock in the morning, knowing that he used to be a milkman offers and explanation to the behavior.”

Anna started working at the hospital in 2019 and explained that she really loves her work, “I love it, making that difference and getting to know them has a huge effect. We offer physio, holistic care, patient transfers and making sure they’re settling into their new place, we even have a hospital gardening scheme. We do the shopping, hair cutting, its about giving people their pride back!”

The Community Hospitals Association has recognised Anna’s hard work awarding her the Innovation and Best Practice President’s Award for 2022, beating other nominees from across the nation.

“It’s blown me away,” said Anna, “to receive this award is just fantastic! I’m over the moon.”

In a statement for the CHA, Anna expressed quite how successful this work has been at Launceston Hospital, she said: “We are proud to say there have been zero falls whilst patients have been under the care of a MAC, which we feel is a massive achievement.”

Anna would like to thank everyone who has supported the project so far.