Our values awards winners

Value award: dynamic

Winner: Katie Holden, assistant strategy manager in the strategy team

Katie came to NICE last summer when she was recruited as a temporary administrator in the guideline surveillance team. She was proactive, collaborative and took on every challenge from her very first day.

It was not an easy induction as she had not met any of the team. But she took this in her stride, going on to really make her mark with her technical skills, and as a supportive team member.

Katie has made a huge contribution to all of the teams she has worked in. She's supported her peers, taken on new responsibilities and done so many interesting projects around creating dashboards for reporting, process mapping, Miro board roll outs...and the list goes on.

Katie is starting her new role as assistant strategy manager in the strategy team and is already engaging widely with her colleagues and creating new systems for more efficient working.

Value award: excellent

Winner: Emma McFarlane, technical adviser in the COVID-19 team

Emma has brought pride and excellence to her tasks over the last 12 months in the COVID-19 team. She has consistently made efforts to increase the rigour in both surveillance and development of the rapid guidance, while maintaining efficiencies.

In the last 6 months, Emma has identified ways in which we could strive for higher standards. And, as a result, has increased the external appraisal ratings for several rapid guidelines. She has made sure that these standards of excellence are embedded into the development process.

Emma approached a difficult topic (our vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia thrombosis (VITT) guideline), with pressure to publish promptly, with calm and resolve to make sure the process was robust. She took ownership of the process, working with colleagues and external stakeholders effectively. Ultimately, she developed a process that addressed the 'political' pressure for rapid guidance and the expert's need for dynamic guidance. But that also meant that the end product was high quality and could be described as 'excellent'.

Value award: kind

Winner: Merissa Bellew, digital publishing manager in the publishing team

Merissa does so much to help and support others. She goes above and beyond every single day. Even with her busy workload, she makes time to help people, whether that's taking on additional tasks or using her technical know-how to solve a problem. She has a reputation for being kind and considerate to others and is regularly approached by people from across the organisation for help.

In fact, Merissa recently supported a colleague who was going through a very difficult time following their father being diagnosed with a brain tumour, which sadly, eventually led to him passing away. Merissa's response to short notice requests for leave in this situation was to leap into action and reassure her colleague not to worry about work and that everything would be covered.

She was also always at hand to talk and ask how her colleague was doing. This made a huge difference at such a difficult time. In fact, for her values award nomination, this colleague says she could have written a thousand words about Merissa's kindness but is hoping this single example will suffice...

Value award: empowered

Winner: Domini Lawson, programme management office manager in the transformation programme team

Domini has only recently joined NICE and is already a recognised and valued asset to the organisation. She has established the new transformation governance framework and provides the new programme delivery boards with honest and constructive appraisal of performance against business plan objectives.

She has set up a strong network of relationships and provides support when there are difficulties with reporting or things are not progressing as hoped.

Domini has been instrumental in the production of the new integrated performance report for the board. She has been empowered to deliver reporting that provides the essential information that the executive team and the board need to monitor progress and understand issues.

She is happy to challenge performance and raise concerns, but in such an empathetic and supportive way, that people are comfortable talking things through with her to reach solutions. She is receptive to challenge herself and has adapted some of the early operations of the programme delivery boards following feedback. Never once grumbling and always receiving suggestions constructively and acting on them swiftly.