NHS Excellence Awards

This award recognises outstanding initiatives that improve NHS productivity, reduce waste and ensure every pound delivers maximum benefit for patients. It celebrates smarter use of resources, more efficient pathways, and innovations that release time, capacity or financial savings while improving quality and outcomes.

Examples may include:

• streamlining processes through redesign or digital tools
• pathway transformation and service redesign
• initiatives lowering procurement, estates or operational costs
• productivity gains reinvested in frontline care.

This award recognises an outstanding contribution to the 10 Year Health Plan’s shift from analogue to digital, through clinically led digital transformation that empowers patients and improves care. It celebrates innovative use of digital and data tools that enhance safety, access, outcomes and patient choice, enabling people to manage their care digitally wherever clinically appropriate.

Entrants will demonstrate ambitious, affordable and clinically safe digital-first pathways or ways of working that deliver better outcomes, improved patient experience and frees up staff from outdated systems.

Examples may include:

• digital-first channels improving communication with patients
• effective use of AI to guide patients or reduce administrative burden
• connecting health information to support safer, joined-up care
• digital tools enabling remote monitoring or virtual wards.

This award celebrates teams delivering exceptional work on the 10 Year Health Plan’s shift from sickness to prevention and improving health outcomes across communities. It recognises targeted interventions that reduce health inequalities and initiatives that enhance healthy life expectancy – ensuring that every community benefits from better prevention, earlier diagnosis and equitable care.

Examples should be data-driven and evidence-led, involve partnership working and have measurable outcomes for patients.

Examples may include:

• reducing unwarranted variation in outcomes across population groups
• targeted prevention and screening programmes
• innovations improving early diagnosis or more proactive long-term condition management, supported by advanced diagnostics or genomics 
• interventions addressing wider determinants of health.

This award recognises exceptional teams or partners delivering the 10 Year Health Plan’s shift from hospital to community, providing integrated, convenient care closer to home.

It celebrates multidisciplinary neighbourhood teams who empower patients through personal care plans, support adults, children and young people with complex health and social care needs, ensure seamless care across services and organisations and improve population health through joined-up, community-based delivery.

Examples may include:

• integrated neighbourhood teams supporting people with multiple long-term conditions 
• joint models bringing health, social care and voluntary services together
• improved access through local hubs, outreach or home-based care
• proactive and coordinated care, reducing crisis admissions and improving patient experience
• reducing expenditure on hospital care, which was re-invested in out-of-hospital care.

This award recognises outstanding work in patient and public involvement – from supporting individuals to make informed choices about their own health, to involving people and communities in shaping how services are designed and delivered.

It highlights approaches that empower patients, carers and families, shared decision-making, and champions the active inclusion of those facing barriers to involvement or greater risk of health inequalities.

Examples may include:

• co-production of services, pathways or digital tools
• enabling personalised choice in care plans or treatment options
• initiatives that improve health literacy, confidence or self-management
• involving marginalised or under-represented communities in service design or improvement.

This award celebrates teams who have delivered sustained improvements in quality, safety and patient outcomes. It celebrates the use of evidence-based practice, innovation, transparency, measurement and learning to embed better ways of working as routine – ensuring safer care and more reliable services for patients.

Examples may include:

• reductions in harm, errors or variation in care
• embedding best practice across whole pathways
• use of improvement methods to strengthen safety and reliability
• enhanced patient experience through redesigned processes
• bringing together clinical and operational leaders to share best practice and support learning across the NHS.

This award recognises work that is helping to  deliver high-quality patient care whilst also improving the impact on communities. It celebrates innovations that reduce waste, energy usage and emissions – improving local environments and the health of local communities and freeing up costs that can be redirected into frontline services.

Examples may include:

• reducing energy use, unnecessary travel and/or waste sent to landfill
• projects which support wider government priorities on active travel, air quality and/or the circular economy
• community partnerships delivering sustainable health benefits. 

This award celebrates organisations or teams who excel in developing, supporting and valuing their workforce, creating a flexible and modern employment environment and prioritising the health and wellbeing of staff.

It recognises initiatives that improve career pathways, coaching, wellbeing, flexible working and staff experience – creating cultures that motivate, retain and empower people across clinical and non-clinical roles.

Examples may include:

• skills escalators or new career development routes
• targeted programmes supporting progression for under-represented groups
• coaching, mentoring or talent-development initiatives 
• modern, flexible working approaches that improve retention and wellbeing.

This award celebrates the power of true collaboration. It honours partnerships that break down barriers between organisations - from the NHS and local authorities to voluntary groups, social care providers and charities – proving that together we can achieve outcomes no single organisation could deliver alone. 

It celebrates ambition, shared responsibility and integration that transforms patients' experiences and strengthens and integrates care across our communities.

Examples may include:

• cross-sector initiatives tackling health inequalities
• joint workforce models or shared resources
• collaborative service redesign across systems
• multi-agency support for vulnerable groups.

This award celebrates individuals who demonstrate exceptional leadership at any level across clinical or non-clinical settings. It recognises leaders who inspire, empower and support others – creating positive, inclusive cultures where teams can thrive.

These leaders show vision, integrity and compassion, bringing people together to overcome challenges and deliver the best possible care. Their influence helps build strong teams and contributes to better staff experience and patient outcomes.

Examples may include:

• leading teams through change
• inspiring and developing colleagues
• championing inclusion and staff wellbeing
• driving improvements to care or services
• role-modelling NHS values in everyday practice.