UK
WASHCO has rewarded hardworking and dedicated laundry heroes with the announcement of the winners of their 2022 Love Laundry Awards at this year’s Care Show. Washco initiated the Love Laundry Awards in 2021, to recognise those who work tirelessly in care homes to keep residents safe. After receiving lots of inspiring nominations for the Love Laundry Hero and Love Laundry Care Home categories, the finalists were invited to the Care Show 2022, where the winners received top prizes.
The calibre of nominations was so high this year, Janet Southorn from Bricklehampton Hall Nursing Home and Sarah Williamson from Canwick House, pictured, were revealed as joint winners of the Love Laundry Hero award, each receiving £250 to spend on electrical goods for themselves, in recognition of going above and beyond the call of duty.
Southorn was nominated by her manager, Shirley Grinnall, who said; “Janet takes pride in her job and has been employed by Bricklehampton Hall Nursing Home for 25 years in the housekeeping team.
“Janet is very committed and is liked by both staff and residents, she has adjusted her hours to work late if there has been a problem with access to the laundry, walked to work in the snow and brought in her wellies when there has been a leak.
“She has been extremely patient with the installation of new laundry equipment and supporting the ongoing project. There’s been times where she’s found some unusual items, including teeth, watches, rings, hearing aids, cutlery and plates. Janet deserves this recognition for her hard work.”
Southorn added; “This has come as a complete surprise! I feel honoured to have won an award for doing a job which I love. Congratulations to Sarah and thank you WASHCO for shining a light on the hard work laundry teams do up and down the country. A big thank you to Shirley too for nominating me for this award.”
Sarah Williamson was nominated by Catherine Paul, manager at Canwick House, who praised her for bringing “great ideas and innovation into the home, from UV hand detection checks to hand sanitising ink pens”.
“Sarah has transformed staff understanding of IPC and bridged the process between policy, protocol and procedure. Sarah works hard to make sure we keep up with regular updates in legislation and has created ways to manage storage and infection control.
“Sarah teamed with the tech wizard of Canwick House and made resources available for all, in different languages and various mediums, to gain interest, discussions and momentum. She deserves all the accolades available for her hard work and dedication.”
Winning the Love Laundry Care Home award was Wren Hall Nursing Home, which received £500 to spend on electrical goods for their home, in recognition of implementing outstanding laundry processes.
Anita Astle MBE, manager at Wren Hall, put the team forward for the award and described how over the past 33 years, she has received “consistent praise from those living with us, their relatives and visiting professionals. The past two plus years have been particularly challenging with additional infection prevention and control measures in place.
“Seeing our laundry team receive recognition for their outstanding, tireless work, and commitment to ensuring that our ladies and gents look good and feel great, is absolutely amazing.”
New for this year was the Love Laundry Engineer’s Choice award, which was awarded to Priscilla Wakefield House, which got £500 to spend on electrical goods for the care home.
Washco’s senior service technician, Chris Gaynor believes Priscilla Wakefield House to be deserving of the award due to the fact that whenever he visits site, “the machine lint filters are always clean and staff always have a smile on their face”.
Washco’s head of marketing & projects, Emily Stoten, said: “We’re continuously impressed by the extremely high standards of all our entrants. We’d like to congratulate everyone for their dedication to their residents’ safety and give a special well done and thank you to all our worthy winners. We’re looking forward to rewarding more laundry heroes at next year’s 2023 Love Laundry Awards!”
Washco is based in Newbury, Berkshire.
