Best of Health Awards: Time to honour your health heroes

The Best of Health Awards are back and once again, we are on the lookout for health service workers who deserve an abundance of praise.

Doctors, dentists, nurses and more will all be in the running for honours and that’s where you can help.

For only the second time, our awards will choose winners for the South Tyneside area as well as for Wearside.

And now it’s up to you to help us find the very best. Is there a doctor who gave you excellent treatment, or perhaps a life-saving nurse whose help was invaluable?

Is there a dentist whose work was outstanding. If you are an optometrist, therapist, care worker or dental nurse, there’s a category for each of you too.

And then there’s the midwives, pharmacists, unsung heroes and those with long-term achievement.

In fact, there’s so many sections, it is worth taking a look at the list on the left before deciding which section to enter your own health hero in.

Nominations can come from all sources. It can come from the health service professionals themselves, their colleagues, from members of the public – in fact, from anyone who feels they know someone who deserves to be rewarded.

Anyone can put a deserving cause in the running for a trophy.

The more the merrier. Let’s make it really hard for the judges by inundating them with top-class submissions.

Sponsors for this year’s awards are South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust, City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, and the Sunderland Clinical Commissioning Group.

We thank them all for their fantastic backing and watch out for more information on each in the weeks to come.

In the meantime, we need your entries to truly reward those who deserve praise.

The deadline for all nominations is Monday, April 2, and the judges will meet the following week to decide on the shortlist.

The grand finale will be held at the Roker Hotel in Sunderland on Thursday, April 26.

•To nominate, just send your name, address and telephone number, as well as your email address, if applicable. Remember to include the category you are putting your nominated cause into.

Also send the name of the person you wish to nominate, along with their address, telephone number and email (if known).

Send all the details to Lynn Wild by no later than Monday, April 2.

Email those entries to [email protected] or send them to Lynn Wild, Alexander House, Second Floor, Rainton Bridge Business Park, Houghton-le-Spring, Sunderland, DH4 5RA.