The UK-wide awards ceremony of pathology provider SYNLAB has shone a spotlight on those helping to deliver vital medical diagnostic services to millions of patients.
SYNLAB’s 2022 Excellence Awards recognised individuals and teams from across its UK and Ireland services, who display outstanding service in their roles. During an official ceremony held at London’s Kia Oval, employees were commended across a variety of categories including research, customer service, innovation, scientific excellence and more.
It was a fittingly upbeat end to the year for SYNLAB and its people, who over the past few years have been instrumental in supporting the national effort to fight coronavirus, for example by providing the NHS with 24/7 COVID-19 testing and undertaking a series of clinical trials in partnership with the NHS to evaluate the use of ‘antigen’ testing.
Mark Dollar, Chief Executive Officer at SYNLAB UK and Ireland, said: “As we move beyond the pandemic, it is important to remind ourselves of the outstanding work happening across our various services that make a positive difference to people’s lives. There are few things more important than stopping to say ‘thank you’ and celebrating the very best of our organisation – and that’s exactly what the SYNLAB Excellence Awards are all about. The standard of award nominations was superb, presenting our judges with a very difficult task to choose the overall winners. I’d like to congratulate everyone who was nominated and shortlisted – these people have clearly gone above and beyond in their work.”
The winner of each award category received a trophy and certificate, together with £500 to be spent on an initiative of their choice to improve their workplace, with a focus on health and wellbeing.
Mark Latham, Pathology Director at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and one of the Excellence Awards 2022 judges, said: “All the nominations received were highly impressive – in particular their originality and clarity. Hopefully the awards will help to inspire more scientists to conduct innovative research and development work - a most exciting, valuable and often life-changing aspect of the SYNLAB service.”
Among the winners this year was consultant clinical scientist Dr Agata Sobczynska-Malefora, whose world-leading work has been used to address health inequalities faced by patients. In particular, Dr Agata – who is based at SYNLAB’s NHS partnership Synnovis in south-east London – has been instrumental in establishing, applying and publishing reference intervals for nutritional markers at different stages of pregnancy, for ethnic groups, children, the elderly and women.
The CEO’s overall team award for excellence went to the Operational Leadership Team from Pathology First, a partnership between SYNLAB, and Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust (pictured above, receiving the award). Members were hailed for their focus on collaboration and innovation to bring the very best services, outcomes and experiences to all those who work with them.
Via its four existing NHS pathology partnerships and state-of-the-art laboratory network, SYNLAB is dedicated to improving patient care by offering faster, more consistent and higher-quality testing services which help speed up diagnoses and clinical decision making.