Cygnet Gift Card Competition

At the end of April Cygnet launched a gift card competition across its secure services. Service users were asked what they would do for the benefit of other service users in their hospital if they had up to £500.00 in gift cards to spend. Service users were encouraged to come up with creative ways of spending this money and preference was given to applications that benefited as many service users as possible.

Service users had just over a month to tell us their best ideas and what great ideas they were! Theatre and cinema trips, ward lunches at local restaurants, sensory gardens, rewarding service users for achievements and acts of kindness to name but a few. The list of ideas was varied and creative with 35 applications received.

The judging panel was made up of managers and experts by experience and included Raf Hamaizia Cygnet’s Lead expert by experience, Robert an ex-service user from Cygnet Hospital Harrow, Nicky McLeod, Chief Operating Officer for secure services and Sally Gendle, Operations Support Manager.

“It was amazing to see the amount of creativity that came through in these co-produced applications. This was an opportunity for service users to remember that they are part of a community when they are in hospital and the applications demonstrated just how thoughtful the people in our care are.”Raf Hamaizia, Expert by Experience Lead

The judges were looking for applications that clearly demonstrated co-production with service users from start to finish. The most successful applications were those where the service users came up with the idea and were involved in planning how the idea would be delivered. Some of our service users really went the extra mile, one from Cygnet Hospital Sheffield created a 3D model of a sensory garden and another from Cygnet Hospital Ealing penned a poem to support their application for a theatre trip for the ward.

There were 6 prizes awarded in all to service users from Cygnet Hospitals at, Beckton, Ealing, Sheffield, Stevenage and Lewisham and Woking Lodges. Congratulations to all the winners and well done to everyone who took part.

“When I launched this competition I wanted it to be about doing something fun and fulfilling, something that took people away from the day to day life in hospital….It has been such a great pleasure to be involved in judging this competition, the quality of applications was incredibly good! It was so heartening to see the creative ideas that service users came up with for the benefit of the people in their hospitals. “Nicky McLeod, Chief Operating Officer

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