What is #Conversations?

Launched in 2016, #Conversations is a collection of activities and events which aims to encourage patients, families, visitors, Trust members and staff to talk about their experiences and stories. Through these conversations, we want to discuss with as many people as possible how we could develop and improve services at the hospital. Our events and activities include division staff awards, fun activities for families and patients, listening events staff fancy dress and much more!

Latest updates:

2026

Staff Awards

Nominations for our 2026 Staff awards programme will be opening soon. Keep an eye on our Facebook page for the launch of the public vote.

Other events

We are planning a number of other events for the year, including conversation cafes and building our new #conversations community.

Our Fancy Dress competition will be back in 2027.

In partnership with our hospital charity, The Grand Appeal, our wards, departments and staff teams are invited to take part in our fancy dress competition every other year, the previous comptetion taking place in 2023. Patients and families are encouraged to join in with their wards/areas or simply cheer them on!

The theme for 2025 was 'Imaginary Worlds' - Congratulations to everyone who took part in this amazing day

There were 8 awards up for grabs! This is to provide more opportunities to win and encourage thought about different elements of the fancy dress event. All awards were based on judges' votes (except the Facebook award which was awarded based on engagement from our Facebook community):

The FancyDress Challenge Trophy; first place- Meadow ward, second place - Starlight ward and third place - Apollo ward.
Creativity Award - creative interpretation of theme - Starlight ward
Sustainability Award - use of resources, including environmentally friendly approach - Penguin ward
Patient Partnership Award - evidence of team working, including patients and families (patient facing areas only) - Bluebell ward
Staff Engagement Award - engagement of all staff participants (non-patient facing areas) - LIAISE Family Support Team
The Facebook Trophy - .

For photos, please visit our Facebook page.

The judges:

One patient or parent/carer representative
One member of The Grand Appeal team
One senior staff member

The judges voting process:

Criteria for judging and the points available:

Creative interpretation of theme (5)
Use of resources, including environmentally friendly approach (5)
Evidence of team working including patients and families (patient facing areas only) (5) OR
Engagement of all staff participants on the day (non-patient facing only) (5)
Judges extra discretion points (5)

Further informtion:

Each judge ranks the teams/areas and allocates a maximum of 5 points per criteria/award category that applies to them. There will also be 5 extra discretionary points for any other aspects of a team's/area's fancy dress which they feel deserve noting.
Scores from all judges are added together to give a score out of 60. The highest score will confirm the winner of the Fancy Dress Challenge Trophy, together with prizes for second and third place.
The highest scores in the individual criteria/ award catergories will also receive an award. If this is the overall Challenge Trophy winner or a runner up, the award will go to the next highest scoring team/area, to avoid multiple awards per team/area. No team/area will recieve more than one award.
In the event of tie, a decision will be made based on further deliberation by the judges.
Photographs will be taken. All patients and families must consent to be in photos and sign a publicity consent form (these can be obtained by emailing bchinfo@uhbw.nhs.uk). Staff, families and patients should be aware that the images will be used for social media, Trust webpages as well as other hospital based media (reports, newsletters etc).
Photos of each participating team/ area will be posted on the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children Facebook page with a closing date of 1 week from the date of posting. Photos will be ranked according to number of likes to decide the winner of the Facebook award.

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You can find photos of our previous fancy dress competitions in our archives here or head to our Facebook page and search 'fancy dress' in the page search box to find more. For any further questions or queries please email bchinfo@uhbw.nhs.uk or call 0117 3428158.

The Women's and Children's division staff awards are an awards scheme for any staff member or team whose main role benefits patients and families in the Women's and Children's division, based at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, St Michael's Hospital or Weston General Hospital.

Nomination are opened early summer each year with the winners announced in September - winners and runners up receive a small gift, and a certificate of commendation and all staff nominated receive a copy of the feedback submitted.

2025 Staff awards

Winners - Children's Services	Winners - Women's Services
Eating Disorder Team	NICU Staff
Michelle	Isabelle Powell
Dr Liz Crowne and Rebecca Broadbent	Gemma Cass
Stefan Kosciow	Sophie Angove
Katie Montague	Fay Hamilton, Trinette Morre and Elizabeth Osmond
Dr Paul Reavley	Eleanor Richardson
Ma'In Masarweh
Joshaua Cottam

Runners Up - Children's Services	Runners Up - Womens Services
Eleanor Moore	Fetal Cardiology team
Harreit Parks	Hana Evans
Megan	Newborn Hearing Screening Team
Natasha Shinn	CDS Midwifery Team
All staff on Dolphin Ward	Madeleine Holland
Tim Murphy	Dr Ela Chakkarapani
Amy Pilkington	Andrew Wilson and Adam Parslow
Lincy Varghese	Dzhuliya Vlahova
Lisa Cooke	Iana Marechal
Frances Johnson-Wynne
Alanna Holt
Jennifer Trickey
Martha Fagan

2023

Staff Awards

Winners

Coastguard and Horizon Theatres teams, Ruth Harding - Secondary school teacher, Dr Charlotte Mellor - Palliative Care consultant, Ash Sweeting - Senior staff nurse, Victoria - Paediatric dietitian, Chelsey Gibbs - Staff nurse, Beth Martin-Paediatric OT assistant, Gemma Lewis- Sister, Seashore Centre, Weston.

Runners Up

Claire Fraser-Tytler - Music therapist, Zuwane Thomas - Senior Healthcare Support Worker, Carrie Hemming - Sister, Caterpillar, Toni Livingstone - Medical Secretary, Katie Johns - Paediatric Spinal Clinical Nurse specialist, Harriet Dean - staff nurse, Meadow Ward team, Jessica Sparks - Staff nurse, Mental Health support workers, Osteogenesis Imperfecta team, Helen Cunningham - Sister, Seahorse ICU, Miss Catherine Bradshaw - Consultant Paediatric surgeon, Megan Vaughan-Williams - Senior staff nurse/clinical skills facilitator, Rota Team: Dr Florence Mather - Clinical Fellow, Dr Karthik Darma - Paediatric ST, Zoe-May Jones - Senior Rota Coordinator

Chairpersons award

Kathy Hole, Lead Nurse, Infection Prevention and Control.

Fancy Dress

The Fancy Dress competition took place on Wednesday 27th September. See the Fancy Dress tab for details of winners or visit our Facebook page for pictures of the day.

2022

Staff Awards

The Women's and Children's division staff awards 2022 winners and runners up can be found on our Facebook page.

2021

Fancy dress:

The Bristol Royal Hospital for Children staff fancy dress competition took place on Wednesday 22nd September 2021 and the theme was 'decades'. Patients and families were also welcome to join in with their wards/areas or simply cheer them on! You can find out more and see photos on our Facebook page by searching for 'Fancy Dress 2021'

Staff Awards:

The Women's and Children's division staff awards 2021 winners and runners up can be found here. There were over 200 nomination and the categories were

2020

Despite the set backs with coronavirus (covid-19) we were pleased that we were able to continue #Conversations activities in 2020.

In 2020 we made a few changes to the way #Conversations run. Going forward we are spreading out our events and consultations throughout the year, instead of running everything at the same time of year. Based on your feedback, we think this will make this clearer and easier for everyone.

2019

#Conversations in 2019 took place on 16^th - 20^th September 2019 in St Michael's Hospital and 23^rd - 28^th September 2019 in Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. It was a fantastic two weeks of activities, staff awards and conversations! Our events were genorously supported by the Grand Appeal.

2017

Our 2017 #conversations initiative ran from 25^th to the 29^th of September. We encouraged staff, patients and parents to talk to us about our services. Here are some of our photos from 2017:

ED Group Photo

Thankyou Marta

We think continuing communication is important and part of this process is including everyone in the discussions that affect them. The 2017 #conversations week encouraged us to spend the time having conversations, big and small, and with different people who are invested in our shared vision. This all contributes to how we want our services to develop and how we can all work together to achieve this.

Thank You Marius

We focused on discharge and how we can work to make it better. In 2016 we designed our Partnership Charter and this was launched during #conversations in 2017. We also gave everyone the chance to say a Big Thank You to anyone who made a real difference to their hospital visit.

Thank You Parent

The week was kindly supported by Above and Beyond.

2016

In its first year #Conversations ran from 14th to 23rd September and at the heart of the campaign was an aspiration to change current thinking and embed a new way of working in partnership.

47 staff and 40 volunteers gave their time to participate in 57 separate activities all designed to engage children, young people, families and staff in different ways including ward roadshows, hospital based well being sessions, dolls dress up sessions in play areas, reception events, job shadowing, and a fete in the hospital garden. The event was launched by a music video starring patients and staff, which reached 50,000 families on Facebook.

Well done to all the wards and departments in the children's hospital who got involved with #conversations in 2016 by fancy dress day! Take a look at the photos:

Therapy Department - 101 Dalmatians

101 dalmatians