As the 2023 QuDoS in MS recognition awards approach on Saturday, 25^th March, at Leonardo Hotel, Hinckley, Leicester – highlighting the best in quality of delivery of services in Multiple Sclerosis care – pharmaphorum spoke with the chair of judges, Christine Singleton, about this year’s cohort of entries, as well as the history of the recognition programme and her involvement with it.

QuDoS in MS is a pharmaphorum initiative supported by the MS Trust and sponsored by a number of pharmaceutical companies. Recognising innovation and excellence in MS care management and service delivery, the awards highlight the valuable contribution of the individuals and teams striving to improve the quality of life and experience of care for those living with MS.

Christine Singleton, now a privately operating clinical specialist physiotherapist in Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES), first became aware of QuDoS through the MS Trust, of which she is a trustee and has been for a number of years now. Singleton was recipient of the very first QuDoS Judges’ Choice award and attends the MS Trust conference regularly, both as trustee and supporter.

From physiotherapeutic excellence to chair of judges

Self-describing her role as a physiotherapist as being “on the fringe of what would be the pharma-type aspects of things” – as she explained, “the nurses, etc., would be far more aware of the drug companies than the likes of us – Singleton is well-placed to comment that in the “non-nursing world, QuDoS is not known enough”. More people, she said, need to recognise what the event is itself recognising.

“It’s lovely to have an organisation, or indeed to have Paul [Tunnah], who has supported the pharma companies to support QuDoS in the first place and to instigate it as far as a reward system or an acknowledgement system,” Singleton said.

“I’ve been in the NHS for 41 years now and being recognised is not one of their fortes, as far as your work that you’re doing,” she continued. “It’s good that you’re doing it, and carry on doing it, and that’s about it – that sort of thing. [So,] to have an organisation that’s outside of all of this, outside of our work remit, to take on an idea of recognising excellence and standards of care is very beneficial, and I applaud it.”

Nonetheless, what’s necessary is for QuDoS to become more widely known itself.

“We just perhaps need it to be known a great deal, really,” Singleton explained. “I would say it’s, certainly in my world, in the world of other healthcare professionals perhaps, other than the nurses – it is under the radar, and it’s a shame. As a concept, [I] fully appreciate it, fully recognise the good that it can do, and the boost that it can give the various teams or individuals who may be awarded.”

“The connection with the MS Trust is very important,” she added, “because this is a group that we’re obviously concerned about and want to do our best for, and the barriers out there to doing that are thick and thin.”

A call to action from the chair of judges

Singleton came to her current role as chair of judges through the MS Trust and, having assessed the entries for this year, is keen to see greater diversity in applications going forward.

“It’s like a small pool and a small group of fish in a small pond, and I’ve seen these names and services before and, particularly in this round, there were services that have been nominated for different categories and nominated two or three times. They’re obviously wanting to get their services and their individuals recognised, which is absolutely understandable, but then where is everybody else?”

In other words, those in this particular field of care aren’t very good at putting themselves forward for recognition.

“There are a lot of services out there, they’re all struggling,” Singleton explained. “One has to think about what the barriers are for them to apply, to have sponsors or to have nominees to bring the greater choice; the greater diversity and recognition of these services that are out there […] we just need a few more people to come forward with what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. My gut feeling was that the range wasn’t was great enough this year, although those that had submitted were running and providing fantastic services, so you can’t undermine what they have done, and all good to them that they’ve actually used an opportunity to get recognition for it.”

“It’s just very difficult,” she continued, “and it’s very difficult with people who have got busy, busy clinics and busy, busy teams and having the time and knowing what it is that they need to write in order to even be considered. It’s very difficult for them to take that time out. I could say that for my services here [Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust]: we have MS services, we have wonderful services from the physio’s point of view, and if you wrongly take the attitude, ‘Well, this is bread and butter, this is what we do every day, so why should we put ourselves forward when it’s something that we do every day really?’ – I think it’s a perception and mindset.”

In short, those within this field of care need to be helped to recognise that what they are doing is, in Singleton’s words, ‘fantastic’.

Categories and the addition of digital innovation

Nonetheless, the calibre of those applications has, as ever, been second to none.

“We had outstanding pharmacists,” Singleton said. “We had outstanding physiotherapists. We had digital innovation, which is a new one. I’ve not seen that one before. And then innovation in practice, and outstanding team, and then the QuDoS judging panel has the remit, if they want to, to create a special judges achievement award as well.”

“It’s lovely to be recognised,” she continued. “If you’re sensible, you come back, and you tell your Trust that you’ve just been awarded this recognition. That can elevate your own personal – in my case, it was a personal one, rather than a team – recognition within the Trust as well. Everybody should take it back to their organisations to publicise the fact that they have got these awards.”

“It’s really important that they do that,” Singleton urged. “That spreads the soft marketing, as I call it. It gives you affirmation that you are being recognised for what you do by the people that recognised you […] as well by the individuals that [are on] the board […] eminent in their particular profession.”

“The makeup of the judging panel has to have that gravitas, has to have the people that are steeped within this MS world,” she said.

Bucking the trend of silence around excellence in MS care

What became ever clearer in our discussions was that Singleton wants those who work in the MS care sector to value what they’re doing – and to share their valuable endeavours.

“The one thing about the NHS and individuals, and particularly in my field, physiotherapists, we are very poor about blowing our own trumpet,” she explained. “We hide behind our patients. Shouting from the field top is something that doesn’t come easy to us, which is why it’s lovely that another organisation will do it for us.”

And as to the next QuDos?

“[It needs to be made] more of a big event,” Singleton stated. “It would be really nice, even if there was an opportunity to have a five-minute slot on why they do what they do [the entrants]. That might encourage others to say to themselves, ‘Well, if they can do that, and that’s exactly what we’re doing, then perhaps next year I should put myself forward, or I should put my team forward’. That would be my recommendation.”