Swanky London hotels are not our usual Friday night hangout. But on 29 November, we had a very special reason to be at the glitzy Park Plaza Westminster Bridge Hotel:

Dr Maggie Kirk and the HealthBus team, were nominated for an award at the prestigious annual GP Awards in the category of Clinical Improvement: Public Health and Prevention.

The awards ceremony took place during a delicious three-course dinner, which followed a drinks reception where guests could break the ice in a photo booth with fun props. With 20 awards categories, it looked like we were in for a long evening, but the event was so well organised that the ceremony flew by. (Unlike the Oscars, there were no acceptance speeches!)

Our host for the evening was the comedian and actor Kerry Godliman. Well known to Radio 4 listeners, Kerry has also been on Michael McIntyre’s Big Show, Mock the Week and 8 out of 10 Cats. As an actor she has appeared in several hit TV series including Call The Midwife.

So how did we do?

We were ‘Highly Commended’ which means we almost won! The judges had great difficulty in choosing a winner in certain categories this year, and so for the first time ever they introduced Highly Commended to recognise those who had come very close to winning.

It was the The Scale-Up BP Team who pipped us to the post. This project is helping thousands of people in Scotland to monitor and manage high blood pressure at home, so reducing the demand for GP time.

Our category judges were:

• Professor Viv Bennett CBE, Public Health England’s Chief Nurse and Director Maternity and Early Years
• Professor Jamie Waterall, Associate Deputy Chief Nurse & National Lead for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Public Health England
• Dr Eleanor Barry, Co-Chair, Primary Care and Public Health Special Interest Group, Faculty of Public Health
• Dr Roger Henderson, Sessional GP, recently retired head of a large practice

Read about all the GP Awards winners

Amazing support

It’s thanks to the generous support of Nationwide Building Society that our volunteers were able to attend this glittering event, and we cannot thank them enough. We’re also grateful to Moss Bros Bournemouth for ensuring we were all suitably attired.