NHS staff celebrated incredible achievements of the past year with an awards ceremony.

A total of 10 awards were handed to staff who had made an outstanding contribution to patient care in 2020 and 2021.

Sunday's event – referred to as the Royal Free London Oscars – was funded by the Royal Free Charity and was held online due to pandemic precautions.

Among the winners were Sue Young, of the Royal Free Charity, who won Volunteer of the Year.

Anand Sivaramakrishnan, the trust's consultant microbiologist and infection control doctor, won Clinician of the Year.

The infection prevention and control multidisciplinary team won Outstanding Contribution to Patient Safety, and the Non-clinical Team of the Year Award went to the bereavement and mortuary services team.

The Celebrating Diversity award was won by the neuro rehab centre multidisciplinary team, and the Chase Farm Hospital theatre team was Group Clinical Team of the Year.

Deborah Kirby, critical care matron at Barnet Hospital, picked up the Quality Improvement and Innovation award; Non-clinical Employee of the Year was Nigel Brinkhurst, head chef at the Royal Free Hospital’s private patients unit; and the Chairman’s Leadership Award went to Angshuman Mukherjee, clinical director and consultant in emergency medicine.

“Tonight’s celebrations feel a little bit more special than usual because the improvements to patient care that teams and individuals have undertaken have all been achieved against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic," said Royal Free London group chief executive Caroline Clarke.

She said she will be "forever grateful for the team spirit our staff have shown", and praised the sponsor, the Royal Free Charity, saying it "stands shoulder to shoulder with our trust, it is a relationship we never take for granted”.

Mary Basterfield, the vice chair of the Royal Free London, congratulated staff for the "enormous commitment" to patient care that they had demonstrated during the course of the pandemic.

She added: “Nearly 400 staff were nominated by their colleagues for an Oscars award this year. The stories of how people have gone out of their way to help others and improve the care we give were all exceptional and it was a difficult task to narrow it down to those who we will be presenting with group awards tonight.”

Jon Spiers, the chief executive of the Royal Free Charity, said the charity was "delighted" to sponsor the event.