About the award
The Â鶹´«Ã½ &Us Voice Champion Award recognises paediatric health workers who have gone over and above to support Â鶹´«Ã½ &Us projects. The nominees are scored against the four core values of Â鶹´«Ã½ &Us, which provides a structure to identify and evidence the impact of their support.
- Educate
- Collaborate
- Engage
- Change
Anonymised forms are assessed independently by our Â鶹´«Ã½ &Us young people’s judging panel.
The 2026 winner
Â鶹´«Ã½ &Us judged and voted on the 2026 award and made the final decision on the winner who is...
Dr Suresh Pujar!
As a specialist epilepsy paediatrician at Great Ormond Street Hospital and Chair of the Epilepsy Programme Board, Dr Pujar has been very supportive and empowering of the nine Â鶹´«Ã½ &Us parent and young people Experts by Experience.
Dr Pujar has worked with the Experts by Experience over the past two years, ensuring their views and voices are central to board meetings, helping to influence epilepsy healthcare across all four nations. This has made the Experts by Experience feel seen and heard, and feel equal, and that everything they say is carefully listened to.
Young people on the judging panel said:
This is an example of one person who brings everyone together into a place where everyone is learning - the nominee, the Experts by Experience and the Board. They clearly included the Experts by Experience in what they do and created concrete, tangible outcomes as a result.
Congratulations to Dr Pujar!
Previous winners
2025: Dr Rohini Rattihalli won the award due to her dedication to developing the SUDEP safety checklist. Dr Rattihalli volunteered her time to speak to children, young people, and families who are Experts by Experience on the UK Paediatric Epilepsy Programme Board to get their advice and guidance. Each individual was given the space and opportunity to talk about an often upsetting topic, Dr Rattihalli empowered the Experts by Experience to be able to be part of a resource that creates robust conversations between clinicians and families.
2024: Paediatric Diabetes Team at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust won the award due to their committment to engagement and voice, undertaking training, coaching and hosting your own clinic chat. The team have gone on to advocate for meaningful voice and engagement in service shaping, inspiring their colleagues, trust and others.
2023: Epilepsy Specialist Nurse, Jill Conium was chosen by the panel due to her hard work volunteering across countless evenings, Saturdays and other times to support the work of the Epilepsy12 Youth Advocates, going to Birmingham to support young people at a national youth conference, and joining 7 year olds online to be interviewed about being a nurse.
2022: Dr Ambalika Das has been committed in her work to support young people to make good choices to stay healthy happy and well and have a voice by educating others and to build stronger communities together. Dr Das worked with Â鶹´«Ã½ &Us to create and develop a youth social action project toolkit for use in schools and youth groups
2021: Dr Mike Linney has been outstanding as an advocate for children and young people. His commitment and dedication to the Â鶹´«Ã½ Engagement Committee as chair where he has helped young people, parents and paediatricians to collaborate together on improving child health looking at children's rights has made a huge impact.
2020: Dr Camilla Kingdon was chosen for advocating for, and creating opportunities for, children and young people’s voice to inspire paediatricians at the Â鶹´«Ã½ Annual Conference, joining young people to help plan their conference sessions and Â鶹´«Ã½ &Us birthday celebration, whilst ensuring their voice is strong across the conference programme in 2019 and 2020.
2019: Dr Mike Farquhar was chosen for his work with Â鶹´«Ã½ &Us young people over 12 months to help develop the NHS Rainbow Badge programme, including going to Herts Pride to run a market stall with the young people to support the development of the wider Rainbow Badge project.
2018: Professor Judith Ellis was chosen for her advocacy and support in helping to change how children and young people are seen and heard in Â鶹´«Ã½, working with children and young people to develop Â鶹´«Ã½ &Us, and coming to enjoy project celebrations with them.
We would like to thank all those that support Â鶹´«Ã½ &Us each year, and a special thanks to the judging panel for having to make such a tough decision!
For more information, please contact and_us@rcpch.ac.uk.