Shropshire community nursing teams shortlisted for RCN and Nursing Times Awards

Staff at Shropshire Community Health Trust (ShropCom) have been put forward for three Nursing Times Awards and one Royal College of Nursing Award.

The nominations shine a light on the brightest talent in the profession and recognise the teams and individuals responsible for making nursing innovative, patient-focused and inclusive.

Patricia Davies, chief executive at Shropshire Community Health Trust said: “I am incredibly proud of all our colleagues who have been shortlisted for not one but four national awards.

"It is fantastic to see their hard work, dedication and innovation being recognised on a national level and on behalf of myself, the trust board and all staff at ShropCom I want to wish them the very best of luck.”

The concept of the 'Named Nurse' has been shortlisted for two Nursing Times awards in the categories of Patient Safety improvement and Nursing in the Community.

It involves all patients in the community having a named nurse who is responsible for overseeing and monitoring the patients in their care.

This has allowed nurses to build relationships with their patients and has been well received both by patients and community nurses.

Amanda Hall works as a Family Nurse Practitioner and launched The Rainbow Pilot Project which has also been shortlisted for a Nursing Times Award in the category of Public Health Nursing.

The project supports families following the birth of their rainbow baby (a baby born following loss) providing specialist care and bereavement support to families in Shropshire.

After the Ockenden Inquiry was launched into maternity care failings at Shrewsbury & Telford NHS Trust, Amanda felt as though a local response was needed in the county to support bereaved parents.

The pilot project saw a total of five families from Shrewsbury access the tailored support – those who had experienced either a stillbirth or previous neonatal loss.

"I created the pilot two-and-a-half years ago and my background is midwifery," Amanda said.

"Parents need extra support after losing a baby. They need to manage anxiety and for someone to hold their hand.

"When you lose a baby and are having another child it can be horrible, you want to be excited but you're terrified at the same time.

"I think those parents deserve so much and they have been so lovely to work with and they are the loveliest, kindest, most grateful parents and they have been through so much.

"It's just about holding it all together for them and being a support and it's not just mums, it's dads as well.

"We did a full survey and everything was so positive and they were really grateful and I think they found that it stopped them accessing other professionals like GPs because they just saw us. They'd text me questions or something else if they needed me."

Following the success of the pilot scheme, Amanda is hoping to continue with the project but is looking for funding to take it further.

"It's unique in the country, there's nothing out there like it," she said.

The Demand & Capacity Tool has been shortlisted for the RCN Digital Innovation Award in community and general practice nursing.

The tool supports nurses to deliver holistic care to the people they visit – and be able to have the right amount of time to do so – in a climate of high demand and pressure.

This prevents staff working over capacity and consequently becoming burnt out, thus improving the health and wellbeing of staff.

Donna Jones, locality clinical manager said: "It's wonderful to be shortlisted, the guys have worked so hard across the patch to implement this work that we have done and to be recognised for it is an amazing achievement."

Approximately 300 members of staff across the community nursing teams have been involved in these initiatives.

The Nursing Times Awards and the RCN Awards take place towards the end of the year and all teams are hoping to return to Shropshire with four new trophies for their awards cabinet.