Nightingale award to recognise outstanding nurses

Outstanding nurses who are ‘the ultimate role models’ are to be recognised through a new professional award

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust has launched the Nightingale nurse award to coincide with a new nursing and midwifery strategy for the organisation.

Next generation

Trust chief nurse Dame Eileen Sills said: ‘Our nurses and midwives strive to provide the best possible care to our patients 24/7. In recognition of their contribution to our trust, and the need to bring absolute pride back into the profession, we have launched next 'generation Nightingales'.

‘I want this trust to be known for developing some of the best nurses and midwives in the country.'

Nurses can apply for training to complete a fully-funded work based learning module, and get the chance to start or complete a master’s programme. On completion of training nurses will be awarded with the title of Nightingale nurse.

The trust plans to enrol the first 100 in September this year and make the first awards in March 2018.

Target

The organisation’s new nursing strategy has a target to have a waiting list of nurses and midwives who want to work at the trust by 2020.

Nurses and midwives will be referred to as the next generation Nightingales in honour of the pioneering nurse Florence Nightingale, who established her nursing school at St Thomas’ Hospital in 1859.

The latest announcements build on the Nightingale project which was started by the trust last year to improve the consistency of care provided across inpatient areas through the standardisation of some aspects of shift working.

In total, 1,056 nursing staff have been trained through a day’s simulation over a six-month period.

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