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Nurses awarded Winston Churchill Memorial Trust fellowships

Ten nurses and allied health professionals have been awarded fellowships to travel abroad and investigate healthcare practice.
Crystal Oldman

A group of nurses and allied health professionals have been awarded fellowships to travel abroad and investigate healthcare practice that will help them in the UK

The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust has awarded ten travelling fellowships this year worth over £65,000 to allow the health professionals to travel to five different countries.

The nursing and allied health professions fellowships are running as part of a partnership with the Burdett Trust for Nursing, with support from the RCN and the Foundation of Nursing Studies Centre for Nursing Innovation.

QNI chief 'delighted'

Fellows include Queen’s Nursing Institute chief executive Crystal Oldman who will be travelling to Australia and New Zealand to research safe staffing in community services.

Crystal Oldman
QNI chief Crystal Oldman will be travelling
to Australia and New Zealand.
Picture: Barney Newman

Dr Oldman said she was delighted with the fellowship and added: ‘It will be an incredible learning experience to see how community services in Australia and New Zealand are meeting the challenges of service integration and delivering more complex care to people living in remote areas.

‘Having already been involved in safe staffing work in the UK, I hope to bring back learning that will help us develop our own models of community healthcare, responding to changes in demography and disease profile.’

Domestic violence research

Other nurse fellows include Caroline Bradbury-Jones, a reader in nursing from Birmingham, who will be travelling to New Zealand to research health professionals’ responses to domestic violence, and Alan Finnegan, a professor of nursing and military mental health from Chester, who will be travelling to the United States to study approaches for preparing nurses to care for military personnel.

Dr Bradbury-Jones said she is currently contacting policymakers and politicians in the UK and New Zealand about her project: 'I am particularly interested in understanding how nurses can respond appropriately to the problem.'

Winston Churchill Memorial Trust chief executive Julia Weston said: ‘Churchill Fellows travel globally and return with innovative ideas and a commitment to sharing their findings to help others in the UK.

‘Our hope is that exposure to practical, positive practices overseas will enable the individuals we fund to contribute to the delivery and leadership of an effective healthcare system in the UK.’

The categories for the 2018 Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowships will be announced on 9 May. 


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