Your Healthcare Nurses Recognised in Nursing Awards   You are here: Home » News Detail

Your Healthcare Nurses Recognised in Nursing Awards

The 2024 Kingston and Richmond annual nursing conference and awards saw nurses from Your Healthcare being recognised for innovation, safety and leadership skills, with colleagues sharing their expertise with keynote speakers including England’s deputy chief nursing officer.

The first conference presentation on ‘Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT) – from hospital to community IV antibiotic care’ was jointly delivered by Joanna James, YH clinical lead for community nursing, and Ty Mispenas, lead OPAT nurse at Kingston Hospital. Nic Kane, Kingston Hospital and HRCH chief nurse, commented on the innovative nature of the joint service and the aim of both teams, “not to let things stand still”.

Emily Heritage, YH district nurse who has been seconded to Kingston Hospital to improve end-of-life care, brought the audience to tears by sharing a video about her work. Denise, the wife of a patient who Emily supported to go home at the end of his life, described her work as “just brilliant”.

“The relief on Terry’s face when he knew he was coming home was so worth it. To have him here and have his children around him, and the grandchildren the night before, was worth everything.”

Dr Jenny Palfrey, palliative care consultant at Kingston Hospital, added, “Fundamentally Emily is great at her job. She is so proactive and knows who to contact and when. Having Emily as a district nurse within the hospital has really helped us.”

Matthew Cousins, YH learning disability nurse, presented his team’s ‘Constipation support for people with learning disabilities,’ which won a prestigious Nursing Times Award in 2023. Bringing a new perspective to the conference, Matthew was able to share Your Healthcare’s expertise in this area, a service which covers both Kingston and Richmond. The service helps users and carers to understand and better manage constipation, with the ultimate goal of avoiding hospital admission.

Following the presentations, the awards ceremony recognised the immense contribution played by nursing teams across Richmond and Kingston.

Two of our nurses, school nurse Nicky Fairclough and lower limb specialist nurse Julia Wells, were commended for ‘Innovation – recognising individual nurses or teams who have implemented new projects or processes that have resulted in a real difference to patient care in any specialty or nursing environment’. Nicky’s award was in recognition of her proactive approach to offering health needs assessments to children attending an alternative education provision, resulting in better identification of health needs and increased engagement with this vulnerable group of young people. Julia was recognised for her great leadership qualities, her support and encouragement for each member of the team, and her modelling of professional standards and high quality care. Her willingness to go the extra mile to help students was also mentioned in her nomination.

Karina Willis from the Rapid Response Team, was recognised for her work to promote the use of the News 2 score for deteriorating patients, both in a community setting and on Cedars Ward at Teddington Memorial Hospital. Her work was described as ‘undertaking an initiative to address factors that place patients at risk and promote safety as an essential part of healthcare’.

Community nurse Sarah Gotvald was named a ‘Rising Star’ - a nurse who has been qualified for less than five years and demonstrates exceptional qualities that embody the best of nursing/ midwifery and the leadership skills to inspire others to follow their example. Sarah’s work with universities trying to encourage recruitment was specifically mentioned.

And the cardiac rehabilitation team was recognised for ‘Teamwork - a team who has undertaken projects that demonstrate the value of teamwork in improving a service.’ The team has worked closely with Kingston Talking Therapies to design a pathway for people with heart disease who have psychological needs. The pathway includes joint assessment with expertise from cardiac nurse specialists and CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) practitioners, patient workshops and education sessions to support the needs of service users and shared learning across the teams. It demonstrates effective teamwork across two separate organisations to provide tailored patient care.

Commenting on the day, Ali Child, frontline service lead for integrated services, said: “It was great to start the presentations with Joanna James, our clinical lead for community nursing, and end the day with such welcome recognition of our expertise from colleagues at Kingston Hospital and Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare. There was a great atmosphere all day – and the significant part played by nurses in the community, in all their various roles, was a very strong theme throughout.”