Care excellence celebrated
Last night (Wednesday 10 July), nurses, midwives, Operating Department Practictioners (ODPs) and Health Care Assistants (HCAs) from Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) were awarded a historic Care Excellence pin badge, a first of its kind for the hospital.
The badge was presented by Lord Willis of Knaresborough and NUH’s Chief Nurse, Professor Mandie Sunderland, to over 100 healthcare professionals.
NUH is on a journey to becoming ANCC Magnet® accredited, an international marker of nursing excellence. The ambition is to become one of the first UK hospitals to be Magnet® accredited, placing NUH as a national and international beacon for standards of nursing care. NUH’s accreditation documentation is due to be submitted this October, and is the culmination of over eight years of work to promote and evidence outstanding care practices at the Trust. NUH’s Magnet® journey has been made possible through a joint three-year partnership with Nottingham Hospitals Charity, whose significant funding reflects the national impact Magnet® accreditation will have.
As part of this journey, NUH has introduced a number of new initiatives – including Shared Governance and the new Care Excellence badge - to recognise and celebrate nursing and midwifery staff. Nurses, midwives, ODPs and HCAs who completed their Demonstrating Excellence Passport, a document to evidence the outstanding skills, compassion and contribution of healthcare professionals across NUH, were awarded a badge in recognition of this achievement at last night’s ceremony.
NUH’s Care Excellence and Nursing and Midwifery badge design was run as a competition, with dozens of entries, and hundreds of votes from across Team NUH, with the winning design submitted by Rab Purmanan, a Senior Cardiology Nurse in our Acute Cardiology Unit.
Mandie said: “I’m so proud that we are recognising the outstanding commitment of our nurses, midwives, ODPs and HCAs. Their commitment to caring for our patients as individuals, and ensuring excellence in care at all times shines through every day. I hope everyone who received their Care Excellence badge wears it with pride, and it reminds them of what a difference they make to the lives of our patients and their families.”
As part of the Trust’s Magnet® journey, a monthly DAISY Award was launched at NUH in 2017, to recognise nurses and midwives who have gone above and beyond in their duties to provide care excellence. NUH was the first Trust in the country to introduce DAISY Awards. The awards are voted for by patients, and are presented in a surprise ceremony hosted by Mandie. The international DAISY Award was established by the family of J. Patrick Barnes after he died from complications of a auto-immune disease in 1999.
During the badge ceremony last night, it was Mandie herself who was surprised, when founders of the DAISY Foundation, Mark and Bonnie Barnes presented her with a DAISY Lifetime Achievement Award, making Mandie the first recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award in the UK. The Barnes praised Mandie’s outstanding contribution to care excellence and compassion in nursing, via a video recorded secretly during their visit to NUH earlier this month.
Bonnie Barnes said: “We couldn’t be more proud and excited to share this very special honour with you because, when we created the Lifetime Achievement Award earlier this year…I have a picture of Mandie Sunderland in my heart. You are the epitome of why we wanted to create a recognition for nurses who have dedicated decades of their lives to providing the most extraordinary patient care.”
Speaking about her Lifetime Achievement Award, Mandie said: “I’m hugely honoured to be recognised by Bonnie and Mark. The work that the DAISY Foundation does to celebrate excellence in nursing is outstanding, and has truly helped us demonstrate to our staff how much we appreciate everything that they do for our patients, for NUH, and for each other. I am truly honoured by this award and very proud that NUH was the first Trust in the UK to use DAISY to celebrate outstanding nurses and midwives and their practice.”
And it wasn’t just the nursing teams receiving recognition. Therapy dog Ruby, part of the duo known as ‘Pooches’ (Pets Offering Ongoing Care Help and Extra Support) was given an honorary Care Excellence badge to recognise her role in patient care too, receiving one of the biggest cheers of the night.
Bonnie and Mark Barnes’ DAISY Lifetime Achievement video presentation can be viewed here.
Image credit: @NUHColleen