A specialist nurse who dyes her hair purple for cancer awareness and the current president of the Nurses Association of Jamaica are among those being recognised by MPs as the NHS turns 75.
The annual NHS Parliamentary Awards are this year being used to help mark the milestone birthday of the health service in July.
“Being shortlisted for these awards gives a huge platform to raise awareness of pancreatic cancer which is the real winner here”
Vicki Stevenson-Hornby
Now in their fifth turn, the awards see MPs nominate outstanding NHS individuals and teams from their constituencies across 10 categories.
Health leaders and patient representatives then work together to pick regional winners and, from them, a national winner for each category.
The regional winners have now been announced, and will all go forward to compete as finalists in the national awards in July.
One of the categories is the Nursing and Midwifery Award, which is for “any nurse or midwife who has used their skills to ensure that patients experience care and compassion”.
Among the seven regional champions is Vicki Stevenson-Hornby, a pancreas specialist nurse at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, who wins the title for the North West.
Ms Stevenson-Hornby’s passion for her field sees her dyes her hair purple – the international colour for pancreatic cancer – for Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month.
Her work developing the trust’s diagnostic pathway has been credited with reducing the patient wait time between referral and confirmed diagnosis by almost half.
She said: “I am truly delighted to be nominated for this award. I absolutely love my job and it is something which I consider to be a privilege.
“Pancreatic cancer is a ruthless disease which has seen little improvement in survival for many years.
“Awareness of the disease and of the early symptoms is vital and being shortlisted for these awards gives a huge platform to raise awareness of pancreatic cancer which is the real winner here.”
Other region winners include Misbah Mahmood, deputy chief midwifery information officer at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, for the North East and Yorkshire; and Dawn Forbes, children and young people oncology nurse specialist from Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, for the Midlands.
For the South West it is Bev Breen, a consultant nurse specialising in women’s health at Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; and Mahfuja Aktar, a midwife at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust who focuses on addressing health inequalities and disparities, wins the title for the South East.
The Carer Support Nurse service, run by East Coast Community Healthcare Community Interest Company, which sees specialist nurses provide health and wellbeing support to unpaid carers, is the winner in the East.
In London, diabetes specialist nurse Nuru Clark, from Newham Hospital, part of Barts Health NHS Trust, wins the title.
Meanwhile, nurses are also the regional winners in some of the other categories, including the Lifetime Achievement Award.
The finalist for this category for London is Charmaine Angela Case, a breast screening clinical nurse specialist at the NHS South West London Breast Screening Unit, and president of the Nurses Association of Jamaica (UK).
Ms Case has been a registered adult nurse since 1987, and before her current job she was a Macmillan breast clinical nurse specialist for 15 years.
In her role with the Nurses Association of Jamaica, Ms Case helps to provide pastoral support to newly recruited overseas nurses from Jamaica to the UK.
“As we celebrate 75 years of our NHS, it is a perfect time to recognise our staff”
Ruth May
Chief nursing officer for England Ruth May is on the judging panel for the NHS Parliamentary Awards.
She said: “These awards pay tribute to the enormous talent, hard work and commitment of the incredible people who make up the NHS. I’m very proud to be a part of them.
“This year we’ve seen an incredible amount of work going into tackling the NHS backlog and recovering from the impact of Covid.
“NHS staff have continued to roll-out of the biggest and fastest vaccination programme in NHS history, while virtually eliminating two year waits and diagnosing record amounts of cancer patients.
“As we celebrate 75 years of our NHS, it is a perfect time to recognise our staff.”