International Nurses Day 2017

Published: 12 May 2017

Today is International Nurses Day. A day to celebrate and create a conversation about nursing care.

To coincide the Royal College of Nursing has launched its #NurseHeroes campaign and here at HQIP we thought this is a perfect opportunity to pay tribute to three special nurses who we celebrated as part of our Clinical Audit Awareness Week campaign last November.

Moira, Helen and Marie-Anne were nominated #AuditHeroes for their tireless work, dedication to audit process and their contribution to improvements in patient care. Here’s why in the words of their Trust colleagues they are true #NurseHeroes:

Moira Rowan, Dementia and Delirium Nurse, St George’s Hospital, London

“During data collection for Round 3 of the National Audit of Dementia, Moira took responsibility for the carer questionnaire distribution in St George’s Hospital. She approached the task in a systematic and devoted way including: making notes of wards admitting dementia sufferers, meeting with carers most afternoons to encourage their participation, staying late after work to meet family members, and gaining the cooperation of the dementia champions to help with questionnaire distribution. Moira’s diligent approach resulted in the return of 104 carer questionnaires the highest total return. Due to the impressiveness of the results Moira became something of an informal advisor, happily taking time to offer tips to sites undergoing a similar process. The quality of the information is such that its data will contribute to an important national data set.”

Nominators: National Audit of Dementia, College Centre for Quality Improvement, Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Marie-Anne Kelly, Neonatal Nurse Advisor, Great Ormond Street Hospital

“In addition to Marie-Anne’s responsibilities as the Trust’s only Neonatal Nurse Advisor, she independently initiated and undertook a large neonatal audit project in order to improve the provision of care for neonates. Marie-Anne proactively set about using the resulting data to spread awareness about areas of potential improvements including the treatment of jaundice, improved blood spot screening and better IV fluid management in Great Ormond Street Hospital’s neonatal population. Marie-Anne then used the data to inform a Trust-wide quality improvement project with the aim of improving the care of neonates and better equipping staff with evidence-based knowledge and training.”

Nominators: Katie De Freitas, Quality Improvement Lead and Katy Cook, Quality Improvement Manager

Helen Atkins, Advanced Nurse Practitioner in Diabetes care, University Hospital of Leicester

“Helen single-handedly takes on the responsibility of planning, organising and coordinating the data collection for the National Inpatient Diabetes Audit each year. This is no small feat in a Trust which includes 3 sites and up to 300 patients with diabetes occupying beds on the day of the audit. Helen inspires staff at all levels to take part, communicating the importance of ensuring collection of complete and accurate data. The captured data provides the diabetes team with vital benchmarking information which has been used to shape the service and highlight areas for improvement.”

Nominator: Dr Kath Higgins

To find out more about International Nurses Day and the #NurseHeroes campaign visit https://www.rcn.org.uk/nurses-day/