The training and education of Nurses at the University of Worcester has been shortlisted for three major awards.
The University has been shortlisted for the 5th time in the last 6 years as Nurse Education Provider of the Year (pre-registration) in the Student Nursing Times Awards.
In addition, Clare Helm, Practice Nurse Team Lead at Salters Medical Practice in Droitwich, has been shortlisted for the Mentor of the Year and the Winyates Health Centre in Redditch has been shortlisted for Student Placement of the Year (Community).
The prestigious Nursing Times awards pay tribute to student nurses and the programmes and people committed to providing outstanding nurse training and education opportunities. The winners will be announced on Thursday, April 26 at a ceremony in London.
Professor David Green, the University's Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive, said: "Thanks to the top class work of the University's specialist nursing staff team, together with our excellent partners in the Health Trusts, we have earned the reputation as one of the very best educators of nurses in the country. Our Nursing students are very carefully selected for their ability to become outstanding, caring, compassionate professionals. Students are guided, both at the University, and whilst out on placement, by some of the very best educators and mentors in the entire country.
"We are campaigning hard to have more places created for student nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and more on our programmes in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire. This achievement should really help this vital cause succeed."
Clare Helm has been mentoring students from the University for over 18 months at Salters Medical Practice. With over 30 years experience as a nurse, she said she enjoyed sharing her knowledge with student nurses and watching them grow into professionals.
"It's overwhelming to be shortlisted for Mentor of the Year," she said. "We love taking student nurses on placement. It's really wonderful to watch them grow in confidence and ability throughout their placement; it gives me a real sense of achievement. When I sign off their placement at the end it's very rewarding."
Winyates Health Centre has been taking University of Worcester students on placements for over two years. The team there have developed innovative approaches to embedding and supporting students.
"It's lovely to be shortlisted for Student Placement of the Year, said Tina Anis, Lead Mentor at the Health Centre. "We all have a responsibility to help train the next generation of health care staff. What better way than to be involved first hand in training the nurses of the future? If you want to make a change in the NHS and raise the standards, you have to be involved. We hope to inspire other practices to get involved in taking student nurses on placement."
The University of Worcester is the only educator of nurses in Herefordshire and Worcestershire, with students in three fields of practice - Adult, Children's and Mental Health Nursing. During the three years of their course, nursing students spend half their time at the University and half their time working in practice on the wards and in the surgeries of the health care organisations in the two counties.
Robert Dudley, Head of Nursing at the University said: "We are thrilled to have been shortlisted for three awards at the Students Nursing Times Awards.
"At the University of Worcester, we empower Nursing students to think critically and professionally about the challenges they face, so that they themselves can push for transformation and drive improvement in their services in the future. It is a real positive for the people and their Health Service to have outstanding new nurses who are not only equipped with the skills to know what to do, but who are equally adept at thinking about why and how."