Two nurse-led programmes of work in North Mid’s paediatric division have each made it through to the finals of a prestigious awards scheme organised by the Royal College of Nursing, it was announced today (Wed 12 July).

The North Mid finalists are among just 75 entries that have reached the next stage of the awards, out of more than 900 submissions, putting them on a par with many national and global examples of nursing excellence.

Our service for children with diabetes has been named as a finalist in the category of digital innovation, for its work in increasing children’s control of their diabetes through better access to digital devices and technology support. The improvements, which are rooted in a strong North Mid commitment to tackling health inequalities and ‘closing the gap’ in health outcomes between patients at North Mid and more affluent areas of north London, were put in place after the children’s diabetes team identified that limited access to hardware like laptops might be impacting on children and their families ability to continually monitor their glucose levels. With increased access to computers and other digital devices, children and families can better manage their diabetes care, giving them more control and freedom to get on with the rest of their busy lives.

Working with our digital team, the children’s diabetes team played a key role in developing the improvements for the team’s patients, and will now be presenting to the Royal College of Nursing’s judging panel in early September before learning of the RCNi winners at a prize-awarding event later in the year.

Our second finalist is a piece of work that has helped improve retention of experienced paediatric nursing staff and recruitment of student nurses following their final placements, by recognising and addressing the emotional and mental ‘cost’ on nursing staff of caring for babies, children and young people, worsened by the unprecedented impact of the covid pandemic.

Developed in line with national commitments to better support continuing professional development of the nursing workforce, North Mid’s AWiRE – Always Within Reach – programme used feedback from paediatric nursing colleagues to shape a learning and development support offer which not only helped ‘upskill’ professional competencies but also addressed stresses and drains on nurses’ emotional and mental wellbeing.

In addition to their in-house support and learning offer, the AWiRe team have helped increase the number of paediatric nursing staff accepted on prominent professional development schemes such as the Florence Nightingale Foundation scholarship programme, and appointed as Roald Dahl Nurse Specialists, sponsored by the Roald Dahl Marvellous Children’s Charity.

Sarah Hayes, chief nurse at North Mid, said: “Our finalists in this year’s RCNi awards scheme represent some of the aspects that I’m most proud of in North Mid nursing – both a genuine devotion to ensuring our local community gets the best standard of health outcomes and care that are available to children and families, and a genuine dedication to making sure our staff get the best support, ongoing development, and continual care that we owe them, as our local community deserves the absolute very best.”

The 2023 RCNi awards finalists will go through a further round of judging in September, before the winners are revealed at a ceremony in mid-November.