CELEBRATING OUR NURSES AND MIDWIVES

On 8 May Weston Area Health NHS Trust marked International Nurses’ Day, by celebrating nursing and midwifery teams across the Trust.

The event was held in the lead up to International Nurses’ Day – on Sunday 12 May 2019 – to recognise the contribution made by our nurses and midwives and included our Director of Nursing Awards. We wanted to show our nurses and midwives, who spend their days caring for others, how special they are. In today’s modern NHS, nurses have various roles across the organisation, but what doesn’t change is their support for each other, all working together to care for patients. Nursing and midwifery are skilled professions and very rewarding and interesting careers. With this event we wanted to recognise how professional and dedicated our nurses and midwives are here at Weston and show what a valued part of the team they are.

The day began with a service delivered by our hospital chaplain and dedicated to all staff, celebrating the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth. An awards ceremony followed the service, opened by Director of Nursing, Sarah Dodds, who said: “I am immensely proud of all the nursing and midwifery teams here at Weston.”

(L-R hospital chaplain David Grace and director of nursing Sarah Dodds)

The awards for Best Teacher/ Educator, Patient Experience Champion, Nursing/ Midwifery Assistant/ Assistant Practitioner, Registered Nurse, Nursing Leader and Nursing Team were presented by Sarah and Trust Chief Executive, James Rimmer.

Blueberries Catering and Winnie’s Bakery generously donated cakes which were shared on all the wards and clinical departments in the Trust for our nurses and midwives to enjoy. Staff working the night shift were not forgotten; Domino’s in Weston-super-Mare very kindly donated pizzas as a way of saying thank-you.

Sarah added: “We have much to celebrate here at Weston, I have been immensely proud to be able to say I work here alongside some fantastic registered and unregistered nurses.

“Over the year we have supported European nurses to obtain their English exams and recruited colleagues from overseas who are undergoing additional training, preparing them for the role of a registered nurse.

“Much has changed here at Weston for our midwifery service and it is wonderful to see the dedication of our staff to maintaining and improving the care for pregnant women in the local area, and supporting those who choose to give birth here at Weston.

“I would like to personally thank all of the nursing and midwifery teams for the fabulous work they do every single day.”