Nursing in Social Care

This award recognises the enormous contributions made by nursing staff working in social care.We are keen to recognise the leadership of nurses working in care homes, learning disability or autism services, domiciliary care and other social care settings. However, the entry is open to all.Social care is often multi-faceted, with nurses managing complex health needs, carrying out assessments and providing leadership for other staff. Nurses in social care also play a critical role in championing innovation, all of which we want to recognise and celebrate through this award category.It is open to individuals and teams working in social care either local government or independent sector organisations. Entrants must be able to demonstrate their work has made an important improvement in promoting and improving health and care in social care settings.

Bennfield House
Creation of Bennfield House

My mum worked at Loversall Hospital in the 1970’s and introduced me to ‘’nursing’’. She worked on ward 2 those patients had been moved from Middlewood Hospital in Sheffield, which was an asylum in years gone by. I used to visit the ward on a weekend I would have been about 14. These people many now elderly having spent decades institutionalised and suffering from many mental disorders……I thought - how interesting are these people. Years later, after becoming a registered nurse, it hit me how there were very little, in fact there were almost no community services or wonderful homes where these people could be treat with dignity and 'live' for the rest of their lives. In 1993 at just 25 years old my ex husband and I decided to buy a house which could be made into a private care home for such residents. We found a house for sale at £39,950, however we struggled to raise the cash to buy it as we went to the bank to borrow the money and the Bank Manager said ‘’no – private health care will never take off’’. We borrowed the money from family and friends who believed in us and we borrowed some money from a finance company at an extortionate amount of £365 per month. We opened the 8 bedded home on 25th April 1984. i bought 8 divan beds and 8 arm chairs from the local furniture store in thorne – had them on a monthly paymernt card. carpets and curtains were part of the sale. we accepted donations from family and friends for furniture, pots and pans, bedding, pictures and ornaments. We now have 27 beds and continually strive to make the home as comfortable as possible for our wonderful residents.

CHD Living
Creating a care continuum

CHD Living launched a transformative care project in collaboration with Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals, to effectively tackle the critical bottleneck in hospital discharges. By providing 60 care home beds across three of CHD Living’s nursing services, we’ve created a suitable environment for recovery and essential assessments outside of the hospital setting. Key challenges included coordinating across multiple care settings and ensuring that each patient’s specific care needs were met in a timely manner. By increasing communication and collaboration among both the health and care teams - nursing staff, discharge teams, and social workers - we streamlined the transition process. This initiative has evolved over time to focus on a reablement pathway, tailored to ensure patients not only leave the hospital sooner, but also receive comprehensive support aimed at their long-term independence. The joint-up approach integrates rigorous clinical assessments with robust, goal-led care planning, directed by nursing teams, creating a seamless transition from acute care to home-based recovery. The results have been highly positive, delivering significant cost savings to the NHS, reducing hospital stays, and enhancing patient care experiences. Over 900 individuals have benefited from this model, experiencing fewer readmissions and improved long-term health outcomes. Importantly, the project has fostered strong relationships between patients and care providers, often resulting in patients choosing to remain within our care services, thus highlighting the continuity of care and the personal bonds formed. This is a seven-day-a-week process, with several admissions coming directly from AE, which negates the need for a hospital admission and increases capacity for flow through A&E. Looking ahead, we aim to refine and adapt our approach based on ongoing feedback and partnerships. We’ve already expanded this model by further integrating our home care services, through further flexible collaboration with the Alliance. This has improved our ability to support patients' transitions.

Middlesex University in partnership with North Central London Integrated Care Board and North Central London Training Hub
Simulation in adult social care nurse education

Adult social care (ASC) nurses advised of the desire to access high quality clinical training with competency sign off. This aligned with the analyses of NHS data, which indicated the need for further training provision to ASC nurses, particularly to enhance the level of knowledge and skill with infection control precautions with an aim to reduce catheter associated infections. North Central London (NCL) ASC Education Lead collaborated with Middlesex University (MU) Head of Clinical Skills and Simulation Centre, ASC nurses and residents to develop a bespoke one-day training and assessment programme on catheter care. The focus of this training was aimed at catheter care competency and associated infection control precautions. This training programme enabled ASC nurses to attend MU’s simulation centre to undertake contextualised simulated learning experiences through immersion, reflection, feedback and practice in a controlled environment, where it is safe to make mistakes and learn from these. The training was facilitated by experienced nurse lecturers. ASC nurses were able to have hands on experience during this training with the insertion, removal and overall management of catheters using mid fidelity simulators which provide as close to reality learning experience as possible. The collaborative partnership allowed for identified challenges to be addressed promptly, an example of this was the need to provide more time for learning around aseptic non-touch technique. For any nurses who were unsuccessful in the competency sign-off were provided with further support to ensure that the nurse felt secure in their knowledge and skill and that competency was achieved. We also offered additional time with the nurse within the clinical setting or return to the simulation centre for further support. The training programme has resulted in the reduction of relevant infections and has allowed for the development of further bespoke training programmes for the ASC nurses.

North Central London Integrated Care Board working in partnership with North Central London Training Hub and North Central London councils
Health and wellbeing bus for adult social care staff

The purpose the health and wellbeing bus is to provide an opportunity for adult social care (ASC) staff to address their own needs. It had become apparent there was unmet need for staff when during regular training sessions held in care homes on how to take residents’ vital signs e.g. blood pressure, staff were often found to have high blood pressure which they were unaware of /was undiagnosed. Staff also frequently reported challenges in seeking healthcare due to work schedules and other commitments/responsibilities. Working with partners across the system in NCL, we found willingness to run a small pilot in 2023, based on good will and an ambition to support our ASC work force. Public health across all NCL were keen to address health inequalities in this group of staff. Engagement of care homes across NCL to take part. Further funding from NHSE enabled a further 8 buses and research with Middlesex University (MU) to take place, to evidence the benefits of the bus on the ASC staff who attend, related to long team health benefits. As of April 2024,19, bus sessions have supported 487 staff. The data from the health checks highlighted that :(46%) had high blood pressure and (71%) of those were new cases with previously undiagnosed hypertension. 74% of ASC staff were found to be overweight or obese and 34% were moderate or high risk of developing diabetes. Of these 44% needed an HBA1C test for diabetes. We are currently looking for further funding to continue the bus. The ICB are also looking at how the bus model can be used in other hard to reach areas with health and inequalities.

Royal Star and Garter
Non-medical prescribers

We are a charity providing loving, compassionate care to veterans and their partners living with disability or dementia, from three Homes. At our Solihull Home, experienced Lead Nurses Yuriy and Heni have successfully completed high-level training to become Non-medical Prescribers (NMPs), allowing them to assess and prescribe medication to unwell residents, in certain situations. We have covered the costs of their Prescribing in Clinical Practice Level 7 courses. Our Solihull Home was rated one of the best in England in its Care Quality Commission inspection, judged Outstanding in all five tested areas. However we are always looking to improve our care, and we identified non-medical prescribing as a way of doing this. Senior staff recognised there were increasing delays in primary care and getting medication to residents when they need it most. Our solution was to take on the innovative approach of training our own NMPs to tackle the issue. The work of our trained Nurses reduces the need to call-out GPs to the Home. NMPs are able to provide rapid on-site responses to residents’ health needs, often obtaining medication within hours and reducing the need for other interventions that might cause significant distress. Their work brings wider social and economic benefits by reducing the workload on GP and 111 services, easing the burden on primary care providers and saving NHS resources. We have avoided several potential hospital admissions since launching the service. Our NMPs are able to de-prescribe, when a resident no longer requires medication (eg laxatives), reducing the need for unnecessary prescriptions and further saving costs. Since they started prescribing medication from an approved formulary, our NMPs have undertaken 22 timely interventions, issuing 15 prescriptions, saving the NHS an estimated £22,800.We plan to roll out to our other Homes this year, training four more Nurses as NMPs.

University of Salford
The value of an interprofessional student training care home scheme

Emerging evidence suggests that Interprofessional Education (IPE) initiatives benefit care homes, but their lasting impact remains unclear. This initiative investigated the long-term impact of IPE in five care homes in Greater Manchester (GM), building upon findings from a pilot study. From May to December 2023, 40 students from 4 GM Universities across Nursing (Adult, Learning Disability and Mental Health Fields of Practice), Physiotherapy, Dietetics, Occupational Therapy, and Sports Rehabilitation, were continually placed within five care homes. Some full time, others as part of a split site placement. Four, six-week cycles of IPE were conducted during periods when students were in the care homes at the same time. In each cycle, weekly multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings were held, using an action learning approach, to address the goals of residents collaboratively. Surveys and semi-structured interviews were conducted to evaluate the initiative. Challenges included recognition that one-day learner placements do not work; allocation of placements could be organised and communicated differently; composition of the MDT was not always ideal and further work on long arm practice supervision was needed. Outcomes of the initiative included the statistically significant and positive impact engagement had on staff and student’s knowledge, skill, and personal development, promoting person-centred, collaborative care. Residents enjoyed being part of the process and felt more valued and understood. Long term benefits were many including changes in the home to care plans, personalised exercise plans and activities, and new equipment. The IPE framework was found to be extremely valuable, offering potential for a placement model that fosters collaborative learning in other environments i.e primary care and midwifery pelvic health services. Future direction for the initiative is to increase the number of care homes participating in GM, dissemination and submission of a national bid with 5 other universities to the Research for Social Care Programme.