Public Health Nursing
This award recognises the important role that the nursing profession plays in promoting and protecting the public’s health.We are keen to recognise the leadership of specialist public health nurses, such as health visitors, school nurses and health protection practitioners. However, the entry is open to all nurses who play a role in protecting and improving the public’s health.Delete: The Covid-19 pandemic illustrated the importance of public health nursing, whether that’s working as a specialist public health nurse or a nurse working across the health and care system, you all play a vital role. It can cover many public health issues such as smoking cessation, sexual health, tackling obesity, to promoting uptake of immunisations and screening programmes. Nurses also play a critical role in addressing health inequalities, all of which we want to recognise and celebrate through this category.This award is open to individuals and teams working in the NHS, local government, social care or independent sector. Entrants must be able to demonstrate their work has made an important improvement in promoting and protecting the public’s health.
Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust
Implementing national screening program pathways for long stay patients in a mental health trust
People living with severe mental illness, learning disabilities, or autism face significant health inequalities, with a life expectancy 15 to 20 years lower than the general population. To address these disparities, the CNTW Public Health Team, led by the Physical Health Lead nurse, developed and implemented bespoke pathways for long-stay inpatients (admissions >180 days, including secure care services and wider inpatient settings).Pathways were established for the five national screening programmes—Bowel, Breast, Cervical, Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm, and Diabetic Eye Screening—and the NHSE pilot pathway for Targeted Lung Health Checks. These pathways operate by:
• Identifying inpatients (over 180 days) eligible for screening, preventing missed opportunities.
• Confirming screening status with local hubs.
• Using the inpatient setting as a proxy GP for patients during their admission.
• Supporting eligible patients to participate in screening programmes through ward appointments, local screening provider venues, or completing bowel screening kits.
To support these pathways, staff receive training to understand, promote the screening work and encourage participation from patients. Training is also provided to screening hubs raising awareness of mental health conditions, ensuring they can work effectively with patients. Providers are made aware of patients' needs, and reasonable adjustments are implemented. A trauma-informed approach is particularly emphasized in cervical screening.Implementing these pathways has presented challenges due to the large geographical area covered by CNTW, involving many providers and local authorities. The complexity of patients and acuity on wards, which affects the ability to support attendance at appointments, adds to these challenges. Despite this, partnership working has been essential in moving towards the goal of reducing health inequalities.The team continues to develop these pathways and aims to roll out current pilot areas Trustwide. The focus remains on continually improving quality and increasing screening uptake to ensure better health outcomes for this vulnerable population."
Haemochromatosis UK
Nurse-led genetic screening, genetic counselling and education programmes
Even though Genetic Haemochromatosis (GH) is the UKs most common inherited condition, it is chronically underdiagnosed - with some estimates saying that fewer than 5% of people with GH are currently aware. Through our nurse-led genetic testing, counselling, helplines and education programmes, at Haemochromatosis UK we have set about addressing this problem. We are a very small national charity, with less than 5 full-time equivalent staff - but crucially, two of our staff are experienced registered nurses. Our 'Iron Nurses' provide services to improve Public Health through significant contribution to research, community genetic testing projects , public awareness raising, direct support for families affected and educating healthcare professionals (doctors, consultants, pharmacists and other nurses). Our challenge is our size - trying to make an impact on the potential 1.2 million people affected, when GH is largely not a NHS priority. In spite of this in 2023 our two nurses have trained 1,000 doctors and nurses through Royal College accredited courses, attended 6 national medical conferences to exhibit about GH and speak to delegates, provided a training session to every student nurse in Queen's University of Belfast, 6x GP training sessions, 5x Healthcare Practitioner sessions and handled over 1,700 appointments with patients and carers. Our nurses have delivered 400 Advanced Nurse Specialist appointments providing specialist genetic counselling on GH to anxious newly diagnosed patients. Our nurses contributed to the development of the pioneering MyIron+ App to enable patients to monitor their venesection treatment and get access to guidance and support. Our nurses Diogo and Victoria will continue to be the front-line and core of our support as a charity - and looking forward they are helping deliver a five year programme of support to families in England funded by the National Lottery.
HCRG Care Group
Lancashire children in care under 5 years of age health visiting service
Children in Care under five years of age have been historically supported by Health Visitors in Lancashire as locality teams, however, it was noted the disproportionate health needs of this vulnerable cohort of children required additional involvement and support. Therefore, a team of Health Visitors were established to solely work with children in care under five years of age, allowing them to create more bespoke, holistic plans of care for their additional health needs. The CiC HV team complete both the Healthy Child Programme and Review Health Assessments for this cohort of children and seek to address any established or arising health needs in a timely manner and to ensure the adverse childhood experiences experienced by this cohort of children are minimised in a trauma sensitive way. Positive feedback has been received from local parent and baby foster carers and parent and baby specialist assessments units and relationships between CiC Health Visitors and the local authority have been strengthened by providing a single point of contact for all children in care under 5 years of age and their parent/carers. The CiC HV team has also created local specialist well baby clinics for both foster carers and in targeted specialist parent and baby units, allowing parents the opportunity to enquire about their child’s health needs in a safe and supportive environment. The developed, specialist knowledge of the CiC HV has significantly supported their ability to understand both children in care and adoption processes leading to their confidence to respectfully challenge inappropriate or substandard adoption placements, care plans or reunification plans to advocate the highest standard of future health and care standards afforded to children in their care, leading to positive feedback from carers, parents and other professionals who feel more strongly supported within the children in care and family court arenas.
Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust
Breastfeeding Hull
Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust’s initiative was to improve the breastfeeding rates in Hull. Hull's socio-economic conditions adversely affect the health of too many people in our communities. 54% of the population in Hull is within the 20% most deprived in England. This profoundly affects the health and wellbeing of our residents now and throughout the course of their lifetimes. Hull residents have a higher-than-average rate of premature deaths from preventable diseases. We need health initiatives to improve the health of our city from birth and one such public health initiative is Breastfeeding. Hull historically has very low breastfeeding rates which are much lower than the national average. The culture around breastfeeding is that people often do not understand the benefits of it and see formula feeding as being the norm. Breastfeeding has sadly in the past been given bad press, with women expecting it to be difficult, to hurt, and to experience these problems alone without support. This results in women choosing not to try in the first place, or to give up before they want to, without seeking help. Our challenge to address this was threefold; to ensure a citywide support system for the families of Hull; to increase breastfeeding rates; to change public perception of breastfeeding. Over the last five years we have achieved a 9.8% increase in our 10 day and 6-week breastfeeding rates. We have developed relationships with GP surgeries and local organisations who are now breastfeeding-friendly and are receiving training on how to support and protect breastfeeding. We have two breastfeeding tents which from this year will be used at large scale events in the city and have a City Trail centred around breastfeeding due to launch June 2024.
Invicta Health CIC and Thanet District Council
RISE – Rough Sleeper Intervention Support Empowerment
Access to healthcare for patients that are homeless and rough sleeping is a barrier that still, in this day and age we are tackling against on a daily basis. Sadly, as we know patients who are homeless and rough sleeping do die younger with the life expectancy for women being 43 and men 45.We understand that our patients are not going to answer phone calls or attend appointments at certain times due to their chaotic lifestyles. Even though addresses shouldn’t affect a patient being registered with a GP we are still finding this as a barrier in clients being integrated back into the healthcare system. RISE pride themselves on building trust and a working rapport with our clients which will ultimately help them integrate back into mainstream services to improve patients’ health and trust within the NHS. We do this by improving support for rough sleepers by working collaboratively as a team to tackle the underlying barriers to finding, maintaining and sustaining accommodation. As a multi agency team, RISE works together to join up support for people who are homeless and rough sleeping, putting the individual at the center of a tailored support plan. RISE provides holistic support for people with complex needs and delivers a number of supported accommodation schemes. The team brings together staff from a number of agencies all under the same team known as 'RISE', in a shared office space in the homeless shelter. The council’s Housing team works proactively with in-reach and outreach support workers, substance misuse specialists, dedicated Homeless Nurse, DWP worker, Housing officer and prison navigator worker. We all help support patients with their needs from every aspect together as we know each area impacts upon each other.
Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust
Healthy together helpline
Health Visiting (HV) and School Nursing (SN) services delivered by Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT) is known as the Healthy Together service. To address daily demand and capacity pressures faced by staff and challenges encountered by service users in connecting with the appropriate professionals, Healthy Together launched the Healthy Together Helpline (HTH) in July 2023 (a single Point of Access same-day helpline). This streamlined service allows stakeholders to swiftly access HVs and SNs across Leicester, Leicestershire, and Rutland. Boasting a memorable telephone number, the HTH has enhanced accessibility and support for families and children in the region. Prior to its implementation, service users and partner agencies had multiple different contact numbers for each local team. Although messages were responded to daily, stakeholders reported frustration with delays in agency checks/service users requesting advice and support or changes to appointments. A project team was established to devise a centralised workforce model. They worked meticulously to ensure robust governance including, audits to identify call themes/response times to support the development of systems and pathways for record keeping. Regular engagement sessions were provided for staff to obtain feedback during the service’s development stages. The name of the service was chosen through stakeholder engagement. Staff from local teams transitioned to HTH through secondments, with a view for permanent roles following data analysis. To ensure safe transition, and processes and systems working efficiently teams were gradually moved over to the HTH every 2 weeks. HTH now responds to approximately 3500 incoming calls monthly. In addition, the team manage system tasks and cover all strategy calls. This was all work previously completed by local teams. The feedback from all stakeholders is positive, reinforcing the case for sustaining this innovative model. Additionally, there are ongoing plans to create additional pathways within HTH, specifically designed to.
Middlesex University in partnership with North Central London Integrated Care Board and North Central London Training Hub
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.
Rotherham, Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust
Parent-infant emotional wellbeing service
Approximately 40% of babies are insecurely attached to their parents/carers, and 10% have a ‘disorganised’ attachment style, which is associated with poor developmental outcomes (Family Hub Start for Life Programme Guide, DfE/DHSC). Our local birth rate figure was 1465 for 2023/24 which would equate to 733 babies in North Lincolnshire with insecure attachments, 146 of these babies with disorganised attachment. The PIEW service was commissioned in context of the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme; a government initiative set out supporting parents/carers to be better able to nurture children, improving health and education for future generations. The PIEW team was formed within the 0-19 (25SEND) Health and well-being service and comprises a Team Lead; a Clinical Psychologist; two Perinatal Wellbeing Health Visitors; three Parent Infant Emotional Wellbeing practitioners; and a senior administration assistant. The team uses various evidence-based therapeutic approaches such as Video Interaction Guidance to provide specialist therapeutic work with families where a baby’s emotional wellbeing and development are potentially at risk. By supporting this relationship, we reduce the risk of developmental delay in the child and foster better outcomes for babies in later life. The team faced challenges initially with data sharing across the system and reflected that a key lesson learnt included the need to identify which data should be collected at the outset to demonstrate the impact of interventions. We have been able to demonstrate outcomes and the impact data has highlighted parents who have engaged with the PIEW team felt that they better understood the thoughts and feelings of their babies. In turn, their responsiveness to their children’s needs and parental mental health had improved. Future plans involve embedding the Voluntary Community sector (VCS) within the PIEW service, who have been commissioned to provide a peer support offer and a perinatal MIND counsellor.
Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust and Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust
0-19 research network: 2-year project
The 0-19 research network, 2-year project was necessary because: - Specialist Community Public Health Nurses (SCPHN, [Health Visitors and School Nurses]) and the communities they worked were, despite being ideally placed, under-represented and underserved, in relation to research engagement- Engagement in research was limited and not core business - There was an appetite within these professions for greater engagement with research across all levels and that in areas (Sheffield Children's and RDaSH), who had an identified lead for capacity building and an established local Community of Research Practice (CoRP) had opportunity for personal growth/learning within the domain of research. The initiative was facilitated using funds awarded (Clinical Research Network), in April 2022, to build research capacity and capability within 0-19 services, and to support the delivery of studies in public health research, aligning with the national CNO strategic plan for research. The objectives of the project to support the aims were:1. Creation of research champion that develop CoRP 2. Facilitation of events to create networking opportunities, supporting the co-produce research and priority setting 3. Engagement with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) to support the development of early career researchers and establish links with potential academic supervisors. 4. Development of a potential sustainable prototype model which could be used to development other networks 5. Create a web presence to increase our visibility 6. Develop further the project planning group of core members to operationalise the project deliverables regionally. To identify if this was achieved an evaluation was commissioned and completed as part of the project. Challenges- Stepping out of comfort zones- Being required to balance competing demands, time, and responsibility and this wasn’t easy- As senior nurse leaders feeling novice Future plans – - Consider sustainability - Continued engagement with Higher Education Institutes (HEI’s) and regional champions
Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust
Rainbow baby health visiting pilot
Following the Ockenden Review which was conducted within Shropshire (SATH), identified that those families whom had suffered so much after loosing a baby should be offered additional support via the Shropshire health visiting service following delivery of their rainbowbaby. The rainbow bay pilot has given targeted support for parents from the antenatal period until the child is 2 alongside health visiting core contacts following the birth of their rainbow baby. In the last 3 years I have attended many meetings, presenting to our trust board twice, liaised with stake holders, met with Donna Ockenden and undertaken and audited a full pilot. It has developed me as a practitioner, I have strived to deliver care of the highest standard and worked so hard to enable these families to find joy in being parents again and assisted them to navigate their grief. Over the last 12 months - I have continued to promote and progress the pilot both locally and nationally. I have just had an article published (April 2024) in the RCNI regarding the work I have done on the pilot. I have had a blog published for the Institute of health visiting. I have presented to student health visitors as a guest lecturer at Wolverhampton University. I have presented the pilot at the Shropshire PHNS conference. Our future plans include ongoing discussions with NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin integrated Care board and will present to the mortality board in June 2024. We have put forward a proposal to Shropshire community NHS Health Trust for funding for a band 7 specialist health visitor. We have had positive conversations with Shropshire Lighthouse service for integrated work with SATH and hopeful to progress this.
Turning Point
Wakefield inspiring recovery
The nursing team at Turning Point’s Wakefield Inspiring Recovery service are the lynchpin of a service which works with the most vulnerable people in the District. It is estimated that 2,927 people are using either opiates and/or crack cocaine in Wakefield District (2019/20) . Health outcomes for people with a history of problematic substance use are poor, drug related deaths are the highest since records began and the average life expectancy for a dependent drinker is 56 years old. National social enterprise, Turning Point, is commissioned by Wakefield Council to deliver the drugs and alcohol service for adults and young people. The nursing team at Wakefield Inspiring Recovery play a key role in addressing health inequalities in this community, increasing access to screening for blood borne viruses (BBV), delivering Hep B vaccinations and Hep C treatment within the service. The key challenge in this area is ensuring the service is genuinely accessible and welcoming to a highly stigmatised population who are often ambivalent about reducing their substance use, many of whom have extremely complex needs including issues related to housing, finances and their wider physical and mental health.The Wakefield nursing team are innovative in their approach in their development of new partnerships, pathways and leading systems change, their dedication to the most vulnerable and complex clients and their focus on learning and development and creating new opportunities for nurse in training. As a result of this the team received the Community Nursing Team of The Year in Turning Point’s 2024 nursing awards. The team’s ambitions for the future include: achieving micro-elimination of Hep C, extending the hostel outreach programme in order to increase the numbers in treatment and expanding their health screening (e.g. fibro scanning) in order to reduce the pressure on primary care.
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and North Central London Integrated Care Board
Nurse-led mobile MMR vaccination service
Measles was considered to be eliminated in the UK in 2016 and 2017, but since 2018 transmission has become re-established. Cases fell during the pandemic due to restrictions but have since risen. In July 2023, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced that an outbreak could occur in London. A new approach was needed at pace to improve access by supplementing existing MMR vaccination services and reduce the inequalities seen in certain geographic areas and communities. University College London Hospital (UCLH) partnered with Camden local authority, North Central London Integrated Care Board (NCL ICB), Middlesex University and vaccination delivery sites to operationalise a pilot delivering a nurse-led paediatric mobile MMR vaccination service for the first time, supported by bespoke communications. This was delivered using a bus, which predominantly parked outside children’s centres during August and September 2023. They were suitable locations as they held ‘Stay & Play’ sessions during school holidays and were often attached to nurseries. Children’s centres promoted vaccination through their communications channels, amplifying NHS communications. The key challenge was technological. The team were unable to utilise the system ‘CarePlus’ to record vaccinations and so created a Microsoft form, which was emailed to GPs upon vaccine delivery. The team separately informed the Child Health Information System (CHIS), as IT systems aren’t interoperable. The outcome was successful operationalisation of the mobile MMR vaccine service in ‘non-traditional’ settings (those not typically used to deliver immunisations via the routine schedule), supported by bespoke communications targeting underserved communities. Communications focussed on non-White British populations in deprived areas. 23 MMR vaccinations were delivered, with 18 to non-White British individuals. 14 vaccinations delivered overseas were also recorded. In March 2024, service delivery expanded to adults and across three boroughs of North Central London (NCL). Expansion of the number of health services offered is planned.