Nursing in the Community

Nurses working in primary and community settings need to be able to work independently, often in less than ideal environments and without access to the levels of support and equipment hospital nurses take for granted.They often develop long-term therapeutic relationships with patients, many of whom are isolated and vulnerable, and reduce pressures on hospital services by facilitating early discharge or enabling patients to remain at home.

This award is open to individuals and teams working in the NHS or independent sector and from any primary or community care setting. Entrants must be able to demonstrate their work has improved patient care or the effectiveness of their service and has outcomes to demonstrate this.

Examples might include initiatives to:

• Increase the scope of nursing within a GP practice
• Extend the boundaries of care offered to patients in their own homes
• Increase the uptake of services by hard-to-reach groups

Each entry will be judged against the following criteria:

• Innovation: originality of the idea
• Value: impact of the initiative on patient care and/or service effectiveness
• Patient focus: evidence that patient/service user need was central to the work
• Collaboration: evidence of the involvement of other professionals, services and/or patients in the project
• Clinical effectiveness: data demonstrating how this initiative drives clinical enhancements
• Leadership: evidence of entrants championing their innovation in their organisation or more widely
• Adaptability: ideas that could be adapted for use elsewhere in entrants’ organisations or other organisations
• Sustainability: initiatives that can be embedded within organisations to operate without the input of the people who developed them 

Take a look at what our 2019 winner had to say about winning this award: