Public Health Nursing: NEW

This new award has been introduced this year to recognise 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.

The Covid-19 pandemic has 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 such an important role.

This 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 new award 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.

Examples might include initiatives to:

• Increase physical activity or tackle obesity
• Improve access to screening or immunisation programmes
• Develop services in specialist public health services such as health visiting and school nursing
• Address health inequalities

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 

This category is endorsed by Public Health England’s All Our Health framework.

If you are shortlisted for this award, and with coronavirus conditions permitting, you will be invited to attend our Covid-19 secure offices to present to the judges on Thursday 9 September 2021. The shortlist will be informed if there are any changes to the final judging process.