Each year on 12 May - the birth date of Florence Nightingale -
nurses worldwide celebrate their profession and raise the profile
of their work in a variety of ways and events. It is also a day for
nurses to unite in taking pride in their jobs.
As part of its celebrations for International Nurses' Day,
University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust (UH Bristol) is
presenting the first annual Davison Nursing and Midwifery
Scholarships, set up to encourage and support nurses at all
levels who have a strong idea about developing practice and a
passion to improve patient experience. The scholarships are
named after Sybil Davison - now 95-years-old - who trained as a
nurse at the Bristol General Hospital from 1934-38, worked as a
casualty sister in the Bristol Royal Infirmary and was matron at
the Bristol Dental Hospital until her retirement in 1975.
The first Davison Scholarship award winners are Carly Hall, an
infection control nurse, and Jo Witherstone, an upper
gastrointestinal cancer clinical nurse specialist. They will
be presented with their scholarships by the Trust's chief nurse
Alison Moon at an awards ceremony, along with the five winners of
the Nursing and Midwifery Recognition Awards, nominated by their
peers for their commitment and exceptional contribution to patient
care and who go above and beyond what is normally expected of them
within their role.
The scholarships of £2,500 each and the Recognition Awards are
fully funded by Above & Beyond, which raises funds for
Bristol's nine central hospitals.
Carly Hall's project focuses on widening the use of 'This is
me': a leaflet created by the Alzheimer's Society supported by the
Royal College of Nursing. Its purpose is to provide UH Bristol
staff with a 'snapshot' of the person behind the dementia so that
person-centred care can be delivered. This scholarship will enable
Carly to work with staff at every level and across all clinical
areas on 'This is me' to embed its use in practice so helping to
provide a positive hospital experience for patients with
dementia.
Jo Witherstone will visit the oesophageal surgery unit at
Virginia Mason Clinic in Seattle to learn and observe 'enhanced
recovery', a pioneering programme of care the UH Bristol
oesophago-gastric team are working towards. Jo will also
develop a web page for patients, their families and staff across
Bristol and the cancer network and present her work at the
International Conference on Cancer Nursing in Prague next
year.
The Trust's chief nurse, Alison Moon, said: "On Nurses'
Day we celebrate the huge contribution that nurses in our Trust can
make to improving the care our patients receive. This year has been
very special as we have launched both the Davison Nursing and
Midwifery Scholarship and our Nursing and Midwifery Recognition
Awards. For the scholarship it has been very heartening to
hear about the ideas that our nurses have that will improve care
and experience for patients while in our hospitals. It has
been great to hear the citations of all the individual nurses and
teams who have been nominated for their commitment and focus on
providing truly patient centred care."
Above & Beyond's chief executive, Sarah Talbot-Williams,
added: "Above & Beyond is delighted to be supporting the
brand new Davison Nursing and Midwifery Scholarship. It has been
wonderful to see the commitment, passion and energy that UH
Bristol's nurses have to make a real difference to the care
experiences of patients. When patients and families want to say
thank you for the care they've received, they come to us. This
thanks is so often for the amazing care that the nurses across the
hospitals provide. I hope the scholarship will encourage even more
ideas for better patient care."
