Nurses win prestigious leadership award

Nurses from Northern Ireland's five health and social care trusts competed in a series of exercises designed to test their capacity to respond to challenges and work as a team.

The event forms part of the RCN's strategy for promoting and developing nursing leadership in the health and social care service in Northern Ireland.

The overall winner of this year's award was the Western Trust team, which also secured the award for the most patient-focused approach. The team representing Belfast Health and Social Care Trust won the media award.

Janice Smyth, Director of RCN Northern Ireland said: "The five nursing teams that competed against each other were set a series of challenging tasks throughout the day which included dealing with patient complaints, doing a media interview and developing a patient-centred strategy.

"The RCN is committed to developing nurses who can lead a service that has patient care at the centre of decision making. The judges were extremely impressed by the standard of all of the nurses who took part in the event but special credit must go the Western Trust who not only won the overall award, but also won the award for a the most patient-centred approach."

Alan Corry Finn, Western Trust Executive Director of Nursing and Director of Primary Care and Older Peoples Services commented:

"I would like to congratulate and commend those nurses and midwives from the Western Trust who were part of the winning team.

"The Western Trust prides itself on supporting and developing our nursing and midwifery staff.

"This achievement demonstrates this and the excellent leadership skills our senior nurses and midwives possess - as they performed at the highest level against their Northern Ireland counterparts."