WHSCT nursesreceive gong

Nurses from all five of Northern Ireland’s 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.

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

Alan Corry Finn, Western Trust Executive Director of Nursing and Director of Primary Care and Older People’s Services commented: “I am delighted that our nursing team from the Western Trust has received this award for the second year running.

“This reflects the high quality leadership provided by nursing professionals from the Western Trust working in both hospital and community settings and I congratulate all those involved.”

Janice Smyth, Director of the RCN in Northern Ireland said: “This is the second year of the RCN Leadership Challenge and 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.

“It is vital that we develop nurses who can lead a service that has patient care at the centre of decision making. The judges were extremely impressed by the high standard demonstrated by of all of the nurses who took part in the event but the Western Trust must be congratulated for winning the overall award for the second year running.

“This is a phenomenal success and shows the high level of nursing leadership within the trust.

“In these challenging times I am extremely reassured that we have nurses from every part of Northern Ireland who are in a position to show leadership and contribute to a more efficient and better service for patients.”

Competition judges included David Bingham, Chief Executive of the HSC Business Services Organisation, Maeve Hully, Chief Executive of the Patient and Client Council, Pat Cullen from the Public Health Agency and Maura Devlin of the Beeches Management Centre.