Double win for West Herts Teaching Hospitals at Nursing Times Workforce Awards!
Posted: 23 November 2022
West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust celebrated a double win at the 2022 Nursing Times Workforce Awards for successfully engaging, nurturing and improving the wellbeing of its nursing staff.
The awards recognise individuals and teams from across the country who go to extraordinary lengths within the nursing and midwifery profession.
The judges presented West Herts with the ‘Best employer for staff recognition and engagement’ award for the trust’s superb clinical supervision programme.
The programme provides staff with opportunity for personal growth and professional development through one-to-one and group sessions with skilled supervisors and practitioners. Supervisors lead the sessions, providing a safe and confidential environment for staff reflection. This has resulted in improved mood, energy, and stress levels among nursing staff as well as increased confidence.
Suraj Kumar, junior charge nurse at Watford General Hospital, won ‘Preceptor of the year’. A preceptor is a vital position that supports and nurtures new nurses and midwives during their first year following qualification.
Tracey Carter, West Herts’ chief nurse, said: "It is amazing to see so many of our teams and individuals recognised in these prestigious awards. It reflects just how fantastic our hard-working staff are. The competition was extremely tough this year with over 330 entries submitted to the awards, making our incredible feat of being shortlisted in six categories and double award winners even more special."
Matthew Coats, chief executive of West Herts, said: "Congratulations and thank you to everyone involved in this year’s awards. It is fantastic to see our wonderful staff and their innovative initiatives celebrated in such a way."
The trust’s clinical supervision team was also shortlisted for ‘Best staff wellbeing initiative’. They were also shortlisted for ‘Best use of workplace technology’ for a project involving the use of electronic rostering to help clinical leaders improve the efficiency of the clinical workforce and support safe staffing.
Kelsie Richardson-Martin, clinical skills facilitator in acute medicine, was shortlisted for ‘Practice educator of the year’ for providing support and education to clinical staff. The trust’s preceptorship team, who developed a programme of professional and pastoral support for overseas nurses, were ‘Preceptorship programme of the year’ finalists.
This trust goes from strength to strength building upon recent success in the RCN Nursing Awards 2022 where West Herts’ nurse Andrea Hone won the Commitment to Carers category.
Ends
- For more information, please contact the communications team on: 01923 436280 or email: westherts.communications@nhs.net. For out of hours media enquiries please call the Watford General Hospital switchboard on 01923 244366 and ask for the on call communications manager.
- West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves people from across Hertfordshire, north London and further afield. It operates from three hospitals; Watford General, St Albans City and Hemel Hempstead. The trust has a catchment area of over 500,000 people and is one of the largest employers locally, with around 5,000 staff and volunteers.
- For more information about our hospitals, visit www.westhertshospitals.nhs.uk. You can also join our followers on Twitter (twitter.com/westhertsNHS) and find us on Facebook (facebook.com/westhertsNHS).
