Sheffield Hospitals nurses celebrate hat-trick of award nominations for innovative care

Three nursing teams from Sheffield Teaching Hospitals have been recognised in the Nursing Times Awards

The Multiple Sclerosis in Pregnancy Team, the Team Around the Person (TAP) and a trial tracker to support stroke research have all been named as finalists in the awards.

Both the Multiple Sclerosis in Pregnancy Team and Team Around the Person are in contention for the HRH The Prince of Wales Award for Integrated Approaches to Care Award whilst the Stroke Trial Tracker is one of six finalists in the Clinical Research Nursing category.

Developed and designed by a Multiple Sclerosis specialist nurse alongside a Consultant Neurologist, the Multiple Sclerosis preconception and pregnancy clinic provides people living with Multiple Sclerosis who are pregnant or thinking about becoming pregnant with specialist advice about how their condition can affect pregnancy and their birth options.

The clinic, which is the first of its kind in the UK, was designed in partnership with patients and the MS community using best practice examples from other conditions. So far it has supported 85 patients, with 50 successful pregnancies.

Also being spotlighted in the awards is the Team Around the Person initiative. The multi-agency team is a partnership between Sheffield Hospitals Community services teams, Sheffield City Council and Primary Care Sheffield. The team supports people with complex and escalating care needs by developing a coordinated care plan, using information from all the services currently involved in providing care to the person. This often includes health, social care and community service providers including the voluntary sector.

The Stroke Trial Tracker is a time-saving electronic system, which has allowed the stroke research nursing team to focus time on providing research opportunities and care to stroke patients who are able to join research trials. The tracker automatically screens stroke patients who need rapid assessment and treatment to limit damage caused by their condition into any currently running clinical trials. The team are now looking at rolling out the tool to patients with neurological disorders such as dementia and motor neurone disease. The tracker was developed by a team within the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Sheffield Biomedical Research Centre.

Professor Chris Morley, Chief Nurse for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are incredibly proud of all our hardworking and innovative nursing teams, so we are really pleased to be recognised in this major awards scheme not once but three times. This is testament to their hard work, dedication and continued commitment to improving patient care and outcomes through fresh ideas and innovation.”

The teams will find out if they have successfully won their award category at an event in London on Wednesday 25 October.