Celebrating our nurses

We celebrated International Nurses Day with a host of activities and nursing awards. During a special event presented by Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer for England, seven colleagues collected Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) awards.

Colin Hont, our Deputy Chief Nurse, picked up a Gold CNO award for his positive effect on the leadership culture of the organisation during the merger of our Trusts. Colin’s award recognised his role in providing an essential degree of stability and continuity required across the nursing workforce. He also ensures that every decision focuses on providing the best care for our patients.

Maria Guerin, Mesothelioma Specialist Nurse and Quality Matron, received a Gold CNO award for her dedicated work since becoming the first Lung Cancer Clinical nurse specialist (CNS) in the North West in 1997. She has been involved in many service developments demonstrating the CNS influence in improving patient and carer experience across the thoracic oncology pathway. Maria is now focusing on the end of life and bereavement SWAN model of care.

The Silver CNO award winners, included Edna Panambo, Emergency Department Matron, who joined the Trust 15 years ago and has continued to support the recruitment of overseas nurses. Supporting her team and their wellbeing across an extremely busy department and always providing a truly seamless patient experience.

Louise Jones, Hepatobiliary/ Liver Cancer Clinical Nurse Specialist, is widely recognised as an ambassador for cancer nursing across LUHFT and an advocate for improving patient outcomes and experience though evidenced-based practice and new initiatives. Louise has also been instrumental in recognising the skills and competencies required to develop nurses into efficient, kind and compassionate cancer CNS’s.

Diane Haddock, Associate Director of People (Occupational Health and Wellbeing), has been central to the COVID-19 vaccination campaign for the Trust and across the city. Diane also led the Trust flu campaign which achieved an 86.7% uptake and her team continued to provide COVID vaccines throughout this period.

Mercy Mbyonga, Lead Nurse Gastroenterology Cancer Services, provides strong leadership of her team of specialist nurses and covers high level regional work around bowel cancer screening programmes. Mercy also remains engaged in Trust-wide initiatives and has been an active member of the BAME Staff Network.

David Foulkes, Skin cancer CNS, collected his Silver award thanks to his passionate approach to delivering outstanding care for patients diagnosed with malignant melanoma. His compassion and drive to improve outcomes for patients with skin cancer has led to the development of nurse-led clinics that provide rapid assessment and treatment.