Nursing Times nominations for Abbey and Amy

Two nursing students, Abbey Williams and Amy Graham, from The Open University’s Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies have been nominated in the prestigious Student Nursing Times Awards, in the Student Innovation in Practice category.

The Student Innovation in Practice award recognises a student who has made an exceptional contribution to their placement by inspiring, leading or carrying out an innovative project. Shortlisted finalists are invited to present to the judging panel, made up of education leaders and previous winners, before the winners are announced on 26 April in a ceremony in London.

Abbey Williams
Whilst on stage two of her course, Abbey developed an anxiety management group for the community mental health team she was placed with. She profiled the need for this service, set the service up and wrote the materials for running the group, then went on to run the first group (with support from her practice supervisor) and finally evaluated the success of the service. The data collected evidenced a decrease in anxiety symptoms from the patients who attended the group, and allowed patients to be at the centre of their own recovery by empowering them to lead their own care provision.

Karen Vipond, Nursing Staff Tutor, spoke of Abbey’s nomination:
“Abbey is an outstanding student. The initiative she delivered is of the standard we would expect from a band 6 or 7 registered nurse, not from a student nurse who had just returned from maternity leave! The project that Abbey planned, delivered and evaluated has been a great success and provided a much-needed service to a very rural community.”

Abbey said:
“This experience and its outcomes have been one of my proudest career achievements. Improving interventions and service provisions to better meet the needs of the patients we support will continue to be at the heart of my own care delivery. I am extremely honoured by this nomination.”

Amy Graham
Using the NHS change model, Amy Graham and a fellow student nurse designed and implemented an app to aid monitoring of medicine fridge temperatures. Amy worked with the NHS digital health team to ensure the app was safe and met the NHS quality standards.  They then ran a successful pilot project, saving resources and staff time. She exceeded the requirements of her placement by inspiring other students to identify and implement change, and presenting back to the NHS trust.

Amy’s tutor, Lindsey Nicholls, who nominated Amy for the award, said:
“Amy went above and beyond placement requirements for a student nurse and presented excellently to me in a tutorial and in great detail, and so I wanted the work to be recognised. The project was a success and the innovation has been adopted in the trust which shows how hard Amy and her fellow student nurse worked. She will be an excellent nurse who will strive for innovation and excellence in the future.”

Amy commented:
“I am overwhelmed to have received the nomination for the Student Nursing Times Awards from my tutor, for her to recognise my work in this has been a huge accomplishment and a very positive start to my new career.
Being invited to be part of the Digital Health placement and actually implementing a sustainable change in my local trust was a great opportunity. The placement coincided with the change management topic in my module, this helped me to get the most out of this placement as well as share my experience to enhance the learning of other nursing students.”

The Open University are also proud sponsors of the Student Nurse of the Year: Adult category, which will be presented by Dr Rebecca Garcia, Associate Head of School, Nursing and the Health Professions.

Main image: Pictured L-R: Abbey Williams and Amy Graham