Professor Deborah Sturdy has today outlined her commitment to
recognise the outstanding contribution made by social care
workers and nurses in England and their enormous range of skills,
expertise and enduring compassion.
The awards will mirror the Chief Nursing Officer Ruth May’s
awards for the NHS, and aim to celebrate nurses and care workers
in adult social care who go above and beyond their everyday roles
to provide excellent care, leadership and inspiration.
Presented as gold and silver awards, they represent an important
step towards bringing recognition in line with the NHS workforce
and recognise the extraordinary commitment of the adult social
care workforce.
Chief Nurse for Adult Social Care Professor Deborah Study said:
The pandemic has shone a light on the exemplary efforts of our
dedicated social care workforce, and I am committed to ensuring
we recognise the selfless hard work they do day in and day out.
The social care workforce more than ever continues to demonstrate
unwavering compassion, professionalism and dedication. Not only
during the pandemic but every year.
I am extremely proud to present these awards to colleagues in
social care which reflect those for colleagues in the NHS.
These individual awards recognise exceptional practice and care
and rightly give recognition, acknowledgement and appreciation
that those individuals deserve.
The awards come at an important time, to celebrate the huge
contribution of the nursing and wider care workforce in the past
year as well as building on the system-wide collaboration across
health and social care we’ve seen during the pandemic.
This new award is the first of its kind for adult social care and
is open to the workforce from all settings and parts of the
sector.
The awards will be on an application basis and awarded throughout
the year.
Nominations will be considered by a panel of NHS and adult social
care chief nursing officers and adult social care sector
representatives. The Chief Nurse for Adult Social Care aims to
present the first award later this year.
The gold award will recognise outstanding achievements and
performance demonstrated by a nurse or social care worker in
their sphere of practice. This may be clinical practice,
education, research or leadership. The award recognises the
exceptional contribution by an individual with a distinguished
career in nursing or social care.
The silver award recognises performance that goes above and
beyond the expectations of the everyday role that the nurse or
social care worker is expected to perform. Again, this could be
demonstrated in education, research, patient and carer
experience, leadership, tackling diversity and health
inequalities, and could be awarded to either an individual or a
team.
The awards will not be limited to registered nurses and will be
extended to include all carers across all care settings, not only
care homes.
Applications are available as a form which should be supported by
2 signatories: