Devon nurse shortlisted in UK’s top nursing awards

News Desk
Authored by News Desk
Posted Friday, April 20, 2018 - 7:01am

Today, NHS Blood and Transplant specialist nurse Andrew Broderick from Ottery St Mary has been announced as a finalist in the 2018 RCNi Nurse Awards, the UK’s most prestigious nursing accolades. Following the awards’ highest ever number of nominations in its 31 year history, a panel of expert judges has whittled down over 700 entries to just five inspirational finalists for each award category, and Andrew is a finalist in the ‘Innovations in your Specialty’ category. The RCNi Nurse Awards identify and celebrate nurses who, every day, go above and beyond to save lives, provide outstanding care for patients and transform nursing practice for the better.

Andrew has been shortlisted for his work in developing an organ donor assessment and screening initiative to tackle the severe shortage of organs available in the UK and support an increase in the number of families giving consent for donation. With only a tenth of organ donation referrals resulting in donation before 2015, Andrew took a secondment to investigate how the process could be enhanced and made it his mission to create an improved system.

In the first year following the tool’s introduction in 2015 there was a 34% increase in the number of patients referred for organ donation and a UK record for the number of donors following circulatory death(584). The DCD Organ Donor assessment programme has since been implemented across UK, providing improvements in end-of-life-care for those with the potential to donate, and benefitting those awaiting transplants.

Rachel Armitage, Managing Director at RCNi, said: “The RCNi panel of professional judges voted Andrew as a finalist because of his incredible story and because of the impact he has had on the organ donations in the UK. With the nursing shortage high on the national agenda, it’s important that we give nurses like Andrew the recognition they deserve, and we look forward to celebrating his work at the awards in July.”

The hunt for Britain’s nursing heroes started back in December 2017, led by Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway, and will culminate in a glamorous awards ceremony on 4th July in central London. Nurses were able to nominate themselves or their colleagues across 14 different categories ranging from Mental Health and Cancer, to Emergency and Student Nursing.

Kate Garraway, RCNi Nurse Awards Ambassador 2018, said "The 2018 RCNi Nurse Award Finalists are all incredible. So often nurses don’t get the recognition they deserve and I can’t wait to celebrate their hard work and dedication at the ceremony in July – if it was up to me I’d crown them all as winners.”

Andrew will now go through to the interview stage of the judging process, ahead of the awards ceremony in July.

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