Celebrating the next generation of Nightingales

Guy’s and St Thomas’ has celebrated a new generation of Nightingales with a unique professional award.

The Nightingale Nurse and Nightingale Midwife Award was presented to 49 nurses and nine midwives who now have the honour of being known as a ‘Nightingale Nurse’ or ‘Nightingale Midwife’.

The ceremony took place in person for the first time in two years, with messages of support from Sam Sherrington, Head of Community Nursing for NHS England, Dr Christine Taylor, President of The Nightingale Fellowship, and Imam Monawar Hussain, Founder of The Oxford Foundation.

Named in honour of pioneering nurse Florence Nightingale, who established her first professional nursing school at St Thomas’ Hospital in 1860, the award is unique to Guy’s and St Thomas’. Since launching in 2017, more than 300 individuals have successfully achieved the award.

To receive it, nurses and midwives have to provide evidence from their managers, peers and people they care for of their outstanding practice and how they daily demonstrate the Trust’s values. They also have to complete a programme of academic work credited by King’s College London.

Will Malcher is a senior clinical research nurse in the COVID-19 Clinical Research Team who received the award. He said: “This award embodies the key principles that Florence Nightingale built her school on. Being a Nightingale Nurse shows that you are an exemplary nurse with dedication and passion in nursing.”

Beverley Banton is a clinical nurse specialist in the dental department who received the award. She said: “I am proud to be called a Nightingale Nurse as this confirms that I follow the Trust values, demonstrating excellent clinical skills to all our patients and staff. It also shows Guy’s and St Thomas’ commitment to the professional development of their nursing team.”

Avey Bhatia, Chief Nurse at Guy’s and St Thomas’, said: “The Nightingale Nurse and Nightingale Midwife Award is a great way of celebrating and developing our fantastic staff – a huge congratulations to our next generation of Nightingales who have achieved this prestigious award. We are proud of our strong connections to Florence Nightingale, and it is very important that we continue to build on her legacy of delivering outstanding compassionate care.”

In the past, nurses who trained at the Nightingale nursing school and worked at St Thomas’ Hospital for more than a year received a special blue badge and were known as ‘Nightingales’. This was phased out after the school was transferred to King’s College London with the last badge being issued in 1996.

The Nightingale Nurse and Nightingale Midwife Award is part of the Nightingale Academy at Guy’s and St Thomas’, which launched in 2017 to provide a platform for innovation in practice and service development, education and research in nursing and midwifery.