Exceptional efforts of the social care workforce will be recognised by the government through a new award launched by chief nurse for adult social care Deborah Sturdy.
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”, said the Department of Health and Social Care.
Presented as gold and silver awards, they aim to recognise the “outstanding contribution made by social care workers and nurses in England and their enormous range of skills, expertise and enduring compassion”, it added.
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.
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.
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.
Sturdy (pictured) aims to present the first award later this year.
“These individual awards recognise exceptional practice and care and rightly give recognition, acknowledgement and appreciation that those individuals deserve,” she said.
“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.”
Applications are available as a form which should be supported by two signatories.
Nomination forms for the gold award can be found at https://consultations.dhsc.gov.uk/Goldaward2021 and for the silver award at https://consultations.dhsc.gov.uk/silveraward2021.
