Student nurses shortlisted for prestigious awards

The dedication and commitment of three students has seen them shortlisted for some prestigious nursing awards.

Amber Fletcher, Farha Hajat and Jamie Percy-Roberts, are up for the Student Nursing Times Awards across several categories. 

Amber, 32, is in the running for not one but two awards, having been nominated for Student Nurse or Midwife of the Year for Clinical Research and Student Nurse of the Year for Mental Health. 

Jamie, 23, is also up for Student Nurse of the Year in Clinical Research and Farha, 35, is shortlisted for the Mary Seacole Award for Outstanding Contribution to Diversity and Inclusion. 

All three are studying the four-year Nursing with Leadership MSci course at the University of Leicester. The course’s Buddy Scheme and Coaching is also up for Best Student Experience.

Winners will be announced at a glittering ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London at the end of this week (26 April) when the nursing and midwifery community will come together to shine a light on the brightest new talent in the profession. 

Amber, who previously worked for the Merchant Navy as an engineer, decided to change her career path a few years ago and hasn’t looked back. She is now in the final year of her course and poised to take up a mental health nursing role at Rampton High Security Hospital once she graduates. 

Her support for her fellow students and strong advocacy within both the University and NHS led to her receiving an award for best student academic representative for the entire College of Life Sciences. 

Amber was also the first student nurse from the University to successfully complete the highly competitive Council of Deans of Health 150 Leaders programme. She has actively participated in conferences and continuously sought opportunities to expand her knowledge and skills.

She is currently working on a dissertation focused on prison mental health, with a desire to publish her findings, while her passion for mental health research also led her to source an opportunity as a NIHR intern at the University of Manchester over the summer months where she researched improving patients discharge from inpatient settings to the community.

Amber said: “I love nursing and I love working with people, advocating for them and hearing their stories while providing empathy-led care. People’s experiences are incredibly powerful and valuable. It’s wonderful to be nominated for this award and to be recognised for my passion to improve the lives of those living with mental ill health.”

 

Farha, 35, also made a career change, moving from legal services within the NHS to nursing.

She has helped to ensure nursing education embraces all communities, advocating for wider training packages to bridge any gaps between theoretical and clinical practice through her involvement with MedRace (Raising Awareness Celebrating Excellence) – a staff and student group working to progress equality and diversity across education.

This includes raising awareness of the need for earlier identification of bed sores for patients with darker skin tones to help reduce hospital stays and cost to the NHS.

Farha said: “It’s vitally important that we make sure nurses are competent to care for their patients across all ethnicities from day one, particularly in a population as a diverse as Leicester. That means ensuring the curriculum and its resources are as inclusive as possible as this can only be to the benefit of all. 

“The course has supported me to push for these changes. I’m so proud of what I’ve managed to achieve and really looking forward to practising in mental health. The dual nature of the course is what attracted me to it in the first place and made me a truly holistic practitioner.”

Jamie, 23, is passionate about breaking down inequalities and barriers for nurses and nursing students. He piloted a unique research placement at the Leicester Clinical Research Facility, paving the way for others to follow in his footsteps and developed a scheme to break down research methodologies for fellow students using previous experience as a psychology student. He is also pioneering a research ambassador role within the University.

He said: “Nurses are fantastic at therapeutic communication and patient relationships and so I’m passionate about ensuring their voices are heard and they can contribute to the research community and any changes to practice that come out of it. I’m so excited to be nominated for this award.”

Hannah Richardson, first year lead for the University’s Nursing with Leadership course was instrumental in creating a bespoke buddy mentoring system to help ease the transition for incoming students. This scheme has now been shortlisted for an award and sees second-year students become mentors for first-years as soon as they enrol. 

Hannah said: “Second-year volunteers offer face-to-face guidance and address queries during the initial weeks. Mentors are aligned through factors like age and geographical background and this approach has proved very successful. It’s a personal and empathetic touch that helps new students settle into university life and know they can ask for help from someone who knows exactly what they’re going through. I’m delighted the scheme has been shortlisted in the Best Student Experience category.”