Learning Disability Student wins national Student Nursing Times award

Posted on 2 May 2013

Jemma Pogson, a third year Health Sciences learning disability student, has won the Nursing Times Outstanding Contribution to Practice Placement Award at the 2013 Student Nursing Times Awards. The awards are open to all nursing students across the UK and this award is a generic award that spans all fields of practice, across the whole of the UK, and is an outstanding achievement.

Jemma was nominated for the award by Lyn Gilbert, Clinical Lead for Learning Disability Pathway at Cheswold Park Hospital in Doncaster. Lyn said “Jemma was allocated a placement during her first year of training to a Learning Disability ward which is placed within a medium secure forensic hospital. The ward is for patients who have a primary diagnosis of a learning disability, but also have mental health issues and can be extremely challenging. This is a complex and demanding placement and Jemma utilised and made full use of the learning opportunities available to her at this placement, and elected to remain on the ward for the next two years of her training to aid her professional development.

Jemma has established a good rapport with patients and has been proactive in developing tools to aid the patients to have a better understanding of their care and improve their quality of life, whilst remaining in a secure hospital setting. All tasks and projects given to Jemma have been completed and to a very high standard. Jemma has produced a more usable Health Action Plan template and assisted with designing a business flyer to promote the learning disability wards. These have been used as a template for the whole hospital, as the work has been identified as outstanding.

Jemma is a motivated student who clearly enjoys working in this challenging and demanding environment and it has been refreshing to work with a student so committed to wanting to develop and make full use of all learning opportunities available to her.”

Paul Evans, Learning Disability Field Lead says “Jemma's outstanding contribution to practice demonstrates how she has developed insight, skills and empathy to respond in a way that shows she has the ability to unpick very complex and demanding situations to give the best support for the clients in her care. As an example of how the 6C's would look in practice, Jemma is that reality and I heartily congratulate her. Well done”