Health Sciences student wins Sue Pembrey award 2017

Posted on 11 December 2017

Freedom Nwokedi was one of two winners of the national 2017 Sue Pembrey Award.

Freedom with the Sue Pembrey award

Freedom Nwokedi, a student on the MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice programme, was one of two winners of the national 2017 Sue Pembrey Award.

The Foundation of Nursing Studies (FONS) presented the award at an event recently held at the University of York. The purpose of the annual Sue Pembrey Award is to recognise the best project by an individual or team in the FoNS Patients First Programme. The aim is support the translation of their practice development and research contribution, and give recognition to the vital role clinical leaders play in creating person-centred healthcare culture within which all can flourish.

Freedom is a clinical team leader with NAViGO Health and Social Care CIC. Her team offers mental health provision for older adults in Lincolnshire.

Freedom’s nomination said: “She is passionate, caring and a good leader. She oozes a rarely seen energy and passion”. The judges felt Freedom was an inspirational and well respected clinical leader who had significantly transformed the ward culture over time from one which ‘dictates’ care to one that is person-centred.

Freedom said: “I am really humbled to receive this exalted award and will cherish the occasion for the rest of my life.”

Until her death in 2013, Sue Pembrey was one of the UK's outstanding nursing leaders of the late twentieth century. Her primary contributions included supporting the academic development of clinical nursing and nursing practice through the strengthening of the ward sister's leadership role and pioneering a commitment to patient-centred hospital care.

Sue trained at the Nightingale School of Nursing at St Thomas' Hospital London and worked there as a ward sister, a role she cherished for the rest of her life.  She was educated at the London School of Economics in social administration and undertook her PhD at the University of Edinburgh. Later published by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) as a monograph (The Ward Sister-Key to Nursing: a study of the Organisation of Individualised Nursing (Pembrey, 1980), the study included a comparison of task versus patient allocation and demonstrated the vital role that the ward sister has in ensuring high quality patient care. This work remains relevant today.