This award recognises individual nurses or teams who have implemented new projects or processes that have resulted in a real difference to patient care in any specialty or nursing environment.

Who can enter?
Entries are accepted from working placement, nurses nominating themselves or their own teams or can be submitted on behalf of another nurse or nursing team. Non-nursing colleagues such as managers or consultants may also nominate their nursing colleagues for this award. Entrants do not need to be a member of the RCN.

How to enter:
Entries must be submitted online via the ‘enter’ button. We recommend nominators write the body of their entry in a separate document first, then copy and paste it into the entry form, to avoid the risk of submissions being lost.

What your entry must include

Title
Please give your entry a title. Examples from previous years include ‘Hospital@Home team’ and ‘Young carers’ project’
(25 words)

Key Aims
Describe the key aims of the initiative or project. What were the reasons behind it and how was it implemented?
(200 words)

Key Roles
Clearly explain the role you/the nominee had in leading the initiative and its implementation.
(200 words)

Team or individual nominee?
Please list the full name, job title and workplace of the nominee.
If the nominee is a team (either your own or another team), please check carefully and list the full name, job title and workplace of each team member, and describe how each one has contributed to the entry.

Challenges
Explain the challenges in implementing the initiative and how they were overcome.
(200 words)

Evaluation
Describe how the initiative has improved patient experience, health outcomes and nursing practice.
(300 words)

Sharing Best Practice
Does the nominee have plans to disseminate their initiative or share their innovation?
(100 words)

You can also add up to three supporting files

Acceptable file formats are .doc, .docx, .pdf, .jpg, .png
You can include case studies, evaluation reports, images, graphs – any information that will support your submission.
The maximum file size in total is 6MB (2MB per file)

Entry Deadline
25 March 2022 – 00:00

Category Judging Criteria:
How creative/innovative is the initiative? How much has the project contributed to nursing knowledge?
How instrumental was the nominee in setting up and leading the initiative?
Consider the level of obstacles the nominee overcame to get the initiative up and running.
Consider the impact the initiative has had on patient experience, health outcomes and nursing practice.
What level of evaluation has been undertaken/is planned?
To what extent has the nominee disseminated their initiative?
To what extent does the nominee stand out as a nurse leader and ambassador for the profession?