Nurse Manager of Stonyhurst receives prestigious award

The Nurse Manager at Stonyhurst has received a prestigious national award in recognition of her contribution to nursing practice.

Claire Ashworth has been awarded the Chief Nursing Officer Gold Award by NHS England for going above and beyond, demonstrating safeguarding excellence for tenacity around information sharing and Child Protection - Information Sharing (CP-IS).

The award was presented to Claire at Stonyhurst on Wednesday 23rd May by Professor Catherine Randall, Associate Director for National Safeguarding for the NHS.

Claire was appointed Nurse Manager at Stonyhurst in 2019 and has since established much improved links with multiagency organisations, with the aim of putting in place the necessary data sharing protocols and IT systems allowing national safeguarding and health information to be shared with the Stonyhurst Health & Wellbeing team.

On accepting the award, Claire said: “I am humbled to have received NHS Safeguarding gold star award. As a result of recent work Stonyhurst is set to become the first independent school to be involved in phase 3 of the Child Protection Information sharing service. Once in place this will enable us access to a number of other NHS information systems. Independent schools have often been overlooked in NHS initiatives and policy which leads to their health services working with limited information available to them. It was with this in mind that led to me contacting Catherine to raise this issue at a national level and trailblaze this cause for all independent school nurses.’’

The Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) Award has been developed to reward the significant and outstanding contributions made by nurses in England and their exceptional contributions to nursing practice. The gold award recognises the enormous range of skills, expertise, and enduring compassion that Claire represents within the world of modern nursing.