Award-winning forum members

Published: 31 October 2012

In our last newsletter we asked forum members to contact us to celebrate their successes, and we are pleased to report that the following nurses have been recognised for their work:

Helen Bremner wins Gastrointestinal Nursing award for patient care and British Journal of Nursing Gastrointestinal Nursing Innovation Award first prize

Helen Bremner, a community clinical nurse hypnotherapist and IBS specialist at Sandwell PCT, received the award for singlehandedly setting up the country's only community IBS hypnotherapy service. She has been highly successful in reducing or removing patient symptoms, and gaining high levels of patient satisfaction.  The judges commended Helen's extensive knowledge and use of hypnotherapy throughout her working practice, which ensures that her patients experience the best holistic care.

Helen also won first prize in the British Journal of Nursing's innovation award. To read more about her work, visit her "lightbulb innovation" webpage on the innnovation section of the RCN website.

Marian O’Connor wins Gastrointestinal Nursing nurse of the year award

Marian O'Connor was named Gastrointestinal Nursing nurse of the year.  Marian leads the Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) service at St Mark’s Hospital and is chair of the Nurses European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation. She has shown innovation in service provision by helping to set up the first IBD patient panel at the hospital and was pivotal in the organisation of the hospital’s IBD open day. The judges felt Marian had made significant progress in improving the care for patients with IBD by “enhancing the multidisciplinary team with her innovations in practice".  

Brigitte Collins wins the British Journal of Nursing continence nurse of the year award

Brigitte Collins, who is the lead biofeedback nurse specialist at St Marks’ Hospital, won the British Journal of Nursing continence nurse of the year award.

We would like to share the successes of Gastrointestinal Forum members, so if you have been nominated or have won an award, please get in touch. Email m.clayton@leeds.ac.uk