RCN Awards of Merit 2009
The RCN Award of Merit was instituted in 1994. RCN Council awards members who have made an outstanding contribution to the work of the RCN.
Read the award winners stories here:
Annette Else
Alice Lyons
Anita Murray
Ian Norris
Andrew Patrick
Christine Verity
Annette Else
As a clinical A and E nurse specialist at the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Annette Else has inspired and supported both staff and management over a number of years. Her realistic, pragmatic approach has won her widespread respect. A profound understanding of the art and science of nursing has enabled her to guide staff to make sound and sensible decisions, while reflecting on the personal learning to be gained from every scenario they encounter. As both a clinician and manager, her wise counsel has been greatly valued.
Alongside her professional duties she is also a highly esteemed RCN steward. Her enthusiasm, vigour, skill and integrity in this role are all widely acknowledged within the trust. As the staff-side lead for Agenda for Change (AfC), she has promoted and pursued a partnership working approach which has been instrumental in helping to steer the trust successfully through the AfC implementation process.
Her longstanding and outstanding contribution to employee relations within the trust - an organisation encompassing over 12,000 personnel - has gained widespread recognition from staff and management alike. She serves on the trust's joint consultative board, where she has won the respect of other trade union leads. In this role she has contributed to a wide remit of consultation forums and corporate negotiations - including the negotiation of pay awards, sickness and welfare policies, as well as policies to ensure the safety and wellbeing of staff, patients and the general public - employing her steely and diplomatic capabilities to influence members on both sides of the table to find the middle ground.
Alice Lyons
Alice Lyons first began her involvement with the RCN South Lincolnshire Branch in 1988 when, with the implementation of clinical grading, she volunteered to assist over 100 members requesting advice, representation and assistance in making appeals against their grading. As an accredited branch steward in 1989, her first major initiative was to negotiate funding for conversion courses for enrolled nurses and to ensure their employment rights and contracts were protected. The funding was ring fenced until all staff had completed their conversion training.
Following the major merger of three acute hospital trusts in Lincolnshire, she became the Vice Chair of the Pilgrim Hospital Partnership Forum. Taking a seat on the trust staff side executive, she worked tirelessly to ensure the merger was effective while ensuring the RCN voice was heard and represented on key functional committees. On the implementation of Agenda for Change, she took a leading role as a member of the project management team and continues to review new posts and provide evaluation assessments.
Her involvement in supporting the trust's partnership arrangements is substantial, and includes direct input and guidance on the development of policies that relate to staff. In response to growing concerns, she has spearheaded a major campaign within the trust against bullying and harassment in the workplace, working closely with trust managers to develop a trust policy on this issue. Currently, she is working with senior HR managers to review and rewrite clinical and operational policies and is also liaising closely with the chief nurse to develop the trust's unregistered workforce with the creation of job descriptions and a training strategy.
Regularly approached by managers and staff for advice and guidance, she frequently gives her own time to ensure people receive the representation they deserve. Recently, when a colleague became seriously ill, she stepped into the role of branch chair to ensure local representation and support was maintained.
Anita Murray
A dedicated nurse working within the North Yorkshire and York NHS Trust, Anita Murray has constantly striven to enhance the delivery of mental health services for older people. Dedicated to enabling and developing staff working within this crucial specialty, alongside her role as an NVQ staff assessor, she also performs a key link role in the area of wound care and tissue viability for the unit she works in.
Anita has combined her extensive nursing commitments with her work as an active RCN trade union representative. An acknowledged champion of health and safety issues in the day-to-day functioning of her PCT, she plays a key co-ordination role between management, staff and the health and safety committee. Her prominent staff-side role within the trust saw her play a key role in the Agenda for Change roll out.
In her roles as both RCN steward and health and safety representative, she has gained renown for her professional, cool-headed and rational approach to key issues and a devotion to representing the best interests of the people she serves. An active member of the UK Safety Representatives Committee, she is also a board member of the RCN Yorkshire and the Humber Regional Board and serves as secretary for the York Branch. In recent years, Anita has significantly increased her representation commitments and has proved to be as comfortable lobbying politicians of all parties on key national and regional issues as she is in supporting the local implementation of new policies, procedures and guidance.
A devoted and caring professional, Anita is also a committee member of the Alzheimer's Society - the leading UK care and research charity for people with dementia, their families and carers - and for the past 25 years has attended pilgrimages to Lourdes as a nurse.
Ian Norris
For over 25 years Ian Norris has been an enthusiastic advocate of the RCN, both at a local and regional level. His contribution and commitment to members is exemplary; widely acknowledged as being both accessible and approachable, he has supported, advised and represented nurses throughout the London region through every major change and development in health care that has taken place over the last quarter of a century.
Most recently he played a pivotal role at the Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals NHS Trust, where he supported both management and staff through a major merger and the subsequent implementation of Agenda for Change. In his role as secretary of the trust's Joint Staff Committee and as an RCN steward he was instrumental in forging a real partnership approach with trust management, while simultaneously protecting and promoting the rights of staff.
Alongside the establishment of member resource centres, he worked closely with local management to ensure the RCN was always accorded recognition as an equal partner in local employment issues.
His tireless dedication to go above and beyond the call of duty is legendary. He actively reached out to members, played a key role in promoting the benefits of RCN membership and recruiting new members, and was prepared to step in and assume responsibility to support members at any time of the day and night. As well as being, until recently, lead steward and safety representative at the Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS Trust, he is also Branch Secretary of the Barking, Havering and Brentwood Branch, is a vice chair of the London Region Board, chairs the London Region Safety Representatives Committee, and has just completed serving as the London Region member on the UK Safety Representatives Committee.
An exceptional nursing ambassador, a powerful influencer on behalf of the NHS trust and the staff that work within it, Ian was awarded the RCN London Region Merit Award in 1995. He is also an active member of St John Ambulance and a Freeman of the City of London.
Andrew Patrick
An RCN steward for almost 30 years, Andrew Patrick has consistently championed the rights of nurses and patients in Scotland. An early exponent of partnership working, he is an acknowledged and trusted force who works tirelessly to ensure that both the RCN and member voice is heard, and that the impact of developments on the wider NHS team is recognised.
As current chair of the Clyde (South) RCN branch and chair of the PACT (political action campaigning team) he has worked tirelessly to inspire membership lobbying of the Scottish Government, with some notable successes. He represented the views of the joint trade union and professional bodies at the Cabinet Secretary's recent review group on car parking charges in NHS Scotland; a body which ultimately took the decision to abolish charges at the end of 2008.
As a Senior RCN Representative in the former Argyll and Clyde health board, he worked tirelessly with management and staff to support all parties through a complex merger process with Greater Glasgow. At the implementation of Agenda for Change, Andy identified a potential anomaly for 'non-Whitley' nurses transferring back; as a result of his belief that equity should prevail and his research and construction of a case for ex-gratia payments, over 250 mental health nurses of the former trust were awarded £1,000.
His determination and commitment to make a difference is illustrated by the scale of his active involvement and exhaustive workload. Alongside being the Greater Glasgow and Clyde representative on the RCN Scottish Board, he is also a trustee of the RCN Scotland Benevolent Fund, a member of the national staff side group involving all trade unions, and sits on the Scottish Workforce and Governance Group. His commitment to partnership working has earned him widespread respect from RCN colleagues, local and regional NHS management, RCN members, as well as other trade union representatives.
Christine Verity
Highly respected RCN member and activist Christine Verity was elected to the Northallerton Branch Executive as a public relations officer, before becoming a branch steward in 1992. Over the years she has represented and supported members through a wide variety of issues including grievances, bullying, as well as providing sickness and retirement support.
A learning representative since 2000, she has organised a number of study days and seminars for members on a broad range of topics, and as a health and safety representative, sitting on the North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust (NYYPCT) Health and Safety Committee, was responsible for instigating a home visit policy for patients who smoke and undertaking risk assessments for the trust.
The has played a key role in supporting Northallerton members, most significantly in the 1996 dispute over terms and conditions for night staff. She was also part of the negotiation team that successfully lobbied for the replacement of the Annualised Hours Contract with Contract 2000.
She has also proved an invaluable and pragmatic resource for both management and staff through a number of reorganisations that include the transition from Northallerton Health Services Trust to the foundation of the Hambleton and Richmondshire PCT, the dismantling of the Northallerton Trust, and the creation of the NYYPCT. Acknowledged as a strong advocate for nurses, she has successfully developed strong partnership relations with the management of the PCT.
A recipient of the RCN Long Service Award in 2007, Christine has also contributed significantly to the wider world of nursing. She met with the Polish Nurses Association (PNA) at the 2001 International Council of Nursing Conference, and since that time has been actively engaged in a partnership project between RCN Yorkshire and Humber Region and the PNA to exchange good practice and support leadership development, as well as collaboration to promote nursing to political leaders and public policy makers in Poland and the UK. As part of her work with this body, she regularly hosts Polish colleagues undertaking clinical visits to the UK.