Awards of Merit

The RCN Award of Merit was instituted in1994. RCN Council awards members who have made an outstanding contribution to the work of the RCN.

This year Awards of Merit were presented to Claire Hale, Paul Hopson and Gareth Phillips.

Claire Hale

An activist since her student days, Professor Claire Hale remains a stalwart campaigner; mentoring and encouraging students to become involved in the work of the RCN. She is considered by many as an extraordinary role model for delivering research enriched nurse education. Since 1998, she has been the Dame Kathleen Raven Professor of Clinical Nursing at the University of Leeds. She is also co-director of the Academic and Clinical Unit for Musculoskeletal Nursing, which is a joint venture between her university and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

A graduate on entry to the profession, she was one of the earliest to take part in the accelerated nurse training programme leading to registration in the early 1970s. After staffing and then working as a sister at Airedale Hospital, West Yorkshire, she was awarded a DHSS Nursing Research Fellowship to do her doctorate at Manchester University and since then has always worked at the interface of practice and education.

During the 1990s, Claire, with her formidable stamina and commitment, first became a member and then Chair of the RCN Research Society. Colleagues on the committee recall the way she lifted the committee out of its elitist reputation and worked tirelessly to bring quality improvement and informatics together, both at a regional and national level.

Working closely with other committee members, Claire steered the publication of the first RCN guidance on research ethics. This is now a standard resource for all nurse researchers. She built alliances with equivalent research bodies in other European countries, particularly in Spain. When her term of office on the Research Society committee ended, she continued to work tirelessly for the RCN, becoming an elected member of the Yorkshire and Humber Board. Claire is currently the Director of the Institute for Innovation in Professional Practice in the School of Healthcare at the University of Leeds.

Paul Hopson

Active in the RCN for more than 20 years, Paul Hopson is valued for his contribution to the development of health and safety work in both Scotland and the UK. He is well known locally and has the respect of, and is a source of guidance for, all safety representatives nationally.

A member of the RCN Scotland Board for the past six years, he is also the current chair of the UK Health and Safety Committee. Completely committed to the issue, he represented the RCN in Belgium at an international conference on health and safety.

Always ready to mentor new members, he was on the RCN Scotland Board group which set up a mentoring programme for new members after identifying that they needed extra support. Work that Paul has been involved in includes representing RCN Scotland on the working group into needlestick injuries, which led to the publication of Needlestick injuries: sharpen your awareness. He was a member of the working group for the RCN campaign Be Sharp, Be Safe.

On behalf of the RCN, Paul gave evidence to the Scottish Government’s Justice Committee on the Emergency Works Bill. He represented RCN Scotland in the branch review and is a member of the UK mentoring group. Paul also worked on the RCN work-related violence document published in 2008.

Fellow members of the board will say that he always goes beyond what is necessary and is always willing to visit branches around Scotland. The guidance Paul gives lends confidence and credibility to activist representation.

Gareth Phillips

A lead steward and convenor for six years, Gareth Phillips has played a key role during a time of significant change in the Welsh Health Service. He has represented members and worked in partnership with employers in the implementation of NHS modernisation and all-Wales service provision. His involvement in the implementation of Agenda for Change (AfC) successfully ensured that nurses were banded appropriately and paid according to the requirement of their roles.

He has taken up the interests of hundreds of members on a range of issues and his Gwynedd Branch is often held up as an exemplar. Through his efforts, membership has increased by 50 per cent in five years and he has successfully negotiated a partnership working agreement that provided for 60 hours of protected time for RCN representatives. He took up the challenge presented by the transition to a single new NHS organisation in North Wales by ensuring that members were well represented in the changeover.

Gareth’s particular expertise in mental health led him to give evidence (on behalf of the RCN) to the National Assembly for Wales Health and Social Services Committee on the Mental Health Bill. His leadership abilities positively influenced the policy process by persuading the Health Minister to undertake a national review of AfC, especially in relation to job evaluation. Gareth has also been a member of the Free to Lead, Free to Care ministerial task force since its inception driving forward the concepts of nursing developmental pathways and other aspects of the provision of care.

As the past chair of the RCN Welsh Board, he has spoken at more than 20 party conferences contributing to the RCN becoming an essential source of information for political parties. In representing Welsh members at RCN Council, Gareth has highlighted the common, as well as divergent, concerns arising from devolution within the UK.