Our Practice Development Nurses have been shortlisted for a national award for their work supporting our international staff.
Patricia McKenna and Michael Sanni, who both work for Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, are in the running for a HSJ Patient Safety Award. The entry is titled ‘Psychological Safety for Internationally Educated Colleagues or The wellbeing of International Nurses’, in the Staff Wellbeing Initiative of the Year category.
It recognises the work Patricia, Michael, Ellie Parker, Head of Professional Practice for Nursing, and the Practice Development Team have done to support our internationally educated nurses transition into the NHS, and the UK way of life.
Patricia said: “We’re thrilled to be shortlisted for this award. I didn’t believe it at first and I feel incredibly proud of Michael, our team and all the internationally educated nurses. It’s such an honour to be recognised and it’s been a real team effort.
“We wanted to improve the psychological wellbeing of our international staff, make international staff feel safe and make the difficult transition period as seamless as possible. Some of our international nurses had expressed they were feeling lonely or isolated, so we wanted to find ways to support them.
“Some of the initiatives we’ve put in place include a focus group to discuss any concerns, a research project with a questionnaire on what the barriers are, career clinics, support with applications and interviews, health and wellbeing sessions. We have also developed a cultural competency training programme, and created a Microsoft Teams channel with resources and community outreach.”
Michael said: “I was very excited when I heard we’d been shortlisted. After the civil unrest we experienced locally, we came up with a process for doing regular check-ups on our international staff. We showed them we were listening to them and welcomed their feedback.”
Ellie added: “This is a real passion project of two people who have shown a huge amount of drive and tenacity to get this moving and sustainable. It’s a whole suite of wrap-around measures to address the career and pastoral health and wellbeing of our international staff.”
They’ll find out if they’ve won at an awards ceremony in Manchester on 15 September.
