The Department of Health recently welcomed an esteemed guest to the Island, Rosemary Cook CBE, Director of the Queen’s Nursing Institute, whose visit aimed to raise awareness and encourage the Island’s community nurses to apply for the prestigious Queen’s Nurse Award.
 
The Award is open to individual nurses who want to demonstrate their commitment to patient centred values and continually improving community nursing practice.
 
Minister for Health, David Anderson MHK said: “I fully support any nurses who are willing to apply for this celebrated award.  It is a significant achievement for those nurses on the Island who have already achieved the title of ‘Queen’s Nurse’ and for other individuals to have the confidence to apply goes to show the high standard of nursing cares we have on the Island.”
 
The Isle of Man already has two Queen’s Nurses, Margaret Swindlehurst, Service Lead for Adult Community Nursing and Mandy Davies, Specialist Health Visitor for Vulnerable Adults.  Rosemary, supported by these two local Queen’s Nurses, promoted the Award by delivering a presentation to a group of thirty community nurses at a specially organised evening event.
 
Margaret and Mandy, talking about their achievement said: “Being a Queen’s Nurse has given us the opportunity to join a nationwide network of skilled leaders whose aim is to keep patients, families and carers at the forefront of decisions.”
 
Whilst Rosemary was on the Island she visited a range of community nurses at various bases throughout the Island to talk about their contribution to shaping the future of Community Nursing Services.
 
Cath Quilliam, Director of Community Nursing on the Isle of Man, said: “We were delighted to host Rosemary’s visit, she is an influential Community Nurse Leader who is highly knowledgeable about Community Nursing and healthcare policy.  Rosemary took time to engage with Community Nursing staff on the Island to ascertain their views on a range of Community Nursing subjects.”
 
Rosemary commented: “It was a real pleasure to come back to the Island and talk to so many nurses and health visitors in so may settings, from clinics to the hospice, the Ramsey community hospital and the prison. Excellent innovative work is going on in all these settings and I am looking forward to building up the Queen’s Nurses community on the Island with more of these enthusiastic and forward looking professionals.”