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The University of Southampton
Health Sciences

Health Sciences MRes alumnus shortlisted in UK’s top nursing awards

Published: 20 April 2018
MRes Alumnus Andrew Broderick
RCNi Nurse Awards finalist 2018 Andrew Broderick

This week NHS Blood & Transplant specialist nurse and former Southampton student Andrew Broderick has been announced as a finalist in the 2018 RCNi Nurse Awards, the UK’s most prestigious nursing accolades. A panel of expert judges has whittled down over 700 entries to just five inspirational finalists for each award category, and Andrew is a finalist in the ‘Innovations in your Specialty’ category. The RCNi Nurse Awards identify and celebrate nurses who, every day, go above and beyond to save lives, provide outstanding care for patients and transform nursing practice for the better.

Andrew has been shortlisted for his work in developing an organ donor assessment and screening initiative to tackle the severe shortage of organs available in the UK and support an increase in the number of families giving consent for donation. With only a tenth of organ donation referrals resulting in donation before 2015, Andrew took a secondment to investigate how the process could be enhanced and made it his mission to create an improved system.

In the first year following the tool’s introduction in 2015 there was a 34% increase in the number of patients referred for organ donation and a UK record for the number of donors following circulatory death (584). The DCD Organ Donor assessment programme has since been implemented across UK, providing improvements in end-of-life-care for those with the potential to donate, and benefitting those awaiting transplants.

Andrew says: "Being a finalist in the RCNi Nurse Awards is the highlight of my career to date. In common with my nursing colleagues I do my job because I am passionate about improving the lives of the people who we care for. In organ donation this is particularly important as we are caring for the potential organ donor at end-of-life, caring for their grieving family and fulfilling a duty of care to the potential organ recipients, all of which is incredibly fulfilling. So to be recognised by the RCNi for the role I play, which I consider to be just part of my job, is a wonderful and humbling experience."

Andrew graduated in 2013 after completing an NIHR funded MRes in Clinical and Health Research. Andrew was the first specialist nurse to undertake this Masters at the University of Southampton. His former supervisor and co-author, Dr Tracy Long-Sutehall is delighted that Andrew has been recognised for his innovative thinking and professional commitment: “Andrew was determined to make a difference in practice around the process of assessing and referring patients for organ donation in response to the continuing gap between the supply of donated organs and the increasing demand for transplant operations. On a personal note he was a motivated, proactive and enthusiastic student balancing clinical and academic loads in pursuit of his goals. He is a credit to the nursing profession and a wonderful example for what can be achieved by nurses given the opportunity to undertake research in response to ideas generated in their clinical practice, I am very proud of what he has a achieved”.

To read more about Andrew’s work, his paper ‘Development of the Asystolic Predication Score: A tool to assist shared decision making, in DCD donation through prediction of time to asystole following withdrawal of life sustaining treatment’ can be viewed at www.researchgate.net

Rachel Armitage, Managing Director at RCNi, said: “The RCNi panel of professional judges voted Andrew as a finalist because of his incredible story and because of the impact he has had on the organ donations in the UK. With the nursing shortage high on the national agenda, it’s important that we give nurses like Andrew the recognition they deserve, and we look forward to celebrating his work at the awards in July.”

The hunt for Britain’s nursing heroes started back in December 2017 and will culminate in an awards ceremony on 4th July in central London. Nurses were able to nominate themselves or their colleagues across 14 different categories ranging from Mental Health and Cancer, to Emergency and Student Nursing.

Andrew will now go through to the interview stage of the judging process, ahead of the awards ceremony in July.

 

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