Dame Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer for England presented the silver award to Jane Rams and Allison Grapes on Friday 25 November for their outstanding dedication to nursing and the NHS.
Jane Rams has been a nurse for over 20 years and Allison Grapes has been a nurse for over 30 years. They are both experienced and exemplar senior nurses in Gateshead Health who at the time of nomination, were a respiratory nurse ward manager and gastroenterology nurse consultant / joint clinical lead respectively.
In 2020, Jane had the opportunity to retire, however, she wanted to support her nursing team and lead them through the challenges of the covid pandemic. She supported the trust during the covid pandemic and mobilised her senior nursing team to support our Emergency Care Centre and front of house nursing teams. More recently, Jane led her ward through an accreditation process supporting the principle of nursing standards and delivery of nursing excellence. Jane has since retired but returned as a clinical nurse specialist in respiratory nursing.
On collecting the award, Jane Rams said: “I’d like to say thank you to my amazing respiratory team that enabled me to achieve this award. It’s been an absolute honour today, standing in front of Ruth May and being given this award. It’s been the absolute final achievement to the end of my nursing career.”
Allison’s career has included working in acute medicine, specifically gastroenterology nursing with her specialist interest in the field of hepatology. She was one of the first ward managers to lead on a productive ward (reshaping the ward using lean methodology), leading this change and empowering teams to deliver clinical care to benefit patients and staff. Her nursing career progressed as an Advanced Clinical Practice in Gastroenterology /Hepatology and throughout the Covid pandemic set up a protected planned investigation unit (PIU) to manage the clinical extremely vulnerable (CEV) patients. Allison has since retired and returned into a corporate nursing role where she continues to passionately develop nursing workforce.
Janet Thompson, Head of Nursing for Gateshead Health accepted the award on Allison’s behalf. She said: “The Chief Nursing Office award is a prestigious honour and there is none more deserving than Jane Rams and Allison Grapes for their dedication to our profession. We’re extremely proud of them and all of our teams here at Gateshead.”
The award was presented on Microsoft Teams.
