Nightingale Nurse Award gets funding boost

Thursday 29 November 2018


Dame Eileen Sills shaking hands with Gillian M Prager in the garden at St Thomas' hospital

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust has received a donation to continue funding the professional award for its most outstanding nurses and midwives.

The Trust has received a substantial donation from the Nightingale Fellowship, a body that represents nurses who trained at the St Thomas’ Hospital School of Nursing, of more than £250,000 to continue its Nightingale Nurse Award.

The award, which was launched last year, is named in honour of pioneering nurse Florence Nightingale who established her first nursing school at St Thomas’ Hospital in 1860 and is unique to the Trust. The first new Nightingale Nurse Award winners were announced at a special ceremony held on International Nurses’ Day last May.

To receive the award, nurses have to provide evidence from their managers and peers and complete a programme of work accredited by King’s College London. On completion of the training, nurses receive a badge and certificate and have the honour of being known as a ‘Nightingale Nurse’.

In the past nurses who trained at the Nightingale nursing school and worked at St Thomas’ Hospital for over a year received a special blue badge and were known as ‘Nightingales’. This was phased out after the school was transferred to King’s College London with the last badge being issued in 1996.

The Nightingale Fellowship’s donation will go towards applicants’ academic fees and administration costs.  

Dame Eileen Sills, Chief Nurse at Guy’s and St Thomas’, said: “We are delighted to have received this very generous donation from the Nightingale Fellowship. This will enable us to continue to recognise our most outstanding nurses and midwives and build on Florence Nightingale’s legacy of delivering high quality care in a compassionate manner.

“The Nightingale Nurse Award is a very prestigious qualification and we are very excited that it will be available to our nursing staff in the future.”

Gillian M Prager, President of The Nightingale Fellowship, said: “The Nightingale Nurse title is highly regarded by the national and international nursing community, so it was very important to us that nurses and midwives providing outstanding care continue to be honoured with the title.

“The Nightingale Nurse award is a really great way of celebrating and developing fantastic nurses and it is a very fitting addition to Florence Nightingale’s amazing legacy.”

Last updated: March 2022

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