People across the country are tonight asked to ‘shine a light’ from their home window at 8.30pm to mark International Nurses Day (12th May) and recognise the extraordinary work that people are doing in the fight against coronavirus.
The day also marks on the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, who founded modern nursing and pioneered infection control, but is also famous for her lamp. 2020 has also been designated International Year of the Nurse in her honour.
Sirona’s Director of Nursing Mary Lewis said: “Our staff are fantastic in delivering personal, compassionate care to the people we work with and their families. Nursing has come such a long way whilst retaining at its core the principles of caring, doing no harm, paying attention to detail, striving to always learn and improve, innovating and making changes that make a difference in so many ways to individuals and their families.
“Wherever we work, we do not work alone and would ask that all our colleagues – other professionals and all non-clinical staff – join us in celebrating our special day. We couldn’t do our jobs without being part of the teams we work with, so thank you to all of you too.
There are 13 Queens’ Nurses working across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, who are accredited by the Queen’s Nursing Institute.
Shonna Spreadbury, Clinical Systems Manager at Sirona care & health, qualified in 1999 as a project 2000 nurse and then completed a BSC in Health and Community Practice in 2004.
She said: “Being a Queen’s Nurse is really important to me, I particularly enjoy going to the Queen’s Nursing Institute conferences as it reignites my passion for community nursing and enables me to provide best practice and influence policy. I now work in IT and being a trained District Nursing Sister is really beneficial as I can bring a clinical perspective to our projects and can advise on what will or won’t work for our nurses and their patients”.
David Pugh, Integrated Network Team Manager, is another of our Queens’ Nurses and he added: “I’m incredibly proud to be a Queen’s Nurse; it helps guide how I operate, following the principles of leadership, learning and excellence in patient care.” He has recorded a video to explain why being a Queen’s Nurse is so important to him.
Sarah Margetts, Director of HR and Organisational Development, said: “Recruitment and retention of Nurses is an absolute priority for the health and care system and for Sirona. We know we are facing some national challenges around shortages of Nurses and are working closely with nurses and partners to develop ways to address this.
“This includes developing further career development opportunities, offering greater wellbeing support such as advice on mental health, managing remote working and resources for financial support. There are also many new and exciting opportunities such as the introduction of Trainee Nurse Associates and the launch of the Nursing Degree Apprenticeship programme”
Find out how you can join Sirona’s nursing team
