Banbury medical researcher is made a Nightingale Nurse in special award ceremony

Will Malcher, from Banbury in Oxfordshire, is a senior clinical research nurse in the Covid-19 Clinical Research Team at Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Trust, London which made the award.

He said: “This award embodies the key principles that Florence Nightingale built her school on. Being a Nightingale Nurse shows that you are an exemplary nurse with dedication and passion in nursing.”

Mr Malcher’s award was one of 49 Nightingale Nurse and nine Nightingale Midwife Awards presented to professionals who now have the honour of being known as a ‘Nightingale Nurse’ or ‘Nightingale Midwife’.

The ceremony took place in person for the first time in two years, with messages of support from Sam Sherrington, Head of Community Nursing for NHS England, Dr Christine Taylor, President of The Nightingale Fellowship, and Imam Monawar Hussain, Founder of The Oxford Foundation.

Named in honour of pioneering nurse Florence Nightingale, who established her first professional nursing school at St Thomas’ Hospital in 1860, the award is unique to Guy’s and St Thomas’. Since launching in 2017, more than 300 individuals have successfully achieved the award.

To receive it, nurses and midwives have to provide evidence from their managers, peers and people they care for of their outstanding practice and how they daily demonstrate the Trust’s values. They also have to complete a programme of academic work credited by King’s College London.

In the past, nurses who trained at the Nightingale nursing school and worked at St Thomas’ Hospital for more than 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 Nurse and Nightingale Midwife Award is part of the Nightingale Academy at Guy’s and St Thomas’, which launched in 2017 to provide a platform for innovation in practice and service development, education and research in nursing and midwifery.

Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Trust is one of the biggest NHS trusts in the UK, with an annual turnover of £2.1 billion and employing around 22,000 staff.