Award-winning nurse leader who puts the compassion in community
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Award-winning nurse leader who puts the compassion in community

Barry Quinn Consultant editor, Nursing Management

I am always drawn to a piece of writing that includes the words, ‘compassion’ and ‘kindness’, particularly if the subject relates to nursing leadership and healthcare. I am also mindful that nurses across the UK are fighting for fairer pair and work conditions that reflect the true value of their profession.

Nursing Management. 29, 6, 5-5. doi: 10.7748/nm.29.6.5.s1

Published: 01 December 2022

In this issue we celebrate Alison Bunce, who won this year’s prestigious RCN Nurse of the Year 2022 award in recognition of her inspirational Compassionate Inverclyde project, which reaches out to people in one of the most deprived areas of Scotland (Feature, page 14).

Ms Bunce also won an RCN Nursing Award in the Leadership category for the project.

‘These profound acts of kindness remind the next generation about the value of community’

Having learned from those in greatest need in her community, Ms Bunce and her colleagues worked with local businesses, voluntary groups, young people, faith organisations and healthcare professionals to deliver a compassion-based approach to health and care in Inverclyde.

The initiative includes supporting new mothers, contacting people who were isolated during the pandemic, providing toiletries and night clothes for those in hospital, and creating discharge packages, or ‘back home boxes’, for people leaving hospital to return home alone.

The back home boxes include items of food, a blanket made by volunteers and a card written by a local child. Ms Bunce’s project is committed to ensuring that no one dies alone. These simple but profound acts of kindness also remind the next generation about the value of community and the part they can play in it.

As nurses across the UK fight for their rights and respect, Ms Bunce and her colleagues demonstrate the beautiful but often hidden work of nurses responding to every aspect of community need.

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