Entry deadline extended until 7 June

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  This year, more than any other, is the time to showcase what you do best. With the spotlight on healthcare and the standard of nursing following publication of the Francis report, there has never been a better time to demonstrate to the public and each other that you embody the 6Cs identified as the values underpinning excellent nursing: care, compassion, competence, communication, courage and commitment. The Nursing Times Awards offer you an opportunity to show the world how your innovations and hard work are improving the care you give your patients.

  Every year we receive hundreds of entries to the Nursing Times Awards that tell us what nurses have done to create a safer health environment, one that puts the patient first.

  Nurses are doing the difficult things because they are the right things to do for the patient. And now it's time to be honoured for that hard work.

  You've done the most difficult thing of all in changing your service - entering our awards is free and easy.

  • Register your details here

  • See which categories you would like to enter

  • Complete and submit an entry online before 7 June

  
  

  The 2013 NT Awards poster:

  Promote more entries within your organisation

  Download here
  
  
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  Nurses are best placed to lead many of the changes called for in the Francis report. With more patient contact than any other health professionals, they are able to spot where services need to improve and can identify what will have the greatest impact.

  In last year's awards, we heard from nurses who had taken on projects that saved lives across community and acute settings. There were health visitors who had planned carefully crafted early interventions to help new mums and their babies, nurses offering advice to school children to keep them safe from substance misuse and knife crime, and acute trusts who had overhauled the way they had always done things to offer a 24/7 service – because that was what made the patient safer.

  Winning a Nursing Times Award – or even being shortlisted – has changed the fortunes of many of the nurses involved in those projects – they are taken more seriously by their trusts and have been able to sustain and spread their projects more effectively after gaining our stamp of approval. If you need any help with your entries then please contact Laura Scanlan by emailing her on Laura.scanlan@EMAP.com or calling her on 0203 033 2668 Tell us what you've done right. We can't wait to read all about it.

  Good luck
  
  Jenni Middleton
  Editor, Nursing Times