NURSES at Dorset County Hospital have won a national award for an innovative project.

The team at the Dorchester hospital were recognised by Breast Cancer Care at the charity’s Nursing Network Awards, which recognised those leading the field in breast care nursing across the UK.

The hospital’s one-stop anaesthetic pre-assessment, which replaced an old system where patients had several appointments over a one to three-week period, claimed the top honour in the best multi-disciplinary project category.

The award followed a tough assessment from a panel of leading judges in the field of breast care and brings with it a cash prize to support the hospital’s work.

Nursing Network Awards judge Gill Donovan said: “This project is a great example of innovation and is clearly driven by a very motivated team of nurses. The impact on patient care is, so far, extremely positive, with reduced hospital visits saving patients both time and money.

“The success of the project to date is testament to the benefits of teams working together with a common goal of improving patient care.”

Anne Saunders, breast care nurse at Dorset County Hospital, said she and her colleague, breast nurse specialist Lorraine Sers, would both like to thank Breast Cancer Care for this award and for recognising the hard work that went into it.

She added: “The most important point to make is that this was a team effort. “The initial idea came from specialist nurse Kirsty Norvill.

“While undertaking her nurse practitioner degree and working on the pre-assessment unit, she saw firsthand the frustrations that our patients went through having to attend the hospital two or three times before surgery and approached us for help getting nurse-led same-day pre-assessment underway. “The whole breast and pre-assessment team have been involved, and Alex Sissons in admissions has been our co-ordinator.

“All we did was recognise its benefit to the patients and the trust and help to make the idea a reality.

“It just goes to show what team work can achieve.”

The breast care team at Dorset County Hospital is busy auditing patient feedback from the new pre-assessment system and hope it will support their view that it has been a successful scheme.