AfPP offers a variety of awards and bursaries to fund education opportunities, research and attendance at events and conferences in the UK and overseas. The AfPP Ethicon Perioperative Practitioner of the Year award offers an educational bursary of £1,000 to be spent on an educational activity meeting the winner’s development objectives. This award will be made to an individual, nominated by a fellow professional, who has made an outstanding contribution towards quality patient care in the preceding 12 months.
The 2009 winner was Rosanne Macqueen, senior charge nurse at Stracathro Hospital, NHS Tayside. Rose has dedicated the £1,000 award to developing a training/resource room to support the continuing professional development and learning needs of 40 theatre staff of varying grades, as well as supporting the educational needs of other staff including nursing students on placement.
The AfPP Siobhan Rankin Perioperative Team of the Year is a legacy-based award offering a very generous prize of £5,000 to be spent on an educational event or programme that will enable the winning team members to meet their personal development goals. This award can be claimed by a team of up to 15 in anaesthetics, scrub, surgery and recovery at any level. The team must be able to demonstrate significant achievement in one of three categories: innovation, best practice or safety; the winning entries from each category will then be judged against each other to determine the overall winner of the award. Last year’s winners were the surgical team at Powys Teaching Health Board for their commitment to the 1000 Lives Campaign.
AfPP is a charity representing around 40% of all UK theatre nurses and providing professional education and support to 8,000 members in the UK and overseas. AfPP’s membership also includes operating department practitioners and healthcare support workers. Both awards are open to non-members of the AfPP, although nominees for the practitioner award must be nominated by a member and all entrants should be eligible for membership as this is given as runner-up prizes for the awards.
For more information and application forms, in addition to other training and CPD opportunities, visit www.afpp.org.uk/careers/awards