The awards, totalling more than £5,000, have been sponsored by the Leagues of Friends of Brighton & Hove and Hurstwood Park Neurological Centre.

The winners – Sarah Almond, Peter Carter, Debbie Fillery, Joyce Stebbings, Rie Hargreaves and Theresa Kirkaldy – will formally receive their awards at the September awards ceremony.

Shortly after, surgical ward sister Rie Hargreaves and theatre staff nurse Therese Kirkaldy from Hurstwood Park will set out on a fact finding visit to hospitals in the Netherlands.

Rie Hargeaves and Theresa Kirkaldy plan to visit Holland to see at first hand how Dutch hospitals achieve a low rate of MRSA infections.

Through colleagues in Holland and UK radio reports they learned about the amazingly low MRSA infection rates there and plan to investigate the methods used to achieve these results. They hope to bring back information to help their colleagues bring about further improvements to the unit’s infection control rates.

Trust child protection midwife Debbie Fillery has been awarded the course fees to attend a Kings College conference.

This looks at the way midwives can deal with domestic violence during pregnancy.

Research shows that 44 per cent of abused women are assaulted while they are pregnant. Moreover, a Royal College of Midwives report reveals that 25 per cent of women experiencing domestic violence are assaulted for the first time when they are pregnant.

Children should benefit from work by two of the award winners from the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital.

Play service manager Joyce Stebbings is undertaking research and audit to determine the best method of preparing children for an MRI scan.

Currently the need for the patient to keep absolutely still during the procedure means that children are usually given a general anaesthetic.

However, hospital play specialists believe they have the experience and know-ledge to prepare children for radiological investigations without the need for medical intervention.

More radiological departments up and down the country, including Great Ormond Street, are looking into different methods available.

Joyce has already had experience with play preparation techniques and plans to start the trial for which she has received funding in August.

Parents will have the option of including their child and will be fully involved in the procedure. This includes preparing the child using play based techniques, such as listening to the noise the machine makes and using a colouring book which tells the story of a child having a scan.

When the time comes for the scan, the child will be prepared in the usual way as if having a G.A. and given ten minutes to comply with lying down etc. Only if this is seen not to be working will the procedure go ahead using the G.A.

If the audit is successful, Joyce hopes it could result in a safer and less costly alternative, which would be less traumatic to the child.

Senior paediatric dietitian Sarah Almond has been funded to join children’s diabetes team colleagues paediatric consultant Dr Shankar Kanumakala and specialist nurse Caroline Spence at the annual conference of the International Society of Paediatric and Adolescent Diabetes in Krakow, Poland.

At the conference, the society disseminates information about up to date research practice in the diabetes care for children.

The trust team looks after 150 children in Brighton and Mid Sussex and the surrounding areas with Type 1 Diabetes.

One of the trust’s modern matrons,
senior nurse Peter Carter, has been awarded £1,000 towards the £2,000 cost of attending the world conference of the International Union Against Sexually Transmitted Infections in Bangkok in November.

He will join Emma Collins, GUM nursing team leader, who has been awarded a BSUH Nursing Bursary to cover the cost of conference registration fees.

Peter says attendance at the conference in Thailand will allow them to update their theoretical knowledge and network with colleagues in the specialty.

Brighton has the largest population of HIV positive patients outside London. The clinic is the sixth busiest out of more than 200 in England with over 32,000 attendances last year.