In collaboration with Brent Council, ONW wins prestigious Nursing Times Award

We are pleased to announce that based on our collaborative work with Brent Council, we have been awarded the Nursing Times Award for the Public Health Nursing category.

The unique initiative ‘Better health on your doorstep’ (based on the oral health mobile bus) was shortlisted for improving education for parents about healthy eating and dental health. The mobile bus offered a unique way to take dental services to parents, following the lack of paediatric dental health during the pandemic.

This project incorporated multi-agency working which included our Outer North West (ONW) London colleagues (Farrah Al-saidi, Iman Ismail, Leena Ponummony, Rosie Hall and Charlotte Aretuemhen) alongside members from Whittington Health, Health Education England, Beezeebodies and more.

As part of this project, our ONW Healthy Weight team (BrentHealth4life) who promote the weight management services CLCH offer in Brent – held an event where children and their parents were invited to guess how many sugars were in foods which was illustrated through sugar cubes. They also scanned popular snacks amongst the children to demonstrate the nutritional information using the NHS food scanner app.

Both the parents and children expressed how useful the resources were and how it would positively affect their decision making when choosing foods. Across 8 days the mobile bus saw 395 children of which 158 (41%) were identified with tooth decay. Due to this initiative, these children were referred and avoided urgent hospital treatment. The BrentHealth4life programme also saw an increase in participation.

Rosie Hall, CLCH Weight Management Practitioner, said: “It is brilliant to see how working collaboratively can help to make a difference to the community we serve. The oral health bus was a great way to reach large numbers of families to educate them on the importance of good oral hygiene and was a fantastic opportunity to introduce healthy eating. The high demand was a great reflection of how valuable it was, and it really has the potential to educate more families in the future.”

The 2022 Nursing Times Awards brought together the nursing community to shine a light on the brightest talent in the profession and recognise those making nursing innovative, patient-focused and inclusive. It has never been more important to recognise the incredible contributions of our nurses and we’re incredibly proud of our ONW London colleagues. Well done team!