Five final year Adult Nursing students from the BSc (Hons) Adult Nursing and Registered Nurse Degree Apprenticeship programmes at Bournemouth University (BU) have recently been selected for this year’s annual Lewis-Manning Hospice Care Palliative and End-of-Life Care Scholarship Scheme.
- Christina Keeping
- Julia Copson
- Jessica Ransome
- Emelia Sargeant
- Tina Smith
Christina, Julia, Jessica, Emelia and Tina (the first nurse apprentice to be awarded this scholarship) were selected from 24 applicants, following shortlisting and an interview with Dr Sue Baron, Principal Academic from the Department of Nursing Science, Bournemouth University, Dr Jackie Dominey, a local GP and Trustee at Lewis-Manning and Academic Advisor and Professor Sue Green, Deputy Head of Department of Nursing Science, Bournemouth University.
This unique scholarship opportunity is now entering its third year and is run in collaboration with BU, Lewis-Manning Hospice Care and The Burdett Trust for Nursing. The Burdett Trust for Nursing was established in 2002 with the aim of making charitable grants to support the nursing contribution to healthcare. The Burdett Trust for Nursing Trustees focus their funding on three key areas: Building nursing research capacity and capabilities; Building nurse leadership capacity and capabilities; Supporting local nurse-led initiatives.
Each awardee will receive £3,000 in funding to support their professional development during the 2023/24 academic year. They will also benefit from mentorship from Dr Jackie Dominey, Lewis Manning, and Dr Sue Baron, BU, as well as wider networking and clinical development opportunities made available to them through Lewis-Manning Hospice Care, such as shadowing a member of the Lewis-Manning Hospice Care clinical team.
During their first meeting as a group at Lewis Manning Hospice Care, Christina, Julia, Jessica, Emelia, and Tina talked about their passion for palliative and end of life care, and how this had been inspired. Julia, for example, advised this had been triggered by personal experience as she commented, “Sadly, I’ve lost both of my parents in the past 5 years. My dad died quite suddenly and was supported with end-of-life care for his final 5 days. My mum had a very different experience and was supported with palliative care for 3 years. Everyone has such different experiences with death, which inspired me to seek to study this further and apply for the scholarship.”
Jessica added, “I had a very unique experience as a student nurse on an elective placement in the Philippines for a month, where I worked on an Internal Medicines Ward and A&E Department. I also observed people’s different experiences of dying; it taught me so much. I have also worked locally with elderly people and people with dementia for over 4 years now as I am so passionate about supporting them at this later stage in life. One of my ambitions is to encourage more students into caring for and supporting older people as I believe this is so important.”
Dr Sue Baron said: “The Lewis Manning Scholarship provides an amazing development opportunity for our final year nursing students. We have been delighted with the level of interest shown again this year in this scholarship which was first introduced in 2021. I am yet again extremely impressed by the talent and passion shown by our nursing students, and the hopes and aspirations expressed by this year’s applicants and award winners for their professional development during their final year as nursing students. One of the goals for this year, identified by our award winners, is to work together to develop educational resources to support and enable health professional students to feel appropriately and better prepared for delivering supportive, palliative care to anyone who needs this. One of these resources will focus on enhancing understanding of and health professional students’ ability to raise awareness about the importance of Advanced Care Planning. To assist with this, the scholars are looking forward to learning about Lewis-Manning’s innovative Advanced/Anticipatory Care Planning as part of the charity’s Hospice at Home service.”
Local GP and LM Trustee Dr Jackie Dominey concluded, “I am looking forward to working with such an enthusiastic group to raise awareness amongst professionals of supporting palliative care, it’s great to have these new scholarship students onboard.”
Director of Clinical Services at Lewis-Manning, Hayley Bonner said: “Our new students are brilliant and so passionate about growing their knowledge and skills. It’s very inspiring and our charity is incredibly proud to be supporting the next generation of nurses in this way.”