Published on: 17 July 2019
Rising star of Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Kelly-Hellen Hitchcock has won through to the finals of a top national award.
Trust colleague Kelly, a Community Mental Health Nurse based at Dale Bank View in Swadlincote, has been shortlisted as a finalist in the 2019 Nursing Times awards in the category of Rising Star. 
Kelly, who qualified as a Community Psychiatric Nurse last year, has already taken action to make a difference to patients’ lives, including setting up a Clozaril clinic in Swadlincote, which will make the prescription process much easier for service users.
She has also worked with the Royal College of Nursing, as vice-chair of the Derby branch and the East Midlands rep on the standards committee, and has been very active in campaigning for a change in the system for funding student nurses, via the Fund Our Future and Safer Staffing campaigns.
Kelly was encouraged to enter for the award by Bill Whitehead, Deputy Dean of Health and Social Care at the University of Derby, where she was a student nurse.
So excited
She said: “I am so excited, shocked and surprised to be a finalist for this award. I couldn’t have achieved what I have done so far without the support of my amazing team in Swadlincote.
“Lesley Edwards, Service Manager at Dale Bank View, has been so supportive. I want to thank everyone on my team for their time and their generosity. The people that I have worked with have made it possible to do all the things I want to do and I am learning from them all every day.”
In May last year, as a third-year mental health nursing student at the University of Derby, Kelly won the Outstanding Contribution to Student Affairs category at the Student Nursing Times awards, for her work with another student in setting up the university’s Nursing Society to support and unite student nurses.
The Nursing Times awards aim to recognise and reward those making nursing an innovative and inclusive profession. Kelly will now attend the evening awards ceremony on Wednesday October 30 at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane in London.
