Edge Hill nurses receive top award from Game of Thrones star

Alice Waddington, from Leyland, Wigan woman Eve Hesketh and Emily Kavanagh, from Lytham St Annes, picked up the Andrew Park Student Nurse Award at the 2019 RCNi Nurse Awards from Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke, an ambassador and champion of the profession.

The learning disability nurses, also winners of the Student Innovation in Practice accolade in the 2019 Student Nursing Times Awards, were nominated for their work promoting the Makaton language, designed to help people who have difficulty speaking communicate.

Inspired by a mother’s story of how her daughter struggled to communicate with healthcare professionals, the have continued to raise awareness of Makaton signing amongst their peers via workshops, promoting their cards which have since been downloaded over 5,000 times from The Makaton Charity website.Their work has reached other areas of society .

After the ceremony, hosted by Kate Garraway, the trio said:

“We’re absolutely thrilled to have won the Andrew Parker Student Nurse of the Year award. It was an amazing evening and we felt privileged to be in the company of such inspirational nurses. We were also lucky enough to raise the profile of Makaton by teaching Kate Garraway to sign ‘Hello my name is Kate’ and managed to give Emilia Clarke a copy of our Makaton healthcare cards, which we created.

“We are so excited that we won this award and aim to use this platform to raise further awareness around inclusive communication and the profile of learning disability nursing.”