Hats off to Helen for Outstanding Student Award | News

Congratulations to Hascombe Ward’s Helen Bryce, who recently graduated as a paediatric nurse from Buckinghamshire New University and received the Nancy Hussey Award for Outstanding Student.

After completing her three-year nursing apprenticeship in December, Helen was shocked but delighted to hear about her award.

She said: “I was so surprised to hear I’d received the award that I showed the email to my colleagues asking if they thought it was spam. The news really came out of the blue.”

At her graduation ceremony, Helen chatted to the University’s Pro-Chancellor, Maggie Galliers CBE, and found out that the award was new to the School of Nursing and Midwifery and she was the first person to receive it.

The award recognised the exceptional quality of Helen’s work and, in particular, her outstanding dissertation on alternatives to inpatient treatment for children with anorexia.

Helen said: “I was pleased to receive the award as it’s a nice recognition of all the hard work that I’d put into the apprenticeship, but I studied with a brilliant group of students, any one of whom could have been given that award.”

Reflecting on her apprenticeship, Helen added: “I continued working as a nursery nurse during the apprenticeship, which is definitely challenging, but on the plus side, your tuition fees are all paid and you continue to earn a salary while learning so it’s a good thing to do.”

Chief Nurse, Jo Mountjoy, congratulated Helen on her impressive double achievement: “Completing a three-year nursing apprenticeship while continuing to work full time requires an enormous amount of dedication and hard work and Helen has excelled herself further by winning an award on top of this. It’s a fantastic achievement, hats off to Helen.”