Catherine Malia wins the Jan Dewing Memorial Award

We are delighted to announce the winner of the Professor Jan Dewing Memorial Award 2024, Catherine Malia, who is a Nurse Consultant at St Gemma’s Hospice in Leeds. Catherine was drawn to work in specialist palliative care because of its grounding in person-centre, holistic care. She believes that ‘enabling genuine person-centred care requires a team approach and an organisational culture that values the importance of each individual within its community’. The assessment panel were impressed with Catherine’s understanding of and focus on person-centred care, recognising the importance of relationships and supporting the continuous development of person-centred practice within the hospice team and beyond. They were also very interested in her work to widen access to hospice care using arts-based approaches to develop advance care plans with local communities who are currently underrepresented and experience inequalities in life and death.

We would also like to Highly Commend the work of Melissa Balcorta, who is an Acute Oncology Lead Nurse at the Royal Marsden Hospital. In the words of one of her colleagues, Melissa has an ‘unwavering commitment to transforming care delivery. It is a testament to her dedication to ensuring that every patient feels valued, understood, and respected, and with her leadership she inspires a team to embody the principles of person-centred practice in every aspect of care.’ This commitment was very evident when Melissa shared with us how she and her growing team have been able to advance care delivery over recent years with very positive outcomes for patients and their families but also for staff who are described as ‘happy’ and ‘flourishing’.

The award is being supported by Jan’s partner, Jane Stokes, and is being administered by the Foundation of Nursing Studies. We would also like to thank Maria Mackay, Michele Hardiman and Catherine Buckley, for their generous support and expertise with the application and assessment process.