ADVANCED nurse practitioner in radiology is celebrating after being named Nurse of the Year at a national awards ceremony.

Helen Scullion was presented with the Nursing Times Award at a glittering event in London hosted by TV and radio presenter Gethin Jones.

The accolade comes just months after she was listed as one of health and care’s Top 70 Stars as part of national celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS.

She said: “It feels completely humbling and overwhelming, but it’s an amazing feeling to receive this award. Hopefully we can now share this good practice with other teams across the NHS.”

The nurse instigated and completed specialist training to enable her to carry out interventional work at South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust such as trans-rectal ultrasound scans, biopsy services, nephrostomy tube changes and urinary diversion stent changes – tasks previously only conducted by consultants – to help patients get the right follow up care without any delays.

This has also helped to reduce the number of patients who need to be re-admitted to hospital and she is now focussing on training other members of her team to perform these procedures as well as embarking on some MRI training.