Friends of the Friarage at the 2025 Nightingale Awards
We were honoured to attend the South Tees Hospitals’ 2025 Nightingale Awards on Friday 2nd May, a ceremony which recognises and awards nursing teams and staff in the trust for their care, compassion and commitment.
Now in its 21st year, the awards are a wonderful opportunity for the trust to formally say thank you to those that go above and beyond in their work.
As part of the Friends’ commitment to supporting staff wellbeing at the Friarage, we were delighted once again to sponsor one of the awards, with the successful nominee receiving a £100 voucher for Barkers in Northallerton. We were also pleased to make a donation towards the cost of hosting the ceremony.
We are delighted to announce that the winner of the Friends of the Friarage Award was the Friarage Maternity Centre!
The Trust's judging criteria for the nominees centred around leadership, innovation, communication, excellence in care, empathy, safety quality and evidence-based practice, while the Friends' criteria for the award is that it is given to an individual or a ward who has "gone above and beyond" their job description to "enhance patient wellbeing".
There were many nominations for the Friarage Maternity Centre, which gave our Trustees a clear winner. Here is what one of the nominations said,
“The Friarage Maternity Centre team recognise the value and importance of a freestanding midwifery unit. Midwife Led Units are shown to be a safe and valuable place for women and birthing people. Not only for a safe physiological birth as a minimum, but for an overall positive experience that leads the way into parenthood.
FMC have the courage to promote the FMC, including setting up new workshops so women have access to further education and understand their birth place options fully.
The team are thorough in ensuring women are always able to make informed and educated choices. The feedback that is received is hugely positive and shows the effect the FMC team have.
To set up the new workshops the whole team walked the full length of Hadrians Wall - 84 miles - in 4 days in order to raise money to contribute to further equipment and resources. This in itself shows the determination, commitment and passion of the midwives who work there.
FMC now offer an active birth workshop, aquanatal and relaxation session, with the hope to start more classes soon."
Friends of the Friarage would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to our hardworking NHS staff and a hearty well done to all those who were nominated.
Nominations for the 2026 awards will open soon so keep an eye out if you have a particular team or member of staff that you think deserves an award!