Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust was the only organisation to have two nominations for the national Nursing Standard’s Nursing Awards 2011 and came out the winners in both.

The Step 2 Team, based in Stevenage but covering the whole County, won in the category Mental Health: Innovation with patient involvement in recovery planning. Step 2 is an innovative service set up to support professionals in improving the mental health and emotional well being of children and young people in Hertfordshire.

The team won for their Bright Stars therapeutic programme which tackles anxiety, low self-esteem and anger amongst young people. The judges praised the team for working to “lessen the stigma attached to mental health services for young people”.

The second award went to the Learning Disability Team at The Mount Prison in the category Nursing Innovations in the Criminal Justice System. The team is made up of a number of specialists – Healthcare (Herts Community), Mental Health (Herts Partnership Foundation Trust), Learning Disability Officer (Prison) and Community LD Lead (HPFT) – to support people with learning disabilities who are in prison.

Liberal Democrat County Councillor Allan Siao Ming Witherick who has sat on Health Scrutiny said:  “This is a great reminder that whilst we know there are concerns with the NHS etc there are also great examples which we should be proud of in our county.”