Postgraduate Research Recognised with NHS Award
12 October 2011
Stephanie Archer
A University of Derby postgraduate student was part of a team that took home a top award at Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust's Celebrating Success Awards recently.
The 'Putting Patients First' award was won by the hospital's Enhanced Recovery Programme, which postgraduate student, Stephanie Archer, has been working in to transform NHS elective and cancer care pathways.
Her work explored to what extent the Enhanced Recovery Programme (a new approach to surgery which aims to improve the quality of patient care by helping patients to feel better sooner after surgery) has reduced the length of stay of patients undergoing surgery for gynaecological cancer.
Stephanie Archer, 25, is currently working towards a PhD under Dr Heidi Sowter, Senior Lecturer, Biological and Forensic Sciences at the University. Her supervisor for this work at the Derby Royal Hospital was Anish Bali, Consultant surgeon in Gynaecological Oncology, who is also an associate member of the University's Biological Sciences Research Group.
Stephanie said: "I thoroughly enjoyed working with the team at the Royal Derby Hospital on the Enhanced Recovery Programme.
"The programme is a great intervention which really does improve patients' experiences while they are in hospital, which in my opinion is the most important measurable outcome of any intervention.
"The award reflects all of the hard work that has been put in by the team to make this programme as successful as it has been."
The research, entitled 'Evaluating an enhanced recovery programme for gynae-oncology patients: the patient experience', has been accepted into the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) conference happening later this year.
