FRIDAY, 31 OCTOBER, 2025

Photos attached: 1 – Kinclaven Ward, 2 – Donna Robertson, 3 – Keith Russell, 4 – Intensive Psychiatric Care Unit, 5 – Suzanne Gray and Eilaine White

Tayside mental health nurses scoop national awards

Mental health nurses from teams across Tayside have been recognised in the annual Mental Health Nursing Forum (MHNF) Scotland Awards 2025.

A number of staff and nursing teams in Tayside were honoured at the national conference and awards ceremony in Glasgow, which celebrate excellence in mental health nursing practice.

Kinclaven Ward at Murray Royal Hospital, which is an inpatient addiction rehabilitation unit, picked up the Johnathan MacLennan Award for Practice Development for an innovative project focused on gathering and presenting patient feedback visually on the ward. The team’s efforts enhanced engagement with patients and strengthened how they progress improvements and share positive stories with new patients.

Improvement advisor Donna Robertson was highly commended in the same category for her work on improving one-to-one time with patients. The project was part of Donna's Fellowship which focused on nurse/patient communication and the core roles and responsibilities of mental health nurses, leading to a marked increase in one-to-ones undertaken and quality of mental state examinations carried out.

Nurse Director for Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Keith Russell was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for his work nationally as chair of the Mental Health Nurse Leads and his involvement and leadership to the Mental Health Nurse Review.

In the Inpatient Mental Health Care category, the Intensive Psychiatric Care Unit at Carseview Centre was highly commended for the team’s passion and drive around initiatives to reduce violence and aggression on the ward and improvements to the patient environment and therapeutic space.

Dementia nurse consultant Dr Suzanne Gray and clinical academic nurse consultant for older people Eilaine White were highly commended in the Older Adult Services category in recognition of their ‘Live and Jive’ project, which saw a live band perform in Ninewells Hospital, playing personalised requests of meaningful songs for patients living with dementia. The event was also streamed to wards for those who weren’t medically fit to attend, and provided an opportunity for patients, staff, families and volunteers to enjoy music together, reducing feelings of loneliness, stress and distress.

Associate Nurse Director for Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Sarra Kettles said, “We are extremely proud of our winners of the MHNF Scotland Awards 2025, who come from a wide range of mental health teams across Tayside.

“These examples of innovative projects show their hard work and dedication in improving patient care and we were delighted to celebrate them at the ceremony in Glasgow. Congratulations to all our winners.” 

The MHNF Scotland awards are designed to highlight innovation and good practice in contemporary mental health nursing.

Contact:

Louise Wilson

NHS Tayside Communications

(01382) 740718