University invites students to take on Dragon's Den style nursing and midwifery challenge

Students at Plymouth University have been invited to submit their ideas for a Dragon’s Den style challenge that could see them changing the way the NHS functions.

The Nursing and Midwifery Challenge tasks the University’s final year nursing and midwifery students with coming up with an idea that they think could solve a real issue or problem in current health service practice, before pitching it to an elite panel of health professionals from across the South West.

The award-winning Challenge is now in its fourth year and has already led to advancements in the region’s health care system. Former winner Sarah Richards had her proposal to manage patient fluid levels implemented in the intensive care unit of a major regional hospital, following her successful pitch to the panel in 2012.

Having been recognised for its ability to generate potentially life-changing ideas, this year the Challenge has been expanded to include midwifery students, and for the first time will require students to come up with ideas for two new categories, Best Sustainability Idea and Interprofessional Working, alongside the existing Nursing and Midwifery Challenge.

Louise Winfield, Lecturer in Adult Nursing at Plymouth University’s School of Nursing and Midwifery, who this year received a Plymouth University Vice-Chancellor’s Enterprise Award for founding the Challenge, said: “The expansion of the Nursing and Midwifery Challenge is testament to the incredible response we have had from students and the wider community. We also see it as an opportunity to encourage students from the midwifery and nursing courses to work together to come up with innovative and impacting ideas.

“The Challenge enables students to network and build relationships that will remain important throughout their careers, and as a University we relish the opportunity it brings to strengthen relationships with local trusts and build our reputation as an institution that inspires enterprising ideas in our students.”

The winner of the Nursing and Midwifery Challenge will receive £400, and the runner up £200. A six month work space in the Formation Zone at the Health & Wellbeing Innovation Centre in Truro, worth £1000, will also be up for grabs. This coveted prize will be awarded to the entrant that the judges feel will find it most useful, as the work space could be used to prepare the winning idea for commercial development.

Students can apply individually or in groups of up to four and each must complete an initial concept form to introduce their idea, before developing it to present to the panel of judges if successfully shortlisted.

Karen Murray, Manager of the Health and Wellbeing Innovation Centre in Truro operated by Plymouth University on behalf of Cornwall Council, who is sitting on the judging panel this year, said: “We are looking for students to demonstrate their creativity and innovative minds by identifying improvements that can be made to patient care, service and practice. The ideas students develop can make a difference and potentially transform lives.”

The 2013 Nursing Challenge prize went to Carl Brooks-Plunkett, who developed an idea to provide specialist trained volunteers to care for sick children, allowing parents to take much needed breaks.

Sarah Richards, who won the University’s 2012 Nursing Challenge and is now a Staff Nurse in the Intensive Care Unit of the Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust, said: “Plymouth University’s Nursing and Midwifery Challenge is a platform for innovation and those who take part are committed to developing positive outcomes for the future of our health service. I hope that it continues to attract forward thinking, proactive individuals who will develop dynamic ideas.”

For more information on the Nursing and Midwifery Challenge 2014 visit the Plymouth University website.