Nurse Wins Charity Award For Her 'Outstanding Contribution In Care And Support, UK

Main Category: Lymphoma / Leukemia
Also Included In: Nursing / Midwifery;  Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 29 Sep 2008 - 1:00 PST

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A Macmillan Clinical Nurse Specialist in Haemato-Oncology has won an award for her 'Outstanding Contribution in Care and Support.'

Debbie Gardiner, who works at St George's Hospital in London, received the Lymphoma Association's Beacon of Hope Award, where she was recognized for her dedication to patients and her hard work in setting up a local support group.

As her nominator says: "Debbie holds a demanding full-time position in a busy department but she has still made time to set up the South London Lymphoma Support Group. She arranges for guest speakers to attend the meetings to answer questions about their fields of expertise and she tirelessly publicises its existence to patients and staff at St George's Hospital and oncology staff in other hospitals."

The Beacon of Hope awards are held annually on September 18th to celebrate World Lymphoma Awareness Day. Over 70 people attended the ceremony, where guests were treated to an evening of illusion and trickery at the Magic Circle in London.

Nominees from each category were awarded with a certificate by Radio 4 presenter Rory Morrison, who has Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemia, a non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

About the Lymphoma Association

Founded by patients in 1986, the Lymphoma Association is the only specialist UK charity that provides accurate medical information and support to lymphatic cancer patients, their families and friends.

Every year, nearly 11,000 new cases of lymphoma are identified in the UK alone, making it the 6th most common cancer diagnosed by clinicians, and the most common cancer affecting the 15 - 30 age group.

The services that we offer include a freephone patient helpline, free patient literature, a buddy scheme with telephone links to others with similar experiences, local support groups, regional patient conferences and comprehensive information on our award winning websites. In addition to this, the organisation is currently running a pilot project which has established five Lymphoma Association Clinical Nurse Specialist posts within NHS Haematology Units.

The Lymphoma Association is also the founder member of the Lymphatic Cancer Alliance, a UK based coalition of four charities (the others' being CancerBACKUP, Leukaemia Care and the Leukaemia Research Fund) that have come together to create awareness of lymphoma, which should result in better support, care and treatment for lymphatic cancer patients everywhere.

We also represent the patient perspective by providing evidence for the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) appraisals, being on the steering committee of the NHS Coalition for Cancer Information (CCI) and by being a founder member of the Lymphoma Coalition - an international group of lymphoma patient support organisations.

Lymphoma Association