Katrina McNamara-Goodger, the Head of Policy and Practice at ACT has been named as a finalist in the Child Health category in the prestigious Nursing Times Awards.

The awards aim to recognise the achievements of nurses and the contribution they make to health care across the UK. Katrina has worked with ACT, the national charity which represents children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions and their families, since 2004 and has been acknowledged for her work on the ACT Transition Care Pathway project.

The Transition Care Pathway is a resource that aims to support young people, families and professionals as they move from child-centred palliative care services to adult-orientated services. The pathway was developed in response to the growing evidence of the unmet needs and increasing numbers of young people living with a life-limiting condition into adult years.

This work aims to provide a framework to facilitate the development of local care pathways and for this achievement Katrina has battled through strong competition to become one of the five finalists.

Katrina has considerable experience in a health and civil service environment and more recently within the voluntary sector.  She trained as a nurse in Liverpool and worked in Merseyside before joining the Department of Health as nursing adviser for children’s services where she worked until 2004. 

During that time she led the development, launch and implementation of the Diana, Princess of Wales community children’s nursing teams across England and led the development of the Department of Health’s paediatric palliative care policy and the Department’s involvement in the £48m New Opportunities Fund programme for children’s palliative care.

She is a Trustee of CHASE Children's Hospice Service in Guildford and Richard House Children's Hospice, London's first children's hospice.  She is also an active member of the Royal Naval Association and the Royal British Legion.

Judges took into account the overall quality of the projects and considerations included originality, likely impact on care, and creativity. The winner of the Child Health award was announced on the 26^th of November at an awards ceremony in London and as a finalist Katrina received £100 and a certificate of recognition. The award was presented by Rachel Downey, the Editor of Nursing Times and the Rt Hon Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Health, spoke at the event.

Katrina McNamara-Goodger, Head of Policy and Practice at ACT says: “I am delighted to have come so far in the Child Health award. It is really inspiring to see ACT’s Transition Care Pathway being recognised and to see it being acknowledged as a resource which increasing numbers of young people living with a life-limiting condition need”.

“It is a recognition for the many young people, families and practitioners who contributed to the work - especially Angela Thompson, who chaired the working group and Trustees David Widdas and Brother Francis who led the work on moving on and end of life care.”

Lizzie Chambers, the Chief Executive of ACT says: “ It is excellent that Katrina’s hard work and the efforts of ACT have been recognised. ACT’s Care Pathway will support young people as they transfer from children’s palliative care services to adult services and should make a real difference to their lives”.