Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is proud to announce that the Podiatry Team has been named a winner at the HSJ Patient Safety Awards 2025, recognising outstanding achievements and innovations in improving patient safety across the UK healthcare sector.
The HSJ Patient Safety Awards are among the most respected accolades in the healthcare community, celebrating teams and organisations that go above and beyond to protect patients and improve safety standards. This year, the Awards received 456 entries, with 216 projects shortlisted and just 25 winners selected by a panel of expert judges.
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Podiatry Team won the award in the category of Improving Medicine Safety in recognition of Podiatry Non-Medical Prescribing Pilot: to demonstrate clinical safety and effectiveness of managing moderate foot infection in high-risk groups of patients at risk of lower limb amputation.
The team, based in Southampton, undertook a 12-month prescribing pilot to evaluate the effectiveness of podiatry Non-Medical Prescribers (NMPs) and exemplifies how clinical leadership and healthcare innovation can combine to deliver measurement improvements in patient-centred care. By enabling podiatry Non-Medical Prescribers (NMPs) to play a greater role in infection management, the project demonstrated clinical safety and effectiveness, improved accessed to timely treatment and provided vital insights into antibiotic prescribing practices. Most importantly, it offers real hope to patients facing the devastating risk of lower limb amputation.
The pilot looked at all prescriptions that were issued by the Podiatry NMPs, all GP request letters that were sent when a Podiatry NMP was not available to issue, review of all swab / tissue samples taken and feedback was gathered from patients and staff.
Graham Bowen, Consultant Practitioner for Podiatry at Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare, said: “We’re incredibly honoured to have won the award, which is a testament to the dedication and hard work of our team. Patient safety is at the heart of everything we do, and this recognition highlights our commitment to delivering the highest quality of care to the people we serve.
“This 12-month project demonstrated how podiatrists with prescribing rights can safely and effectively manage moderate foot infections in high-risk patients – helping to prevent amputations, reduce hospital admissions and support antimicrobial stewardship.
“This recognition highlights the vital role of podiatry in patient safety and showcases a model that can be adopted across the UK. We hope this award inspires more podiatrists to pursue NMP training and strengthens the future of our profession.”
The judges praised the project as “interesting, unique and in-depth,” highlighting the quality of data collected, the significant time and resource savings, and the impact on antimicrobial stewardship. They were particularly impressed by the project's transferability across UK Podiatry services, noting that if implemented at scale, it could “save limbs and lives.”
