THE Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has been shortlisted for a prestigious award by the Health Service Journal (HSJ).

Shortlisted in the Board Leadership category for its Achieving Exellence programme, the Guildford-based hospital will compete against seven other organisations for the prize - including Ashford & St Peter’s Hospitals Foundation Trust which is undergoing a merger with the Royal Surrey.

Created in 1981, the HSJ Awards represent the largest celebration of excellence in UK healthcare, highlighting the most innovative and successful people and projects in the sector.

This year, more than 600 unique organisations submitted over 1,600 entries to the awards, the winners of which are to be announced on November 18 at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London.

Peter Dunt, chairman of the Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The trust has a proven track record of providing good and safe patient care, however we always strive to continually improve standards.

“The Achieving Excellence programme saw the development of an accreditation system to provide an indication of how well the wards were performing against the trust standards and provide a goal and action plan for improvement.

“The programme is fully aligned to the trust’s strategy and includes the assessment of the whole ward team, standardising processes across the trust, with regular visibility of board members on the wards.

“I’m really proud of everyone involved in not only the development of this programme, but in how hard staff across the trust have worked to implement it to ensure the benefits it can bring to our patients are realised.”