DIV14/47: Lucy Wins First Prize Hands Down (17 November 2014)

Issue Date: 17 November 2014
Ref: DIV14/47

Lucy Boycott, seen with representatives of Whiston Hospital and Diversey Care, won first prize in an international design competition organised by Diversey Care.

Lucy Wins First Prize Hands Down
First prize for Cheshire’s Lucy Boycott in global hand hygiene drawing competition

Eleven-year-old Lucy Boycott from Cheshire has won the first prize of an Apple iPad in an international design competition organised by Diversey Care, a global leader in cleaning and hygiene. Lucy’s painting showed the importance of hand hygiene in fighting infections and was created while she was a patient at the local Whiston Hospital. In all around 20 children at the hospital responded to the call for pictures or designs on the theme of “creating a better way of life through hand hygiene” in the competition organised by Diversey Care as part of its support for the World Health Organisation’s annual hand hygiene day which also coincided with the hospital’s annual hand hygiene week.
The judges selected Lucy’s picture from hundreds received from around the world because they were impressed by its bold design that clearly demonstrated the link between clean hands and personal hygiene. Representatives from Diversey Care met Lucy, her family and members of the hospital’s nursing and infection prevention teams when they visited the hospital to present the prize during September. They also presented the hospital with drawing supplies in recognition of its support.

“It’s important for people to realise that if you don’t wash your hands you could get sick and spread illness,” said Lucy. “I’m really pleased to win the iPad and will be using it for my schoolwork this year.”

Whiston Hospital is part of the St Helens & Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. The Trust serves a population of over 350,000 people across St Helens, Knowsley, Halton, South Liverpool and further afield, providing all acute healthcare services. In addition, the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital provides treatment for patients across Merseyside, Cheshire, North Wales, the Isle of Man and other parts of the North West, serving a population of over 4 million people. The Trust has a dedicated Children and Young People’s Department that includes the Special Care Baby Unit, two dedicated children’s wards, a Children’s Observation Unit and the Children’s Community Nursing Team.

As part of their ongoing work the hospital’s infection prevention team, including Infection Prevention Nurse Specialists, Julie Grimes and Maureen Kendrick, organise an annual hand hygiene week with special events to highlight this important issue with staff, patients and visitors. Diversey Care’s competition coincided with this year’s event and the team encouraged the children attending the hospital during the week to enter.

“We always involve the children in hand hygiene awareness week because it’s such an important issue and they have lots of good ideas,” says Julie Grimes. “This year’s event tied in well with our own campaign. Lucy and the other children were really enthusiastic and took on board the message about keeping their hands clean.”

Diversey Care organised the global competition to highlight the importance of hand hygiene in the fight against infections as part of its support for the annual hand hygiene day organised by the World Health Organisation. The competition attracted entries from all around the world from teams and individuals. Other winners include a rehabilitation centre in Poland and a nursery in the UK. In addition to the drawing supplies the hospital was also presented with a display canvas to commemorate their success.

“The hospital clearly made a big effort to combine the competition with their own annual campaign week and encourage the children to enter some excellent designs,” says Victor Cegarra, Global Project and Portfolio Manager for Personal Care at Diversey Care. “It is so important to focus on hand hygiene from the very beginning because of the multiplier effect that awareness and education brings back to the community in the short and long term.”