A PROJECT that helps nursing home residents in Gwent and their families air their views about the care they receive, is in the running for a UK nursing award tonight.

The Care Home Ask and Talk (CHAaT) volunteer service is shortlisted in the enhancing the experience of care category at the Nursing Standard Nurse Awards, held in London.

The service, which deploys retired nurses and healthcare professionals to talk to residents, offers in turn the chance to improve the services they receive.

CHAaT which was launched in August 2013, has already scooped NHS Wales Awards and a Patient Experience Network national award.

Tanya Strange, divisional primary care nurse with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, is the CHAaT project leader.

She said: “There are really positive stories that need to be celebrated.

"We need to show the public that these homes can be a really good place to live."

Ms Strange designed the service and recruited volunteers – mainly retired nurses from the Gwent NHS Retirement Fellowship – and developed a training package.

As well as helping care home managers improve their governance, she created a patient information leaflet, secured senior nurse support, and developed inductions at the homes.

The CHAaT volunteers support 3,500 residents in 101 nursing and residential homes through face-to-face meetings where they can talk in private about their nursing home. Where patients are unable to communicate, relatives can have confidential discussions. As well as safeguarding, the project is also about sharing good practice.

Denise Llewellyn, the health board’s director of nursing, said: “Tanya has been instrumental in gaining the confidence of nursing and residential home matrons as well as residents and their families.”