TUS Wins HSE Excellence Award for Integrated Student Sexual Health, Promotion and Contraception Service

TUS HSE Excellence Award – Dr Dominic Rowley, consultant in sexual health and HIV; Sarah La Cumbre, TUS Student Resource Centre manager; Laura Tully, project lead and TUS Student Health Centre manager; HSE CEO Paul Reid, VP for Student Education and Experience Frances O’Connell, Dr Tom Walsh, GP clinical lead at TUS Student Health Service; and Audrey Doyle, TUS Student Health Centre administrator, pictured at the HSE Excellence Awards in Farmleigh, Dublin.

The award-winning student sexual health service is free of charge to all students and delivered on site

The Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) has won a national award for its new integrated student sexual health, contraception, and health promotion service, which aims to deliver the right care to students in the right place at the right time.

The pioneering nurse-led service, which is funded by the HSE and introduced to students on TUS Athlone campus in 2021/22 academic year was awarded the ‘Sláintecare Integration’ HSE Excellence Award at an event held in Farmleigh, Dublin.

advertisement

advertisement

advertisement

The self-referral service, available to all students free of charge, is delivered on-site on campus with the view to promoting patient comfort and removing barriers to access, such as travel time, costs, stigma, fear, and embarrassment.

The TUS facility offers a comprehensive range of services including the full testing and treatment of STIs, vaccinations, contraception advice, pregnancy testing, PEPSE/PREP, health promotion, the provision of condoms, and information resources.

Without services in the area, students previously had to travel for up to an hour to receive treatment, with data showing that 90 percent of those referred to a specialist service were missing their appointments.

Now, with appointments available – often on the same day – on TUS’s Athlone campus, there has been an almost 3,000 percent increase in the number of students attending appointments in addition to a 100 percent increase in partner notifications, where appropriate.

“We are proud to receive this TUS HSE Excellence Award as acknowledgment of the positive impact our pioneering, integrated sexual health, contraception and health promotion service has in providing equitable, accessible nurse-led care in the right time and place,” said Laura Tully, project lead and TUS Sexual Health Service nurse manager in Athlone.

“The contributions of our GP clinical lead Dr Tom Walsh, Dr Dominic Rowley, consultant in sexual health and HIV; the Sexual Health and Crisis Pregnancy Programme, HSE colleagues at Mullingar Regional Hospital laboratory and Genitourinary Medicine Department are valued as are the inputs and support of the entire team at TUS.”

She continued, “It is my pleasure and honour to lead this project from initial concept, pitch, and plan through implementation and delivery for the past two years, and I am excited about the acknowledged upscale potential and look forward to progressing plans to expand the service across the entire TUS campus community.”

Welcoming the TUS HSE Excellence Award, Frances O’Connell, VP for Student Education and Experience across TUS, said, “It is wonderful to see the tremendous efforts of Nurse Tully and the team at the TUS Student Sexual Health Service recognised at a national level for their work in creating a space free from judgement where students’ health concerns can be addressed in a holistic and confidential manner.

“Health worries can have a profoundly detrimental impact on student’s ability to engage fully with their work, but by having this service freely available to students by self-referral, they can access all the help and support they might require, enabling them to focus on their academic work and enjoying their university experience.”

“Following the success of this pilot model of student health care, we are now looking to the HSE and other funding mechanisms that would enable us to extend the service to all six TUS campuses, and indeed there is interest in seeing how this might be replicated across the sector,” she added.

Speaking at the launch, Stephen Donnelly, Minister for Health said, “the projects are great examples of the work that happens across our health service” and thanked all involved.

TUS also received a highly commended award in the ‘Improving Patient Experience’ category at the HSE Excellence Awards.

For more about TUS, go HERE 

For more stories on TUS, go HERE