Award winner Aniko Balazs

Aniko Balazs, Dental Nurse Manager for the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, has been granted a Colgate-Palmolive Dental Care Professional (DCP) Research award for £2,500.

The Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability is an independent national medical charity based in Putney, southwest London. The hospital specialises in assessing and rehabilitating adults with traumatic brain injuries incurred through accidents or strokes. It also provides both treatment and long-term care for people with severe and complex neurological conditions, including Huntington's disease, multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy.

The funds will enable support for the involvement of a dental hygienist to strengthen the current Oral Care Link Nurse scheme, which is in operation on all the hospital's wards. Aniko has worked at the charity hospital for just over a year. She said, “This award is incredibly important, both to the dentistry department and to the hospital as a whole. It will allow us to continue to improve our patient led care, and help us to work more easily in conjunction with ward staff.”

The hygienist will work with the Oral Care Link Nurses to ensure that specific patient based oral hygiene programmes are developed, enabling patients to receive individual regimes that are specific to them.

The scheme also aims to make patient oral hygiene a daily routine of ward duties.