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Long-serving Sexual Health Nurse Muriel O’Driscoll has been awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) for “services to nursing” in the recent Queen’s birthday honours list.
Muriel started her training in sexual health nursing at Brook in 1969, just five years after the charity was founded. She has seen huge changes in the area of contraceptive and sexual health over the course of her career – when she began working at Brook, contraception was unavailable to unmarried women apart from through Brook services.
Muriel and her colleagues working in outreach won a Nursing Times/3M award for innovation in 1997, for a project on the Woodchurch estate in Wirral. She has continued to keep up with changes in technology, most recently learning from clients about apps and cyberbullying.
She comments:
“I was surprised and thrilled at my award as all I have done is my job as a sexual health nurse and educator, trying to keep the Brook ethos at the forefront.
"Protecting clients and ensuring that they have the knowledge and self esteem to make choices and also to say 'no' is vital, along with providing a confidential service for clients to feel safe to tell without judgement.”
For media enquiries please contact Brook's press office on 07789 682831 or email press@brook.org.uk
Notes to editors
Brook believes that young people should have access to great sexual health services and wellbeing support.
Brook provides free and confidential sexual health information, contraception, pregnancy testing, advice and counselling, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections and education programmes, reaching nearly 235,000 young people nationwide every year.
Read our Strategic Plan 2017-2020 and learn more about the difference we make in our latest Success Report.
