The aim of the awards are to improve Welsh language provision in healthcare for the public and patients, and the Health Science team from Swansea University nominated their eWard project in the Education category.

This prize will be awarded to the Higher or Further Education institution that has made the greatest effort to improve bilingual provision in healthcare through education.

Carwen Earles, who nominated the project said: "Our eWard project is an electronic learning package designed to help nursing and other healthcare students develop their decision-making and care-planning skills that play a key role in the care of their patients.

"This innovative project is designed to complement traditional forms of education for healthcare students by teaching different skills to the hands-on practice that students develop in clinical suits and on placements in hospitals or the community.

"We decided to use eWard to develop extra Welsh medium learning opportunities in order to support our Welsh speaking students. Over the past year School of Health Science lecturers, e-learning staff, NHS Trust colleagues and students have worked together to develop this Welsh eWard project."

The team, which includes Carwen Earles, Mike Tait, Mary Paget and Fran Thornton, believe that their eWard project benefits Welsh speaking patients as it creates confidence in students' ability to deliver care within the Welsh language.

"If we won the prize money of £1,000 it would be put towards the next step in developing Welsh language within the curriculum," added Carwen Earles.

The awards will be presented at the annual Welsh Language in Healthcare Conference on Wednesday, May 21, at City Hall, Cardiff. 

The conference has been held annually since 2003, and in 2004 the Welsh Language in Healthcare Awards were introduced.  This year there have been approximately 70 nominations.

For more information on the School of Health Science, visit the website.