Professor Diana Greenfield earns top nursing honour

Diana is one of seven individuals nationally to receive the top accolade, which is the highest honour awarded by the professional body.

With over 40 years’ nursing experience, Diana is recognised as an authority on cancer survivorship and the late effects of cancer. She pioneered the first adult nurse-led cancer late effects service in the UK, in 2009, at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Since then, she has continued to influence the development of late effects services, and many NHS Trusts have gone on to set up their own late effects services.

The Sheffield late effects team has also recently been awarded the Ingrid Fuchs Cancer Nursing Award and was a finalist for both Team of the Year and the HRH The King’s Award for Integrated Approaches to Care at the 2024 Nursing Times Awards.

Diana has helped to secure multiple research grants, worth more than £13 million, and co-authored over 140 peer reviewed research publications.

Diana established and co-chairs both the Sheffield and Doncaster Nursing Midwifery and Allied Health Professional, Clinical Academic Working Group and the Research Internship Programme at Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Diana was awarded an Honorary Chair in Cancer Survivorship by the University of Sheffield in 2015, the first person in the UK believed to have been bestowed this honour, and Honorary Chair in Nursing by Sheffield Hallam University in 2021.

Professor Diana Greenfield, Consultant Nurse at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and Honorary Professor, said: “It is an absolute honour and privilege to receive this Fellowship Award from the Royal College of Nursing. I am grateful to Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, and all my dedicated colleagues, for the support they give me in my different roles but more importantly, gratitude goes to the patients and families I care for; their experiences and resilience inspires me every day to do the best I can for them. I’m incredibly proud to be a nurse.”

Professor Chris Morley, Chief Nurse for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The Sheffield late effects service and team, led by Diana Greenfield, has transformed the lives of thousands of cancer survivors nationally and internationally, so we are delighted that this work has been recognised with this award.”