Philip Goodeve-Docker Memorial Prize
For students of District Nursing Specialist Practitioner programmes.
This academic prize is offered to the top-performing student of the District Nursing SPQ programme in every university in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Each university is invited to nominate a District Nurse student who has demonstrated the most outstanding achievement on their programme.
Recipients of the prize are encouraged to develop future links with the QNI and take advantage of the range of support the charity offers.
You can nominate a student online using this form.
For more information, please contact Gabriella Acen at gabriella.acen@qni.org.uk.
The creation of this new award allows us to cherish and celebrate the memory of this young man who died doing what he loved, while raising funds for this charity. Due to the incredible generosity of his family and friends, we are able to do something that will really make a difference to District Nursing education, and thereby to patient care, which is what Philip set out to do. I would encourage all eligible universities to participate in this unique new scheme.
Dr Crystal Oldman CBEPhilip Goodeve-Docker
Philip, together with two colleagues, set out to cross the Greenland Ice Sheet in April 2013 as a challenge to raise funds for charity. Philip’s had chosen to fundraise for the QNI, in memory of his grandfather, Patrick Pirie-Gordon, who had been a Trustee and Treasurer of the charity for many years.
The team set out on 26 April, but became trapped in a sudden and very severe polar storm. Tragically, shortly before rescue could arrive on the morning of 28 April, Philip passed away. His two colleagues were airlifted to safety, but suffered severe frostbite during their ordeal.
In the video below, Philip’s father Nigel Goodeve-Docker speaks about his son’s experience and the ultimate sacrifice that he made for his friends. The speech was given in the QNI’s Awards Ceremony 2021, online.
Philip’s friends and family raised the amazing total of £60,000 in his memory and it is this fund that enables us to offer this prize in his name.
Philip was posthumously awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery in January 2017 and a full Citation was published formally in the London Gazette. The Citation explains in detail how he saved his friends: ‘When a gap appeared between the ice floor and the tent fabric which exposed them to the full force of the storm, Goodeve-Docker lay down along the gap and used his body as a horizontal block, allowing a snow-wall to build up and fill the gaps.’ It states he won the award, ‘For sacrificing his own life to protect his colleagues.’
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