Chester’s Milk Bank wins prestigious King’s Award at Nursing Times Awards

The Milk Bank at Chester, based at the Countess of Chester Hospital, has won the King’s Award for Integrated Approaches to Care at the Nursing Times Awards 2025 – one of the UK’s most respected healthcare honours.

As the largest NHS milk bank in England, the Chester team processes and distributes safe, screened donor milk to over 70 hospitals across the UK. This milk helps feed premature and poorly babies when their own mother’s milk isn’t available.

But this award isn’t just about milk: it’s about people.

It recognises the Memory Milk Gift initiative, a pioneering programme that supports families who’ve lost a baby and choose to donate milk in their baby’s memory. Just as patients recovering from surgery receive joined-up care and rehabilitation, this initiative ensures that bereaved families are supported emotionally and physically throughout and after their donation journey. It’s a model of recovery and compassion that’s long overdue – and now being embraced across the NHS.

The initiative offers joined-up support, ranging from midwives, neonatal teams and wellbeing services, so families are never left to cope alone. From the first conversation about donation, through screening and collection, to emotional support and remembrance, care is wrapped around every step.

One of those families is Rowen Emmett O’Toole, mum to Milo. After losing her son, Rowen chose to donate her milk in his memory, turning grief into legacy. Her experience highlighted the need for the NHS to handle these sensitive conversations with more care. By working with the team behind the initiative, Rowen’s story helped shape a national training course that now supports NHS staff to speak to bereaved families with empathy and confidence.

What began as a local scheme at the Countess of Chester Hospital has grown into a national and international model. More than 50 NHS Trusts have adopted the approach, each tailoring it to suit their own communities.

The initiative includes:

• Lactation After Loss – a fully funded online national training course co-developed with Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, inspired by families like Rowen’s, to help NHS staff talk to bereaved families about milk donation with compassion and clarity.
• Fly Mama support – free wellbeing resources including yoga, mental health talks and peer support, available to all patients who donate through the Chester Milk Bank, and to staff at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
• Legacy options – families can add their baby’s name to the Memory Milk Tree (a wall art display in Chester), receive a hand-painted pebble, or take part in remembrance events like the annual Ribbon Walk at the Countess of Chester Country Park.

Judges praised the initiative for its sensitive, practical approach to supporting families in exceptional circumstances. It’s a model of care that continues to grow; not only helping families directly but also contributing to research and training across the NHS.

Laura Atherton, Head of the Milk Bank at Chester, said: “Since I took on the role in 2021, I’ve wanted to make sure families going through baby loss feel supported every step of the way. Milk donation after loss isn’t just a clinical process – it’s emotional, personal, and often part of someone’s healing. The Memory Milk Gift initiative is about offering care before, during and after donation, so families feel listened to, respected and never alone. I believe every family deserves that kind of support, and I’m proud that we’re helping to set a new standard for how the NHS can wrap its arms around people during one of the hardest times in their lives.”

The Milk Bank handles the milk, but the Memory Milk Gift initiative is the human care side of the service. It ensures every hospital staff member involved in a patient’s milk donation journey is trained, confident and compassionate.

This is integrated care in action – a model already being scaled nationally, with potential to go even further. It’s the kind of innovation that aligns with Wes Streeting’s call to “take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS.”

Special thanks are given to Perinatal Midwife Sara Balmforth from Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice, whose compassionate care and collaboration also helped bring the initiative to life.