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Cutting down on inappropriate antibiotic prescribing in primary care, preventing surgical site infections across hospitals, and improving care for patients with depression and bipolar disorder are the projects in the running to win this year's NICE Shared Learning Award.

Now in their eighth year, the NICE Shared Learning Awards recognise and reward services and organisations with innovative and effective ways of putting NICE guidance and quality standards into practice.

This year, NICE received over 70 entries coming from organisations across the NHS, local authorities, social care, and the voluntary and private sectors.

The finalists were selected from a shortlist of 20 entries, including a diverse range of projects such as supporting people living with dementia, identifying and managing malnutrition in care homes, and maximising access to a cardiac rehabilitation service for patients with heart disease.

Each finalist will be given the opportunity to present their work at this year's NICE Annual Conference at the ICC in Birmingham on 14-15 May. The overall winner will be voted for by conference delegates.

In addition to the three finalists, our judging panel has also selected 17 highly commended entries who will present posters about their projects at the NICE Conference.

Val Moore, Implementation Programme Director at NICE, said: “Once again we have had a fantastic response to our Shared Learning Awards with over 70 submissions, all extremely interesting, and from a diverse range of organisations. Coming up with a shortlist and then selecting three finalists was extremely tough.

“The aim of the Shared Learning Awards is to recognise and reward organisations who have systematically tried to find new ways of working to implement NICE guidance and standards and ultimately improve health and wellbeing for users of services and their families or the broader public.

“This ‘shared learning' is important in helping the NHS, charities, local authorities and others find effective ways to put NICE guidance into practice.”

Last year, South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust won the top prize for their work in improving clinical practice across the South West.

The acquisition of the Great Western Ambulance Service by the Trust created an opportunity for both organisations to work together to harmonise care and improve practice.

The Trust aimed to harmonise clinical practice from day one using NICE guidance to set a standard for care. However, this proved to be challenging given that 4,000 staff work across 120 sites.

To apply the guidelines in a fast-moving ambulance setting, and ensure frontline staff had quick access to key clinical information, the Trust took a radically new approach towards guidance dissemination.

It developed a clinical guidelines folder developed by senior clinical teams working together to review guidance. This provided a standard, concise and easily accessible resource written by ambulance clinicians, for ambulance clinicians.

The folders helped with the availability of guidance for ambulance clinicians in the field, provided a higher profile of evidence based practice, improved implementation of guidance, and most importantly, improved care.

A range of NICE guidance is now firmly embedded across the organisation, leading to an accompanying increase in the profile of NICE resources.