The Independent’s Rebecca Thomas wins health journalist of the year at British Journalism Awards

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The Independent’s health correspondent Rebecca Thomas has been named the best health journalist in the British Journalism Awards, commended for the “huge impact” of her work.

Ms Thomas’ work revealed the scandal of rape and sexual assault of patients within NHS mental health trusts, a “culture of fear” allowing nurses to abuse their patients, and the case of an autistic man who was repeatedly locked up in dementia care units and abused by nurses.

Judges at the prestigious British Journalism Awards named Ms Thomas the winner of the Health and Life Sciences category, describing her work as “three significant examples of dogged journalism which had a huge impact”.

Ms Thomas said: “I’m honoured to win this award, thank you to all of the patients and sources who shared their stories, we could not report without you, and thank you to the journalists I collaborated with and the editors who backed me.”

Kim Sengupta, The Independent’s late world affairs editor who died in July, was Highly Commended in the foreign affairs journalism category. After reports covering the war Ukraine and the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, the judges praised the “typically vivid reporting” from one of the “finest foreign correspondents of our time”.

Mr Sengupta and Ms Thomas were two of the six nominees from The Independent in this year’s British Journalism Awards, including special correspondent Zoe Beaty, crime correspondent Amy-Clare Martin, social affairs correspondent Holly Bancroft, and freelancer David James Smith.

Earlier this year, Ms Thomas also won the Medical Journalist’s Association (MJA) mental health story of the year for her 18-month long investigation into sexual abuse in NHS hospitals.

Nearly 20,000 reports of rape and sexual assault of patients were made across half of NHS mental health trusts. This was exposed by The Independent in conjunction with Sky News, in a joint investigation and podcast.

The investigation prompted former victims’ commissioner Dame Vera Baird to describe the NHS abuse as a “national scandal”, with Wes Streeting labelling it a “wake-up call” for the government while he was shadow health secretary. Rape Crisis England and Wales called for a public inquiry.

Ms Thomas was nominated for the Private Eye Paul Foot Award for Investigative and Campaigning Journalism for the same investigation earlier this year. Private Eye commended her “dogged campaign exposed systemic patient safety scandals within the UK’s ailing mental health system.”

Meanwhile, Ms Thomas investigated the case of an autistic man trapped in dementia care units and A&E wards, where he suffered abuse by nurses over a 10 year period. Ms Thomas’ reporting helped to free the patient from years of being trapped in mental health institutions.

Ms Thomas previously won the Health and Life Sciences category in the British Journalism Awards in 2022, credited for “revelatory” coverage of a crisis in A&E units.