A NURSE has secured a place on a course for the UK’s most outstanding healthcare workers, months after recovering from Covid-19.

Momodou Bojang, who works at Arundel and District Community Hospital, was awarded a scholarship on a leadership and management programme run by the Florence Nightingale Foundation.

The Foundation said the 38-year-old from Bognor had submitted an “outstanding” application.

Momodou, who submitted the paperwork only hours before the deadline and just months after recovering from coronavirus, said he was "astonished and delighted" to be accepted.

Momodou trained as a nurse in The Gambia and moved to the UK in 2008.

He served for eight years as a combat medical technician and healthcare assistant in the British Army before enrolling on a nursing degree course at the University of Portsmouth.

Momodou chose to finish his degree course by taking up a placement with Sussex Community Foundation Trust at the hospital in Arundel, and was one of the nurses drafted in to help with the Trust’s emergency response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Despite being forced to take a fortnight off after being “hit hard” by the virus, which carries an increased risk of death for people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, he recovered, graduated and became a fully qualified nurse, and submitted his application to the Florence Nightingale Foundation.

His aim now is to complete the Florence Nightingale Foundation programme before considering his next move.

He said: “I feel very privileged.

"It’s the best thing any nurse can hope to get their hands on.”