A PIECE of artwork to celebrate 125 years of nursing in the county has been made by a student to say thank you to those who looked after her late grandmother.

Oxford Brookes University student Tess Pierce, from Oakley, near Chinnor, volunteered to create a “message tree” to show her appreciation.

It will sit in the Abercrombie Building at the Headington Campus where people can hang messages to highlight what nurses mean to them over the coming months.

Miss Pierce stepped forward because of the nursing care her grandmother received before she lost her battle with cancer in 2013.

Brenda Pierce, who was 79 when she died, was treated at the John Radcliffe Hospital and later looked after at Sobell House Hospice.

Miss Pierce responded to an e-mail asking for an art student to draw a tree to have messages stuck on.

The 20-year-old said: “I wanted to design something 3D so I made the tree and stuck on all the branches.

“The nurses were brilliant with my grandmother – it could have been much worse otherwise. They were non-judgmental and you could talk to them about anything.”

The first-year student hopes the tree will enable others to express what nurses mean to them.

She added: “The artwork is intended to be on behalf of everyone nurses in the county have looked after.

“The history of nursing and quality of care in Oxfordshire is brilliant and I think that maybe people who have lived here all their lives don’t realise that.”

On Thursday the university launched its year-long celebration of the 125-year milestone by cutting a cake and hearing speeches from several key figures from the world of nursing.

Dr Liz Westcott, head of the university’s department of nursing, said: “We had people from the Radcliffe Guild of Nurses and from both OUH and Oxford Health, which was a really nice way to start the celebrations.”