Local nurses Brianna Anderson and Marlene Irving have been recognised for their hard work at Mercy Care Centre's Nurses & Midwives Excellence Award Ceremony, on Thursday 7 May.

Marlene was nominated for Excellence in Clinical Practise and Brianna was nominated for Excellence in Education.

There were multiple nominations for these awards across many Mercy sites across NSW and Victoria.

Marlene started working as a nurse in 1976 and spent much of her time working at Mercy Care, and has been working in the community for the last 23 years.

"When I first started in the community I was very fortunate to have two very experienced people working with me," she said.

Marlene said she had Bev Maloney and Elizabeth Baker to thank for everything she learnt in her early days.

Brianna has been working with Mercy Care for five years and credits Marlene as one of her mentors when out working in the community, and a fellow nurse Megan helped push her in the direction of educating others and helping others out as well.

Brianna said the nomination came as a bit of a surprise and never saw herself as much of an educator.

However, Briana said she has thought about it and the nomination has putt her on the path and going a little further and become an educator to help others out.

With getting closer to retirement, Marlene said she is happy that Brianna is there and is a perfect person to take up the bat and continue with the education and provide a high standard of community nursing as well as within the ward.

Brianna said she would encourage people to get into nursing as it is a really rewarding job and while it is has its challenges it is one of the better jobs in her eyes.