The Look, June 2016

the

Look

For Southend University Hospital staff & volunteers

June 2016

Nursing awards

Tech care

Charity round-up

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Debut awards recognise ‘care for compassion’.

IT systems are improving efficiency and safety.

We take a look at latest trust charity exploits.

Hospital Heroes 2016

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Nominations for the trust’s fourth annual Hospital Heroes awards are now open and it’s your chance to reward your colleagues who best exemplify the trust’s values and their underpinning behaviours – care with compassion, working together, professional and accountable.

There are eight categories in total spanning all grades and professions, with awards specifically aimed at teams, clinical staff, support staff and leaders: > Employee of the year (from monthly award winners) (£250) > The working together award (£300) > Innovation (£100) > Care with compassion award (£100) > Chief executive’s leading by example/professional and accountable award (£100) > Chairman’s outstanding achievement award (£100) > Unsung Hero (£100) > Patient Choice (public award) (£200) With the exception of the employee of the year award (selected from the monthly award winners) and the

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Tower tackled

WINNERS: Neptune ward were last year’s Patients’ Choice winners

chairman’s outstanding achievement award (selected from all nominees across all categories submitted for the annual awards), all nominees are entered for a specific award by either colleagues or patients.

Sue Hardy, Chief Executive, said: “Our awards shine a light on those who demonstrate our ethos, vision and values in their daily working lives.

With the trust experiencing unprecedented pressures and scrutiny, I am delighted that our departments continue to focus on delivering high quality care. Hospital Heroes,

based around our values of ‘care with compassion’ being delivered through ‘working together’ and being ‘professional and accountable’, gives us the opportunity to collectively celebrate this inspirational commitment.”

Alan Tobias OBE, Chairman, added: “These awards are made extra special by the fact it’s our staff who nominate the colleagues they feel best embody the trust’s values, taking pride in working alongside them.”

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Over 50 brave souls scaled the top of the hospital tower block of last month, all raising money for hospital wards or charity appeals of their choice.

Participants abseiled down 154 feet in their droves, more often than not in fancy dress as everyone from Batman and Robin to Supermum and Deadpool. It is hoped that the ten storey traverse of the building will equal the amount raised last year, an impressive £10,000.

Lucy Lock, fundraising officer, said: “As ever, it is fantastic to have so much support for this event from staff and public alike.

“We had people aged from 16-80 taking part this year, which just goes to show how wide the support for the hospital is.”

If you are interested in taking part in next year’s Tackle the Tower please email fundraising@southend.nhs.uk You can see more images on our facebook page: facebook.com/SouthendNHS

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monthly winners EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT & ASSOCIATED SPECIALTIES

Nervecentre clinical lead & support nurses, Rhona Hayden & Sherri Bradshaw

Care with compassion, working together, professional and accountable – our values resonate strongly with our emergency department and various specialties around the hospital who all worked as one to manage several casualties following the breakout of a fire in a block of flats in Westcliff.

Each specialty worked together as a single team to ensure effective patient care was delivered, embodying our values and demonstrating excellent clinical teamwork and leadership.

Emergency department consultant, Dr Dalip Kumar, who was the clinical lead on the evening of the incident, said: “I want to acknowledge the whole of the emergency department team and specialities working that night for their hard work, dedication and professionalism. The response of the emergency department team, HCAs , porters, reception staff, radiographers, lab technicians and all those who were supporting us at that time was fantastic.

The on-call medical, surgical, paediatric, intensive care and obstetrics teams, the site managers and senior manager on call – I want to thank you all.

Get in touch Claire Hankey Head of communications Amanda Burton Senior communications manager Carly Ross Communications manager Dean Newman Communications manager Alex Norman Communications & engagement officer All can be contacted at

communications@ southend.nhs.uk 2 the Look

The first phase of the Nervecentre project was to implement the system to record observations electronically on the wards, and both Rhona and Sherri have been imperative to its success.

They have gone above and beyond, day and night, supporting both the technical members of the project team and the nurses on the wards to ensure that clinical safety and patient experience is top of everyone’s agenda.

Rhona and Sherri were nominated

by IT projects and transition manager, Keiran Donovan who said: “I cannot think of a better example of working across multiple teams and taking ownership of difficult decisions whilst ensuring patients are receiving the care they deserve.

“Rhona and Sherri have taken a huge leap out of their comfort zones and engaged in a very technological project to ensure the successful delivery of its first phase.” n See page 5 for our Nervecentre update

Maternity HEALTHCARE ASSISTANT, Sandra Lopez Sandra was nominated for her commitment to looking after a patient with Parkinson’s disease and dementia on Eastwood ward who had sustained a fall. The patient was very confused and understandably distressed, yet Sandra had a calming effect on her.

Sandra’s kindness, patience and compassion is incredible. The relationship she had built with the patient meant the medical team were able to facilitate oral fluids which had previously been refused by the patient, in turn allowing her to be safely transferred back to her own bed.

Nominated by women’s and children’s directorate matron, Ruth Cozens, she said: “Sandra had only worked as an HCA on the maternity unit so this experience was out of her usual remit.

“She maintained a professional demeanour throughout and acted as a role model for the student nurse on duty.

Every member of staff on duty that day was amazed by Sandra and wanted to steal her!”

How to nominate for Hospital Heroes ANNUAL Awards 2016

Download and complete a nomination form from Staffnet and submit it to hospital.heroes@southend.nhs.uk. Please include the category in the subject line & name of nominee. You can also print and post a hard copy via internal post to the communication department at The Lodge.

Closing date for nominations is noon on Friday 22 July 2016

Staff forum – recruiting now The trust is now recruiting for a new staff forum which will provide an opportunity for two-way communication and feedback, discussing strategies, policies, organisational change and other issues related to working here. It will also be a place for ideas and suggestions to be heard and, wherever possible, acted upon.

Feedback from the forum

will be shared with the corporate management team to inform decision making.

If you are passionate about improving engagement or want to get involved in improving how we work together, the staff forum is the ideal platform for you.

We are aiming for clinical representatives from each directorate alongside a non-clinical participant plus finance, IT, HR and corporate

services.

The first meeting will be held on 10 June at 10am with monthly meetings thereafter.

To find out more email communications@ southend.nhs.uk.

June 2016

THE

Nursing Os-cares

Helen Cullen (Bunn) Ward manager, Princess Anne - nominated by medicine Helen has been the ward manager on Princess Anne ward since January 2016. She has had a calming influence and has raised morale with her leadership in a very short period of time.

Kylie Locke [1] Matron for care of the elderly - nominated by the heads of nursing Kylie has been nominated for her dedication to dementia services and the development of the strategy which will improve the care and environment for our patients not just in medicine but across the trust.

Andrea Turner [2] Ward manager Kitty Hubbard - nominated by Ruth Gale Andrea always puts the patients first and she often stays late to ensure expected patients have arrived and are settled. She is compassionate and will always try to make a bed available on her ward if a patient needs it.

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As part of the senior nurses away day last month, there were a series of awards for care with compassion recognising nominated nurses from each of the directorates.

This was the first time the trust had held these awards.

They were handed out

by Chris Powell who raised money for Southend nurses

with his charity event Band4Life last year, where he raised over £2,000. Chris wanted to donate the money to hard-working nurses.

Yvonne Blücher, chief nurse (left), handed out the awards alongside Sue Hardy, chief executive.

Yvonne, said: “We felt it proper to recognise and award

nurses who have shown exceptional commitment to compassionate care within their roles. Many will say they are just doing their jobs, but we wanted to reward the attitude and positive impact they have at the hospital for patients and staff alike. What better way to celebrate that than in front of their peers.”

Sarah Haines Learning disability lead nurse - nominated by heads of nursing

Nellie Osei Healthcare assistant in the talentpool - nominated by Jenny Frost

Keith Parkins Trauma nurse - nominated by MSK

Sarah’s hard work and dedication have ensured that our patients receive compassionate patientcentred care. She is well respected by our external partners and has ensured that, as a trust, we are recognised as being an area of excellent practice.

Nellie works in the talent pool whilst studying at college before hopefully starting to train next year to become a physiotherapist. Nellie always comes into work with a positive attitude.

She goes where ever she is asked without questioning or arguing. She always has a smile on her face. The areas that she works in give great feedback and they would all like to keep her.

Laura Gibbons [3] Practice development nurse - nominated by Julie Coleman Laura always puts the patients first and no matter what her own work pressures have been, she has always shown a great understanding of the bigger picture. She has supported any clinical area we have asked her to over the last five months, often at very short notice. She has never complained and has always acted as a good role model with a high level of professionalism.

Helen Holder [4] Day stay manager nominated by Cheryl Schwarz Helen has recently taken up the post of manager for the day stay unit. She has been instrumental in recognising patient safety issues and driving forward changes to improve patient care. She has empowered her staff to help deliver the changes.

Keith is always very flexible and helps to cover shifts at really short notice. Patient feedback about him is that he is always going the extra mile delivering patient care particularly out of hours.

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Tech care Doctors and allied health professionals may be on the frontline of healthcare, but those working behind the scenes on related IT systems are taking the frontline online.

This is already improving staff efficiency and enhancing patient safety, ensuring Southend delivers a better,

faster, stronger service for staff and patients.

Successful bids to NHS England’s Integrated Digital Care Fund has seen the trust implement EP and Nervecentre, both of which are already making a huge difference to the lives of staff and patients.

EP has been rolled out across the trust with great success

Electronic prescribing (EP) Electronic prescribing (EP), which in its simplest form is an electronic drug chart – in the short space of eight months – been rolled out across 23 medical and surgical wards including theatres and the post-operative unit, with great success.

And as Chris Overland, Pharmacy EP lead, explained, it is making such an immediate positive difference: “It’s saving time for nurses on the ward who would previously have had to take drug charts to pharmacy multiple times a day. EP medication requests can be sent and actioned electronically in real time at the touch of button, which saves hours of nursing time, releasing them to concentrate on looking after patients.”

Nursing staff now have a laptop attached to their drug trolley, which allows them

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to view prescriptions and administer medication at the touch of a button in front of the patient.

Julie Edwards, Castlepoint ward manager, said: “It has revolutionised the way we work and we have found that EP is more convenient, flexible, safer, takes less time and improves our work flow.

We have quick access to prescriptions which are now easy to read.

EP makes us feel much safer, especially with medications we are not certain of and we can quickly access information for ourselves and our patients.

“Communication has greatly improved between ourselves and pharmacy, especially regarding prompt supply of needed medications and TTAs. We love EP.” Time and motion studies carried out after the introduction of EP estimate:

840 hours (35 days) have been saved with clinical ward staff not looking for paper drug charts; 2,280 hours (95 days) have been saved with ward staff no longer needing to transport drug charts to pharmacy; 960 hours (40 days) of junior doctors time saved on manually prescribed medication for discharge.

These efficiencies give patients more nursing time and can only be a positive. EP also improves patient safety as doctors are given more information when they are prescribing. The system flags up if any drugs react to one another or if the patient is allergic to any medication.

Chris said: “It helps guide doctors through the prescribing process and provides information to help them make informed decisions about the drugs they are prescribing.”

Dr John Day, clinical director for medicine, said: “EP now provides a reliable audit trail that is safer for patients; fewer errors are likely and, when they do occur, it is easier to provide learning feedback to those responsible.

In medicine it has enabled us to achieve our target for venous thromboembolism (VTE) assessments every month since EP was introduced, something we have always struggled to achieve previously. The phrase ‘the chart’s down in pharmacy is now well and truly extinct.’”

EP has also made things safer and more efficient in pharmacy, the dispensing process is now electronic eliminating transcription errors and speeding up the supply of medication to the wards. Simon Worrall, acting clinical lead pharmacist, said: “In pharmacy we are leading the way with EP and are using it to revolutionise how we deliver our clinical service.

“Through the use of informatics EP enables us to use a targeted approach to ensure we are seeing patients that need our clinical input in a more timely and efficient way.”

Chris concluded: “We’ve seen a reduction in antibiotic expenditure, a reduction in the overall drug budget due to better visibility of supply and no serious incidents as a result of patients receiving medication they are allergic to.

“It’s a real success story for Southend, both for staff and patients, releasing doctors, nurses and pharmacists time to spend on direct patient care. EP has allowed us to remove the elements that slow down the process of care, prescription and discharge.” n Maternity is the only remaining adult inpatient area to go live along with outpatients , both being delivered by early autumn.

June 2016

Nervecentre software continues to change the way nurses work

Nervecentre software Already implemented for electronic observations, the team are currently rolling out the ‘handover element’ of Nervecentre.

Effective handover can reduce communication errors between health professionals and improve patient safety and clinical concerns. Communication issues have been cited in 70% of hospital adverse incidents. Adverse incidents can increase when a patient is transferred between wards and teams. Poor or absent clinical handover, or a failure to transfer responsibility and accountability, can have extremely serious consequences for patients.

According to the team, clinical handover is an essential element to ensure a safe and high quality healthcare delivery. An electronic handover system is a viable, sustainable, and safe solution to handover of care that allows the organisation to transfer information electronically between staff, wards and on patient readmission instantly and in real time.

Emily Dalton (below), deputy ward sister from Southbourne ward has been one of the early adopters and champions of the system. She said: “Everything is in the one place so if you say a patient’s blood pressure is low then you can easily see if there is a trend and discuss it on the handover. It has also made handover a lot quicker, it has really saved time. I don’t have a wad of paper in my pocket anymore and we can easily and quickly update details on the move, freeing up extra time for patient contact.”

The technology that is supporting electronic handover using Nervecentre is at present being implemented in adult wards with the process being refined following feedback from ward

www.southend.nhs.uk

areas. Crucial to its success has been Rhona Hayden, lead critical care outreach nurse and clinical lead for the Nervecentre project.

The technology is there as an enabler and to support staff and that can only be successful if nurses buy into it, they can see the benefits to their role and are using it correctly. Rhona has been key to driving the clinical engagement of it.

She said: “Nursing handover is key and as every ward hands over in a different way, some in teams, or some use it as an education opportunity, the information and process can be very different. So the idea is that what is being handed over can be standardised, the same information can be handed over in the same way ensuring a consistency across the trust.

There’s still

flexibility for specialist areas.

“Off the back of that there is lots of information from handovers which is on bits of paper, whether it’s run off spread sheets, Post-It notes or Word docs. That means there is lots of valuable information around whether the patient is medically fit for discharge that only the person with those notes and the people they are handing it over to have visibility of. Again it is about being consistent.”

Discharge teams, bed management and clinical site management will all have sight of handovers across the hospital showing them the bigger picture, helping them to track high acuity or teams low with staff numbers for that particular shift.

Now that information will be instantly available, rather than it being manually written

from one spreadsheet to another and then going up on a whiteboard.

Rhona added: “Crucially, nurses are walking around with devices in real time and they are updated as they go round and not when it is handed over at the end of a shift, it gives the complete picture as it is happening.

“This allows us to log onto any ward and get a live snapshot of the state of the patients on that ward, increasing visibility.”

That is already creating benefits for the trust that the team hadn’t even realised, for example, the falls team will be able to look at every patient who is over the age of 65 and ensure that a falls assessment has been completed for them at the touch of a button, allowing the trust to easily see those that haven’t had it done and support the wards in getting them done.

The project team have now begun to work with the medical teams to develop a similar standardised medical handover with similar aims and objectives.

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Planes, trainers and hamster wheels Staff and supporters of Southend Hospital have been donning trainers and cycle helmets as well as building giant hamster wheels, to raise money for charities close to their work and hearts.

Sar Trek Sarah Barnicoat, urology oncology clinical nurse specialist, has completed a trek of Machu Picchu in Peru, raising over £4k for Kidney Cancer UK. She said: “I’ve looked after kidney cancer patients for the last five years and treatments have improved during that time. This means terminal patients are living much longer and

we form a closer bond. One patient was Suzy Wilson who sadly passed away two years ago. Her husband supported me all the way. Suzy was much in my thoughts as I walked the trail.

“Also, it’s not as well funded as the other urological cancers so I wanted to raise money and awareness. I’ve had some amazing support from colleagues, especially from our urological support group, Cadgers.”

Pedal power Adrian Besly, who works on BAMS but previously worked in ED, has recently cycled his way around the world.

Tongue tie symposium The trust held its first ever tongue tie symposium at the end of May, where over 30 external delegates visited from Exeter, Ipswich and London to help encourage good practice with identifying and referring babies.

A tongue tie is an excess piece of thin skin under the tongue which may interfere with breast/bottle feeding.

Signs of this may include excessive leakage of milk, prolonged feeding, frequent feeding, weight loss, poor latch and painful breast feeding.

Tongue tie division is a quick almost painless procedure, a snip, to release the excess tissue. This is followed by a short period of crying

and immediate feeding is encouraged and brings baby comfort.

Southend is proud of its dedicated clinic which provides parent and baby centred care, with its dedicated nurse, deputy sister Susie Mitchell and Mr Kandy Ganesan, oral surgery consultant. Support is given to both bottle and breast feeding mums in line with the baby friendly initiative.

Mr Ganesan said: “We accept referrals from GPs, health visitors and midwives.

We pride ourselves on seeing the baby within three weeks.

It is important that the referral contains a clear assessment of feeding difficulties as we will overbook a clinic if we

His journey took him from the sublime of the Pyrenees and the Australian Outback to the ridiculousness of dancing with a pirate in Gibraltar to being attacked by a hornet whilst having a toilet stop in Spain. He’s now looking at peddling his tales of global adventures in a book. feel baby needs to be seen urgently.

“The symposium wasn’t just about hearing from health professionals, it also featured videos of mums who had struggled with babies with tongue tie and some of the lack of understanding from various GPs and health professionals, as well as the care and attention they received at Southend and improvement of the bond between mother and baby.”

Invited guests and speakers included (pictured left to right): Mr Richard Kerr (associate specialist OMFS, from Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust); Mr Ganesan (consultant oral surgeon

Fantastic foursome Sara Lyon, Maria Crispin, Karen Flack and Lucy Russell all work in ED, so are no strangers to being run off their feet. It was no preparation though for being run off their feet for 26 miles as part of the London Marathon.

Karen, Maria and Sara all ran for the same charity, BEARS, whilst Lucy raised money for a friend’s little boy with leukaemia.

It was the first marathon for all of them; Maria and Karen trained and ran together-crossing the finishing line at the same time, with a time of 5hrs 50.

Karen completed hers in 6hrs Southend Hospital; Miss Susie Mitchell (deputy sister OMFS, Southend Hospital); Miss Julie Newby (infant feeding specialist, Southend Hospital); Dr Jennifer Parrish (clinical fellow OMFS, Southend Hospital); David Mitchell (chief editor of the British Journal of oral and maxillofacial surgery).

Congratulations to the winners of May’s staff lottery: First prize (£434): Cicily Poulose (777); second prize (£86.80): Pippa Cordell (285), Cheryl Norman (28); third prize (£43.40): Julie Howe (821), Jill Anderson (736), Elizabeth Polley (317), John Harris (820); fourth prize (£17.36): Hazel Angela Enever (827), Linda Harrison (204), Charlotte Barry (487), Donna Baker (758), Alison Davis (522).

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June 2016

NED joins trust

45. Lucy, with the quickest time of 5hrs 24, said: “The marathon definitely tested me as a person and I am glad I did it.”

Human Hamster Dean Ovel (right), 40, from Westcliff ran the equivalent of over three marathons, without moving anywhere!

He ran an amazing 81 miles in a 24-hour period in his self-designed and built giant hamster wheel, raising money for the hospital’s dementia appeal.

What started out as a crazy idea, has so far raised over £7,000 and Dean has featured on everything from

BBC Essex, Look East, Mail Online and Metro to being mentioned on BBC Breakfast and Good Morning Britain.

You can view his video here: http://bit.ly/ HumanHamster24hrs

We welcome Gabrielle Rydings as one of the trust’s new non-executive directors (NEDs). Gabrielle, who lives in Leigh, joins us after a long and varied career at the National Audit Office.

She worked for nearly 30 years and wants to bring her expertise in public policy

Dementia Week celebrated

Dying Matters awareness Our palliative care team held a special information event to encourage patients, carers and the local community to talk more openly about dying, death and bereavement during Dying Matters Awareness Week.

The week, which ran from 9-15 May, was about changing attitudes to, and raising awareness about, end of life issues. This year’s theme was

“the big conversation” to encourage people to talk to each other about this very sensitive and often taboo subject, to help ensure that all of us can get the care and support we want, where we want it, at the end of our lives.

The team were based in The Royals Shopping Centre in Southend to provide support, advice and practical information.

It was Dementia Awareness Week last month and to celebrate, a host of activities were held to raise awareness of the disease as well as boost our new dementia appeal.

Matron for elderly care services at the hospital, Kylie Locke, said: “The week was very exciting to see the engagement from staff, volunteers, carers, and relatives to ensure we raised awareness of dementia. We are committed to ensure people living with dementia and their carers and relatives, have a good

experience when accessing our services.

The hospital is striving to make trust-wide improvements to ensure it is at the forefront of dementia

www.southend.nhs.uk

delivery, value for money and financial issues management to her local hospital. She is also a trustee and board member at the Southend Association of Voluntary Services (SAVS), and has lots of experience from the patient point of the view.

Gabrielle said: “I’ve had a lot of experience as a user of the services here and I worked out that I’d visited 22 departments of the hospital, all within a year, with various friends and relatives.

“My experience has been phenomenally good, I’ve been a season ticket holder if you like, and I just think the service is brilliant. That was another reason I really wanted to get involved.”

care.”

There are almost one million people living in the UK with dementia and it is estimated that over 25% of

patients in hospital have the condition, often struggling with unfamiliar environments which can lead to a decline in their mental wellbeing. The hospital has developed an ambitious strategy for dementia care and the main priorities include: early diagnosis, excellent clinical care and treatment; create a culture of excellent, compassionate care across the trust; embed a culture that always involves and engages the carer as a partner in care; and create a dementia friendly hospital with secure, safe, homely and comfortable social and therapeutic environments.

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> STAFF NOTICES > WELCOME TO... ISABELLA MAUND New consultant oncologist, Isabella said: “I trained at the School of Medical Education at King’s College London. I completed core medical training in the East of England deanery before entering specialist training in clinical oncology. I worked at Southend as a registrar and was impressed by the forward looking approach to patient care and supportive attitude of staff at the trust and was keen to return. This is my first consultant role since completing training and I have been made to feel very welcome at the trust. I will be treating patients with brain tumours and urological malignancies across Southend, Basildon and Broomfield Hospitals and aim to foster closer links across mid and south Essex regions to deliver the best possible care.” > WELCOME TO... John henry

John has just been appointed as the associate director of estates and maintenance services and will commence his new role on 20 June.

John will be joining the trust from NHS Property Services, where he currently leads the facilities management team in North, Central and East London.

He completed his Electrical and Electronic degree at Plymouth University. After an initial spell working for the defence industry, John has spent the last 27 years working for the NHS in one guise or another at Darent Valley Hospital at Dartford with Carillion Health and North East Essex PCT. John said: “My NHS career has been a wide and varied one; my first NHS job was with EBME at Colchester General Hospital as an electronics engineer and on my very first day I was fixing a ventilator on ITU whilst the staff were manually ventilating the patient! I had an immediate insight to how critical the support teams are to the wellbeing of the patient.”

> GOODBYE TO... BARBARA RAY

Barbara said: “I have spent almost 19 happy years working for occupational health. I started here on the bank and after six months was asked to become the office manager. Kerrie Rawlinson, Kizzy Donaldson, Kate Livett, Karen Harman and Naomi Osborne have been like a dream team over the years and it has been more like a family than a work environment. Sharon Clover joined us recently as our receptionist and slotted smoothly into our team. I could not have asked for a better team to work with, nothing was ever too difficult to attempt and, as a team, they were all supportive of me and to each other. The nurses complete this great occupational health department, one and all helping to provide a professional and caring service to the trust and to our contracts.”

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CLOSER LOOK This month we meet Amanda Haugh, nurse revalidation coordinator.

Tell us about yourself I was born in Ireland and moved to London in 2009. I have made Essex my home now as the people remind me of back home – friendly, funny and down to earth.

I have been a children’s nurse for 14 years and I’ve worked in various roles. For the past six years I have worked in paediatric palliative. I have also worked as the lead revalidation nurse and lead nurse for clinical supervision within my previous employment.

I have a love for dance and fulfilled a lifelong dream two years ago and learned to ballroom dance where I met my partner. We are currently in training to compete in Blackpool in October in the national UKA ballroom and Latin competition. I like to laugh and enjoy life and I also have a small obsession with Harry Potter.

What does your job involve?

Supporting nursing staff through the process of revalidation but also monitoring nurses’ progress to ensure all nurses revalidate on time. I deliver various training sessions on revalidation, workshops on compiling their portfolio, reflective writing workshops and self-awareness sessions.

I will also support the trust with the implementation of an e-portfolio IT package to track and compile revalidation portfolios. Please contact me with any queries on extension 8691.

What are the best bits about your role?

Getting out and meeting staff, working with staff and supporting them to become more reflective practitioners.

I really enjoy working with people and supporting them to become the best they can be.

What achievements are you most proud of?

I am most proud of being a nurse, we are a wonderful profession and I am proud to be part of this era of nursing in a time of great change, financial constraints and political upheaval; my six months working as a United Nations peace keeper in South Lebanon; being a London 2012 games maker. I am also very proud of completing my degree in palliative care.

June 2016