Each year on 12 May we have the opportunity to reflect upon the profound work of our nurses, not just locally but across the world. Given the extraordinary times we find ourselves within, it has never been more important or apt to celebrate International Nurses Day.
My own journey within nursing began in 1987. Most people who join the profession do so because they know that they want to make a difference to patients and often follow in the footsteps of family and relatives. My own experience was slightly different and, potentially, more emotionally charged than most.
As a teenager, my grandmother had a cardiac arrest in front of me. Without the experience I have now as a trained clinician there was not a great deal that I could do and I promised myself then that I would do everything within my power to ensure, if I ever experienced anything similar, I would be in a position to help. Ultimately, I was able to come good on this promise and spent the first 15 years of my career within heart services as a result.
Since qualifying from the Nottingham School of Nursing as a Registered Nurse in 1990, this profession has gifted me a wonderful career, innumerable positive experiences and it also orchestrated the meeting with my wife, Marie, a former nurse, with whom I have two children, Tom and Daisy.
Throughout my career, I have had numerous opportunities which have allowed me to follow my passions. In 2000, following the thread of heart care that was so, and is, so important to me, I was able to set-up nurse-led cardiac services at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham as part of what was the then National Service Framework for Coronary Heart Disease. This 10 year strategy aimed to reduce related illness and stroke deaths, and I was so proud to be able to lend my expertise and commitment to the project, ultimately and with the help of colleagues within the NHS, doing everything in our power to help people who, like my grandmother so many years before, needed essential care and treatment.
From here, my journey in the health service has taken me in various directions and specialities, aided and abetted by the training and ethos instilled within me as a Registered Nurse, which always, and above everything else, puts the patient’s needs first. I believe I took this discipline into my first Executive Director role as Chief Operating Officer of this Trust in 2013, and it is also accompanied me, following revalidation, as I took on the new challenge of becoming the Director of Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professionals in the summer of 2019.
My return to the nursing after eight years has reinvigorated my desire to drive nursing forward , I am so proud of my nursing, midwifery and Allied Health Professional colleagues each and every day. The world changed very drastically in March, but it is so important to not lose sight that everything we are currently and rightly applauding the profession for has, in my experience, never changed and is not simply a response to this illness.
The unprecedented challenge of Covid-19 has brought to the forefront of our minds the selflessness that our nurses, midwives, doctors and other health professionals make everything single day. They are there when we need them most. They show courage when we need it most. And we’d be lost without them.
I came to this profession with a very clear goal in mind. What I found was a career which has illuminated the past three decades of my life and made me who I am today. On National Nursing Day I reflect upon that profound experience and I thank my colleagues, both at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals and across the system. I hope you will join me in celebrating them for the amazing job they do 365 days a year.