‘I was so proud to represent social care nurses’

How would you describe your role to someone you’ve just met?

“My role gives me an oversight of the social care provision at the care home, which thinks about how we care for a person as a whole and how best to meet their needs. This includes line management of our house leads and care colleagues, as well as providing the direction of service for the home’s wellbeing coordinators, pastoral care, and volunteers. I also form part of the overall care home management team.”

What does your typical working day look like?

“Life in a care home can be like life in your own home – every day is different, and there is never a dull moment. Each day can be filled with a different set of challenges to work through together, but what helps is that we all have the same goal – to make a positive contribution to our resident’s lives. My day usually comprises of a mixture of different assessments, auditing, performance management of my teams, building relationships with our residents and their loved ones, and operational work alongside the management team to think about how we can continue to deliver the care that we want to deliver.”

What made you want to become a nurse?

“When I was 17, my dad had cancer and throughout his treatment I would be hounding the nurses, asking them lots of questions. I always wanted to understand more and seeing the amazing treatment that my dad had, I was keen to start nursing as my career. I started out in dental nursing after college, and then began my nurse training in 2003, later qualifying as a nurse in 2006.”

What attracted you to your current role?

“I spent lot of time after I qualified as a nurse testing the waters and seeing what sector of nursing I wanted to work in. I worked in a prison, in disability assessment and other areas of care. I then had the opportunity to work in a care home as deputy manager and my passion for supporting older people, alongside dementia care, grew from there. I saw gaps in knowledge and areas for improvement, and felt very passionate about being in a position where I could change the narrative and the delivery of care for the people living in this care home.”

What do you enjoy most about your role?

“What I really love is being able to make a difference to people’s lives and having the chance to get to know our residents well. I feel very passionate about advocating for older people, and being able to shift people’s thinking to consider the whole person and what it is they need. Nursing older people is a real skill – a calling – and I really enjoy ensuring that our residents have the opportunity to connect with their community and be the person that they want to be.”

What’s been the stand-out moment in your career so far?

“I was recently given the honour and privilege of becoming the first social care nurse to be the lamp carrier at the 59th Florence Nightingale Foundation commemoration service in Westminster Abbey. I was so proud to represent social care nurses, and to celebrate what has been an exciting and pivotal year for this sector.”

What advice would you give to someone who wanted a job like yours?

“Do it! It is a wonderful sector to work in and you get to work with amazing people. You can achieve great job satisfaction from having real value to your day and being able to make a difference to people’s lives.”