Allyson - Regional Senior Nurse

Learn from Allysons inspiring personal journey and gain insights into exploring your own care options. Find the support and guidance you need to make informed decisions.

Setting: Large provider of residential care, with and without nursing, specialist mental health provision for working age adults, domiciliary care.

Overview of current role

My role in the organisation sits in the operations team focusing on quality and risk for the North East. The role is quite varied and every week is different, with a focus on skills, quality and leadership. Due to my academic background, I'm often involved in developing and delivering education for the service, recently this has been about using RESTORE 2 and NEWS2. Other education I might develop will be specific to an individual which really gets into the person-centred approach, with opportunities for wider learning for the organisation.

I also work clinically within the homes and part of my role is to coach and support staff development including preceptorship for nursing associates and nurses, newly qualified or new to the role. For our internationally recruited staff, I support pastorally with coaching and OSCE support which is something I really enjoy. It helps me to identify service improvement needs and opportunities as well as getting to know the residents by hearing about their care. In separate roles I'm completing a professional doctorate, I author a nursing textbook ‘Nursing the Adult Home and hospital’ through Elsevier publishing with an ophthalmic lens, as well as writing for publicationwhere I can. Recently published in BJN with a commentary piece for HC-One. 

How did I get here

I wanted to do something creative but really I wasn't very good, so I decided to become a nurse. I was influenced by reading Twinkle with was an annual I used to read as a child which had a character called 'Nurse Nancy' in it. I started nursing programme with no experience of working in care but really enjoyed my course and the experiences it gave me.

When I qualified, I chose to work in Ophthalmology in RVI, Newcastle, because I really loved the speciality and I stayed there for a couple of years. I then decided to travel and used my nursing qualification to gain work in a summer camp in America, then came back and worked with a nursing agency for a while. This funded my desire to travel, so the following year went to Canada for a similar summer camp, but this time chose to stay for a became a Nanny for a year before coming back to work in a local ophthalmic unit where I met some excellent nurse role models.

After a while, I decided to go to Moorfields Eye Hospital and worked in ophthalmic theatres. I still wanted to travel, so this time I went to work as theatre nurse in New Zealand for a year, before coming back to ophthalmic clinics and eye casualty at St.Thomas, London. All of this experience led me to more senior nursing roles and development. I became a Clinical Nurse Specialist in ophthalmology, which involved as part of my role developing autonomous nurse-led clinics which was a challenging but rewarding experience. Whilst in this post I started contributing to the nursing programmes at my local university from my specialist field of practice. This led me to a new role in academia, teaching pre-registration nursing as well as clinical skills programmes with other AHPs, and post-graduate programmes and became a module leader for pre and post registration qualifications. I have had many opportunities as a nurse and moved around roles quite frequently, as I like new challenges.

My most recent move is to a large social care provider and my current role, which is meeting my needs for a different challenge, as well as hopefully bringing together all the skills and experience I have developed over the years. 

Qualifications and education

• Registered Nurse - Adult

• Master’s degree in advanced Practice (Level 7)

• Post Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Education

• Emergency care practitioner (Level 6)

• Non- medical prescriber (Level 6)

• ENB 346 Ophthalmic qualification

• Theatre course accredited by Moorfields Eye Hospital

• Currently studying towards a Doctorate in Professional Practice (Level 8) Member of Higher education Academy.
  
  

Training, knowledge and skills

• Knowledge and clinical experience

• Able to work autonomously

• Be a critical thinker

• Have a sense of humour

• Passionate about driving for quality of experience and outcomes

• Leadership qualities

• Knowledge of service improvements

• Experience of developing and supporting Nurse led services

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