Being an assistant practitioner on the plastics ward

Joining Salisbury District Hospital in 1998, she has worked her way up from being a nursing assistant to her current role.

“I worked on the bank as a nursing assistant for around five years and the role gradually changed to become a health care support worker which involved doing clinical observations like blood pressure and ECGs.

“I then got a job on the surgical ward where I stayed for a couple of years before moving over to plastics.

“Every year we have a personal staff review where you look at your personal ambitions and achievements and a chance came up to do a two-year course with the Open University for a foundation degree in health care practice.

“The hospital funded this and I achieved my Level 4 in 2013.

“I assist the trained nurse – I have a bay of patients like a trained nurse and pretty much do the same role but I am not qualified to do medication.

“I still do dressings, sutures and the social side so making sure they get therapy.

“The next step is to become a fully qualified nurse which is something I would like to do.

“I was given the opportunity to do full nurse training straight after the foundation degree but I wanted a break from the study and decided to postpone it for a little while.

“With Open University it takes four years but with the healthcare qualification that I already have, I can do it over three years.

“I enjoy seeing a patient’s journey from start to finish. A lot of the time we have trauma patients who have been involved in a car accident – patients come in with complex wounds and our plastics team decide the best route to help facilitate wound healing and rehabilitation.

“It is nice to see the process and support patients who come in after a traumatic event and out the other end.

“Our patients come back to the ward and tell us what they have done which is really fantastic.”