I have many years experience in managing the care of patients with both acute and chronic liver disease, on the Gastroenterology and Hepatology Unit of the Royal Hallamshire, which at present is situated in the context of an acute medical ward, and also has an inflammatory bowel disease and nutritional focus.
Recent clinical practice, and responsibilities have included the implementation and development of a Dedicated Bleed Unit (with endoscopy practice), managing patients with acute decompensation in chronic liver disease, and a role for structuring and developing, education, and training in the environment of ward P2. I have been a member of the committee since the Liver Nurses Forum started.
My interests are managing patients with chronic liver disease in acute alcohol withdrawel and gastro intestinal bleeding.
My interest in hepatology and transplantation started in 1991 when I undertook the ENB A09 course at King's College Hospital, London where I later worked as a staff nurse. I moved to the Liver Unit in Leeds in 1993. I became the Lecturer/Practitioner in Liver Care in January 2002, having previously been involved in professional development of staff for a number of years. I became a full time lecturer at the University of Leeds in January 2006.
I currently run a number of modules focussing on liver care and transplantation. My liver interests particularly include acute liver failure, jaundice, haemochromatosis and evolving treatment options for liver failure.
I qualified in 1995 with a BSc in Nursing Studies and went on to work in a variety of hospitals around the UK, predominantly in GI surgery. I developed a specific interest in Hepatology whilst working in New Zealand where there is a high proportion of HBV, particularly in the Maori population. I moved to Cornwall in 2002 and started working with HCV treatment patients as a specialist nurse.
In 2003 I started an MSc in Advanced Healthcare Practice inclusive of the RCN accredited Nurse Practitioner Course. This has allowed me to develop my practice and work autonomously, seeing patients with a variety of Hepatological conditions, many of whom are undiagnosed. I am an independent referrer for radiological and endoscopic procedures and am trained fully to perform percutaneous liver biopsy. This provides continuity of care for liver patients in Cornwall as it is also my responsibility to decide and maintain treatment programmes, with minimal input from the Consultant Hepatologist.
My particular interest is auto-immune liver disease.
I have worked within the liver unit at Kings College Hospital since 1997, firstly as a junior sister within the liver intensive care unit. My career became more educational focused in 2000, when I was appointed as a practice development nurse for the liver intensive care unit. In 2002 I took up the post of Lecturer Practitioner which is a split post between the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and the liver unit at Kings College Hospital.
My university time is primarily spent running the hepatology module, and being on the teaching team of the intensive care, and advanced assessment course and being a link lecturer to the liver unit at Kings. My Trust time is primarily running internal staff development programmes, and looking after the educational needs of both pre and post registration nurses, and managing the liver practice development team.
I have a long association with Hassall ward (now 10N), the liver unit here at the Royal Free having many years ago been the senior sister when started out current liver transplant programme and more recently working as a research nurse on the unit. I worked as a research nurse for 10 years and I mainly stayed in that role for so long because the trials were very clinically focused and I worked closely in the clinical areas providing support to the nurses as well as the patients and their families.
My role then changed into that of a clinical nurse specialist in hepatology and it was developed to provide a specialist service for patients, their families and the multi-disciplinary team working in Hepatology. I am mainly concerned with newly diagnosed patients and those with chronic liver disease and its many complications My role is also partly ward based where I work with the nurses in a supporting and development role as well as offering support and advice to the in-patients and their families. The rest of my time is developing a nurse led service that offers support to outpatients in the clinic or by phone and to other areas of the hospital with liver patients. By reviewing the types of patient we see several services were naturally developed.
Like all roles mine is constantly changing and evolving but at its core is to provide patients and their families with quality care.