Angela’s nursing career may have been influenced by her aunt in Australia who was a nurse.
“I was named after my auntie and I remember her writing to us a lot from Australia when we were kids” recalls Angela, “so maybe I was always destined to be a nurse!”
In her teens, Angela thought about becoming a firefighter but when she started her A levels she focused on nursing as her career choice.
After qualifying in 1999, Angela worked as a junior staff nurse on a gastro-endocrinology ward and developed her interest in paediatric gastrointestinal nursing. Her career progressed and she held roles such as endocrine research nurse, junior sister, clinical nurse specialist (CNS) for children with inflammatory bowel disease before starting her current role as CNS for children with intestinal failure at the Royal London Children’s Hospital.
“I love the interaction with different people,” says Angela “you meet such a varied group and you have to adapt to each person, finding the right care for them and their situation. It’s very fulfilling when you can achieve that.”
Angela looks after children having home parenteral nutrition (HPN) which means they are fed directly into the blood stream intravenously, at home.
“I train and empower parents and carers to take children home on HPN,” Angela explains, “helping them set up their home to accommodate this and give them knowledge and support on how to provide HPN to their child.”
Angela also goes into schools and trains staff to cope with supporting a child on HPN. Her role also supports transitioning young people into adult services as they mature.
Angela was nominated for a Cavell Star Award by her team for going above and beyond for her colleagues. Clinical Nurse Specialist and colleague Neil Fletcher explains,
“A number of the children’s CNS’s and children’s nurses have been redeployed into adult critical care during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Angela came up with the idea of developing a peer support group so they have a peer mentor on a weekly basis who will touch base with them to say ‘hello’ and ‘how are you?
“Angela allocates the mentees to the mentors on a weekly basis (often outside of her working hours) and the feedback from the mentees has been very positive. For them to move into another clinical area has been daunting for some and they didn’t always know who they could go to if they had questions to be answered. The support group helps to buffer those questions.
“Angela’s colleague is one of the nurses who has been redeployed, so not only is Angela absorbing the workload of two nurses but has developed this peer support group and I think it is an incredible example of someone going above and beyond. She really is a phenomenal nurse.”
Angela reacted to winning her award.
“There were tears! For me being recognised and awarded a Cavell Star Award is amazing and it makes all the hard work worth it. As nurses we sometimes bottle things up because we are always thinking of others so to have somewhere to offload and get support from colleagues really helped. Normally the team would all meet after work socially and discuss problems informally, either in the staff room or the pub, but with the Covid restrictions we’ve not been able to do that.
“I think during the Covid pandemic our team has realised what we all mean to each other. Restrictions have meant that we can’t see friends and family so your nursing team becomes your everyday support group.”