Janet Watkinson's story
Janet Watkinson is a Specialist Pharmacist in our Medicines Optimisation Team. She joined the NHS over 50 years ago and despite trying to retire several times, she is one of the longest serving community pharmacists in the country.
“In 1967, when the Beatles were playing at the Cavern Club, a young Liverpudlian student started her degree at Liverpool School of Pharmacy. The desire to study pharmacy was the result of a love of chemistry and a need to finish with a vocational qualification which would enable her to start work in a prescribed field. At that time no other members of her family currently worked in healthcare and none had gone on to university so she was an anomaly!
“In 1972, the same student started work at Nottingham City Hospital as the first resident pharmacist in the country and a proud member of the NHS. This was an exciting time for pharmacy. Pharmacists left the confines of the dispensary and sallied forth onto the wards, took part in ward rounds and generally escaped from their previous role behind the glass window. I became part of the ward team on the fledgling cancer ward, a choice which subsequently had a profound influence on my entire career.
“Over the next decade, specialist posts in pharmacy within hospital made career development a more attractive option and again meant staying in the NHS. Pensions, career progression and security were important factors. However, the main attraction was being able to help people, getting to know both them and their families and improving their lives was the greatest reward. While working in Nottingham I became a specialist cancer pharmacist running both the paediatric and adult oncology/haematology wards. These were the days when 95% of children with leukaemia died. Today 95% of children with leukaemia survive. Many of the developments in new drugs has been as a result of the NHS bringing clinical trials into mainstream medicine for suitable patients which has improved outcomes and quality of life.
“Being part of the NHS allowed me to carry on working whilst bringing up a family and moving around the country without losing my career progression. When the family returned to my home base, I continued to be a specialist cancer pharmacist in Liverpool, directly as a result of my experience back in Nottingham and of course my ability to converse with the locals! This is a role I fulfilled for many years until I joined the senior management team and became less hands on in the dispensary - so not so much a pharmacist but more an accountant.
“My last geographic move which came at the end of the 20th century, was from Liverpool, leaving behind my season ticket for Anfield, to Cambridge and with it came another shift in career path. I was immensely fortunate while working in the NHS to be appointed to the then Commission for Health Improvement (CHI) inspectorate team. One moment I remember very clearly during my interview process was the question – What do you see as the most exciting developments in the next twenty years? My answer then was and is still the same today, was the development of biologic drugs and the mapping of the genome with the subsequent change in the way medicines are developed and are tailored to the disease and I have been fortunate to see that vision unfold and be a part of it. Being a member of CHI gave me the most amazing ability to visit NHS establishments and talk to people who really cared for patients, each other, and the NHS itself and were jumping through hoops to deliver the best care they could. It was a privilege and a time I shall never forget. All this while being the Chief Pharmacist at Hinchingbrooke hospital and also being in charge of Medical Imaging and Pathology.
“I retired for the first time in 2009 just as the swine flu pandemic was hitting. I was wondering what was to be next for me when the phone rang and voice says “‘Hi Janet, are you busy?”. The fatal response – “No not very” and the reply “Oh good, we need someone to help with the flu pandemic, can you?” and I said “I guess so” - so back to the NHS I went. Coming to the end of the flu pandemic and just as I think I am going back into retirement the phone goes “We’ve a bit of a problem, can you help?” So never one to refuse Sati our Chief Pharmacist, the response is “Ok” and back I came and here you see me still working in Cambridgeshire.
“Over the years I have been reorganised, redesignated, reviewed and revamped but never have I been bored. Never have I felt that doing anything less than the best for the patient has been appropriate. On my bookshelf at home are gardening books from my time in Liverpool and Nottingham. Given to me on my birthday and at Christmas by my patients in the chemotherapy clinic. I remember every one of them. I remember holding Julie, a two year old, in my arms, after her distraught mother collapsed, cuddling her so she didn’t die in a cot. That was forty years ago, I still cry. And I remember the many successes that followed all a result of the NHS and its amazing care, compassion and technological advances.
“Along with me, the leeches and maggots have been retired, reorganised, replenished and upgraded so that instead of counting maggots in and out of dirty wounds, we phone Swansea, give them the dimensions of the wound and they send a teabag which can be applied and then removed, much more efficient. The leeches are still called upon to reduce large haematomas. No side effects, low cost – perfect in today’s cost-conscious society.
“Today my life revolves around very highly developed drugs which are expensive and ensuring equitable provision of these molecules to the whole population is a constant battle. Fortunately our colleagues within secondary care are aware of this and work alongside the ICB to make the pot go as far as possible. Sometimes, it is difficult to quantify the cost of a life but this is not a new situation, in fact it has been the same since I started, people just didn’t realise the problem existed as there was less fiscal governance in place.
“One of the greatest gifts given by the NHS are the friends you make on the way. My first flatmate who worked at Nottingham with me is still one of my closest friends and along with those picked up along the way enrich my life. We all joined the NHS with the same purpose – to improve the health of the population and when I look at the team today and at my clinical colleagues in our trusts, I believe that is still the reason people join.
“In 1948, when Nye Bevan created the NHS to enable all people to access healthcare regardless of economic status, he created a truly great organisation which has stood the vicissitudes of time. The NHS is not a right, it is a privilege and while we have a duty of care to our population, our population has a duty of care to protect the NHS and they should not lose sight of that.
“As I come to the end of my career, I look back on the immense progress we have made in pharmaceuticals from rolling pills on a dispensary bench to manufacturing biologicals from hardworking E. coli, and I believe the future will be even more extraordinary thanks to the NHS.”