Liz Phillip's story
Liz Phillips joined the NHS in 1984 as a trainee nurse in London. She’s had a varied career covering many different nursing and managing roles. She tells us about her four decades of working in the NHS...
“My interest in health began in reception class when we were asked what we wanted to do as a job I said I wanted to make sick babies better, so think the caring angle has been ingrained in me. At the age of 10 I joined the Red Cross as a Junior Cadet where I gained skills attending events to provide first aid. I completed a series of badges including home nursing and first aid. I also supported a children’s school holiday club for children with mental and physically disabilities, although it was not called that then. This led to me going on a week’s holiday with children at the age of 13. I slept in a classroom with the children that we were allocated. I learnt so much about the challenges these children have including catheters and colostomies for a girl with spina bifida and siblings that had muscular dystrophy.
“I joined the local hospital, St Albans City Hospital, as a volunteer and wore a horrible bright orange nylon and certainly stood out! I was located to one of the “geriatric wards” and trained the new nursing auxiliaries as in those days they started with little or no training. My Red Cross training equipped me to support and develop this group of staff. The wards in these days were separate to the main hospital and were completely open (there is a theme coming here!).
“This led me to join Casio College in Watford to undertake a pre-nursing course. Whilst on the course I had a day a week placement at the City Hospital. One of my placements was on a gynae ward and I remember one day when there was a girl my age in a side room on a drip (I did not know why she was there). I innocently walked in and said I was on a drip once and she replied so you have had an abortion too then. I don’t think I hid my reaction very well (mine was for a ruptured appendix), but this was quickly overridden by her saying I think I have wet myself. I checked under the covers and the tiny baby had been delivered. It is sad to remember that in the 80s this young girl was shunned by many of the ward staff. Her baby was taken away and she enquired if it was a boy or girl but I was told by the staff not to tell her as this would make her associate more with the baby. This was quite a traumatic experience for me as a 17-year-old. On returning to college, I relayed what had happened to the tutor, she was very angry that at under the age of 18 I had been placed on this particular ward.
“In January 1984 I was due to start my nurse training at the Breakspear Nurse Education centre covering Mount Vernon and this was delayed due to a merger and change to a Health Authority that linked Hillingdon hospital in. I duly started my training on 21/05/1984 as a student nurse. As part of the restructure, we had to travel form Mount Vernon to Hillingdon for our “school” part of our training. We stood out from our colleagues as although we all wore the blue j-cloth uniform Hillingdon students wore flesh colour tights, and Mount Vernon wore black.
“Even the way we were taught to make beds was different between the hospitals and the “traditional” sisters were on us like a ton of bricks that we had not made them correctly. Our nurses’ home was also a World War 2 hut in the shape of a H. In the middle were the bathrooms and toilets (for both sexes) only separate sex toilets which were in a line of cubicles and opposite the wash basins with a curtain for privacy. We had no running water in our rooms!
“On my first ward that was again a gynaecology ward and these were in old huts and the nightingale format. The ward Sister was of the war era, and her focus was much more on keeping the flower watered on the raised bed on the steps of the ward during a water shortage. We had to carry water from the bath water the patients had used for the watering.
“I have two main memories of this ward. Firstly, on my second shift I was with a fellow first year first ward student. The sister handed us the keys to the ward and stated she was going on her break. We had no idea how to contact her, only the phone number for a cardiac arrest. She and I took a side of the ward each and for those 30 minutes we just made sure each patent was breathing - this was eight weeks in to starting as a nurse! The second memory is of being pulled to one side by the sister when she had asked who had arranged the flowers and I had replied it was me. She told me off on the open ward saying my flower arranging was terrible and that did I not appreciate how much flowers cost and that I needed to arrange them properly. With all patients listening this was very embarrassing. The next day another bouquet arrived and was asked to arrange them – I took the flowers into the sluice and came out with the arrangement to place on the white stepped plinth the flowers were placed on. The patients held up paper with scores on to rate my arrangement and were very supportive of me. These were the days when flowers were removed at night, and we also undertook denture rounds on a trolley and cleaned all the teeth – I am still not sure on all occasions they were returned to the right person! I also learnt many practices frowned upon today such as layering leg ulcers with eusol and paraffin-soaked gauze. I loved this technique and passed my aseptic technique doing this and using egg white and oxygen on pressure sores.
“The capes in the photo below were extremely useful as A&E was in a separate block and we used the cape along with an umbrella to shield the patients from wind rain and snow from surgery and A&E all whilst trying to steer the patient’s trolley.
“I completed my training in 1987 and applied for staff nurse posts accepting a role back at St Albans on Langton Ward, a Medicine for the Elderly ward, this ward was new, and purpose built and
not a hut! My first late shift there I was left in charge with a newly qualified enrolled nurse (the deputy sister had phoned in sick). We had two patients in adjacent side rooms, one patient had deteriorated and the other had died. The doctor asked to speak to the family and named the lady, and I duly gave him the phone number for the lady who had deteriorated. I left him to make the call as there were three of us for 20 patients. Shortly after I left for my break and on the stairs bumped into the relatives of the patient who had deteriorated (I had met the previous day whilst they were vising the patient). They asked me was it peaceful and I fumbled with how to respond as I quickly realised the doctor had given the wrong family the information that the patient that was still alive had died. I took them up to the ward and to the ward office and spoke to them with the doctor. Reassuring them that she was still alive but was deteriorating. The doctor had no idea he had made this mistake. The enrolled nurse became a close friend as I did all the supporting for an event I could never have prepared for, and she was grateful that I had identified the issue before they arrived back on the ward. A few days later, on my half day shift, the lady died and I remained with her until the family could get in and had reassured them that this was accurate information. The family were very grateful for my support and care. This predated complaints and would now probably be all over social media and as very rewarding to support the family at this time.
"Eighteen months after qualifying I was approached by the nursing officer to apply for a deputy sister role on Sopwell Ward as they only had one applicant. In those days you could only interview if there was more than one applicant. I agreed to do this for interview experience. Following the interview (I was up against a male staff nurse with years more experience than me) I was offered the role and chose to take this opportunity. I started in my first navy dress, with white cuff covers and a material hat to be informed that the Sister was pregnant and taking maternity leave in a few months. This meant I was propelled to being the Sister so within two years of qualifying and I had progressed to an acting G Grade Ward Sister. I have a feeling I was possibly one of the youngest ward sisters. I had a group of formidable, enrolled nurses and my baptism into management was quite a challenge. On reflection this was far too early in my experience and meant that I burnt out quite quickly. The ward manager role is one of the most difficult in the NHS balancing management and clinical functions and you never felt your focus was in the right place.
“Next, I took the opportunity for a secondment to a Resource Management Initiative post to implement a patient dependency scoring system and a rostering system this was in 1993! Part of the remit was to promote how much things cost and to encourage staff to think of costs and to use efficiently and effectively – posters were put up about how much each wipe cost to encourage less waste. This role worked between St Albans and Hemel Hospitals as there had been yet another merger. As part of my induction, I visited Luton and Dunstable Hospital who had the same computer systems – a permanent post became available there and transferred to be the substantive Project Nurse. I quickly developed the rostering system to manage the nurse bank then wider for all temporary staff. Following another restructure, the role moved to HR and was the senior nurse managing the staff bank. I also participated in the onsite rota for senior nurse and covered bed management and site escalation out of hours.
“I saw an opportunity for a role in Peterborough to be the Assistant General Manager for Medicine on a secondment and applied and accepted this opportunity. I commuted by train from Hertfordshire for six months and when the role became permanent, I applied and was successful and relocated with my husband to this part of the world. The role covered a third of the hospital across three sites and had 20 direct reports with a budget of £20 million in 2001. In this role I had the pleasure of managing colleagues who now also work in the ICB namely Katrina Wilson, Sarah Shah and Donna Phipps.
“After having my second child I took the opportunity of a secondment to the East of England Strategic Health Authority and worked across two programme boards for patient safety and patient experiences. During this time, I successfully supported Caring with Confidence (a programme for carers) and featured in their promotional video. I also commissioned the Health and Safety executive to investigate and propose the human factors required to enable and support correct hand washing. At the end of this secondment I returned to Peterborough, however, not to my AGM role but as Business Performance and Compliance Manager role, this was following yet another restructure. About 12 months later because of another restructure the role was made redundant. I had a period of not working which was fortuitous as my husband had major surgery and had to care for him and two young children.
“After my only career gap, I was successful in gaining a role in Hertfordshire Partnership Mental Health Trust to implement bed management approaches from acute trusts into mental health trusts. This evolved to leading on decanting and closing wards on acute secondary care sites to a brand-new facility in Hertfordshire. As part of this role, I provided training for staff to use the new facilities (learnt how to ligature assess). In one of the vacated wards, I set up an acute day unit to support mental health patients within Welwyn Garden City. Living and working away for three nights per week this was quite a challenge with a young family.
“I finally ended up in a role close to home (thanks to Ian Weller and Rob Murphy) and was based at Pathfinder House in Huntingdon within urgent care at Hinchingbrooke. Working in a variety of roles, job extensions etc I was then placed at risk (again!) and was slotted into the Children’s Commissioning role. One month after starting in the role Better Births was due to be implemented in which we needed an across system board to be established to deliver the ask of Better Births. Janine Titman and I managed to do this, and we were recognised regionally for our achievements. This was a period of my time in the NHS when I can say I really loved and was passionate about my role and improving things for our women, families and their babies (maybe back to my initial career aspiration to make sick children better). I am most proud of enabling The Raham Project to fly and still provide support and a listening ear to them.
“Last year I was successful in gaining a job working in PMO under Charlie More, a truly inspiring manager (my first manager not with an NHS background). My NHS knowledge complemented the work. This step away from maternity enabled me to re-think my NHS life and started thoughts of planning to retire and return at the end of March this year. I have now returned and in my first ever part time job! I remain passionate about the NHS and now reflect that I clearly require roles that I can see make a direct impact for patients and wish to carry on my career in the NHS which reached its 39 anniversary on 21 May 2023.
“Looking back over the last five decades I realise I have been a part of the NHS for over half of its existence, which makes me feel extremely old. I could never have imagined in the eighties where my career path has taken me, some of which chosen and some enforced. My time in the NHS has been impacted by personal circumstances but mainly by political and management changes. Throughout it all I have remained strong and adaptable to the continuing changes and challenges and hope to be able to see out my career for when I choose to formally retire.
“Thank you, NHS, for enabling me to have this inspiring and challenging career.”