OpenLearn Profile

Palliative and End-of-life care have always been my passion throughout my twenty-five years of being a qualified nurse. I have worked in various settings, Hospice, Community, and now in Milton Keynes University Hospital, where I describe my End-of-Life Advance Practitioner and Education Lead for Palliative care role across the hospital as the neon flashing Lego brick of my career, my dream job! I have a vested interest in the last year of life, encouraging people to ease the fear of dying, planning for their future, and enabling a dignified death. 

The thematic thread throughout any of my teaching is that dying is everyone's business, whether they are a clinician or a member of the public, empowering knowledge and skills in the hospital. 

I have been with many people when they die, holding their hand, supporting their family through the process of dying, I find this a privilege and the most rewarding part of my role and will often be part of the after-death care as well as the preparation for death. 

I have two children, who in covid times have accompanied me on virtual teaching and are well versed in aspects of End-of-life and the language used, I am proud of them that they are able to think about the process of living whilst having the insight to dying. 

My style is bold, clashy and colourful, loving the unusual, with a unique taste in clothing, in particular shoes, which are my second love. I am often commented on by the darkness of role in comparison to the flare of my style.