Jo joined APF as our Senior ILD Nurse in July 2024.
My journey started a long time back after spending long periods of time with my grandparents living with us as a family through their terminal years on with lung cancer and another heart failure,
until then I was unsure of what career I wanted but my nan suggested I should be a nurse as I was kind and caring. I wanted to be a surgical nurse for a long time and qualified and moved into the
fast pace of intensive care soon realising I wanted more interaction from my patients as sedated and ventilated tends to get you very little verbal response and whilst you support the families
and friends a lot and help to cure them of their illnesses you lose so much connection with them as a patient. This often left me wondering how they really were as we are often not what our families portray us as.
So, with my wealth of experience, I moved to respiratory medicine miles away from where I expected my path to take me. I had the misfortune to become unwell with cancer which gave me a renewed outlook on my life,
my career and how I respond to patients and their journey through their disease process, and soon realised the other side of the fence was a bad place to be and that I could try and make a difference, walking the mile in their shoes is a reality check…
I took a step back for a few years and worked between the acute trust as an ITU nurse and with a team supporting patients who have cardiac disease and found the awake and talking patients although more challenging,
they were much better company and made me realise how insular I had become and how much I needed the human interaction as much as they did so I took the plunge and left the world of ITU.
I worked as a general respiratory nurse in the acute setting for many years, looking after patients with all different aspects of respiratory disease, but developed a keen interest in the world of ILD realising there was more to it than what I had learned over the 15 years.
Having survived the pandemic physically I felt the need to give more back as the world of fibrosing lung disease was going to change. I found an opening at Guys and St Thomas’ to help support the team and develop the nursing side of the team.
I joined the team with what little was left of a nursing service post COVID and developed it to what it is today; with the support of the team both nursing and medical. I have now developed a
fully cohesive and inclusive ILD CNS service, seeing all type of ILD Patients and families supporting their needs with clinics, in various forms running simultaneously covering anything from general follow
up reviews for infusion therapy, blood monitoring and prescriptions to our new ambulatory oxygen assessment service within our one stop shop. Whilst managing a support helpline for ILD Patients meeting national targets for IPF patients including wholistic support to PR, oxygen and palliative care.
I started developing a palliative care pathway with our palliative team, allowing our patients to have quick access to pharmaceutical treatments with follow ups to ensure effectiveness and hope
this will promote and improve palliative support as a lot of these patients have a short life expectancy and we know they have lost anything up to half of this by the time they get to meet an ILD specialist.
I am hoping the team I have left behind will continue this and one day lead to them applying for GOLD standard palliative status and an even greater ambition would be to support this becoming a country-wide initiative.
I worked closely with the APF charity as part of the patient pathway on many different projects over the last few years and instigated the attendance of the charity being ever present within the
NHS chest clinic departments increasing support to patients where the NHS staff lack the time especially in those vital first few moments when given a diagnosis as we know how damaging internet searching can be to a patient’s physical and mental wellbeing
if looking at incorrect information and APF were best placed to support this, also trying to connect more groups together with hybrid support groups in partnership with the local hospice to
try and alleviate some of the myths and anxiety surrounding what hospices and their care entails.
I was relatively novice when I joined the ILD world a few years ago although a large amount of general respiratory experience,
I have now learned a huge amount and so far, but feel the NHS is no longer the place to make change for me and that APF is somewhere I can make a difference.
So, with that said I am passionate about PF and loving the journey so come along and join us for the ride and lets change the ILD world together, as united we are stronger.