Victoria Durell

After qualifying as a student in 2010 from Hertfordshire University, I became a staff nurse in Barnet General Hospital where I learned the basic skills to be able to assess and treat a wealth of patients with various ailments and emergencies from various backgrounds. I remained committed to the Emergency Department setting and furthered my position from band 5 to 6 and onto band 7.

Over the years I have developed my leadership and management skills through a number of strategic and challenging demands. I was part of and witnessed the redevelopment of the ED working in a building site, the merge of Barnet and Chase Farm to The Royal Free and also the implementation of the Electronic Patient Record. Being a part of so much change within a department over so many years enabled me to build my resilience for potential challenges that may occur in my future career.

Having spent a number of years as a band 5 when a position became available, I applied and was successful in gaining a position as a junior sister at band 6, this role saw me step up to take charge of areas of the department and support junior staff. I took on more of a managerial role which involved staff appraisals and managing sickness. I also continued to work within the Key Performance Indicators allowed me to increase my knowledge and confidence and would work more autonomously in areas such as triage and the nurse in charge of resuscitation, I used by ALS qualification in order to identify sick and deteriorating patients and would escalate to the appropriate teams.

In August 2018 I successfully achieved the role of band 7 Senior Sister, using management days I followed HR processes for sickness and performance management, rota management, allocation of staff and safe staffing levels. On occasions I covered matron which pushed me to attend meetings within the wider multi-disciplinary team and hospital which enabled me to further my learning and understanding.

The band 7 role involved streaming patients on their arrival to the ED allowing me to use my experience and knowledge to assess their needs and identify immediate actions to be taken escalating accordingly and also redirecting patients from streaming to a more appropriate place of treatment, such as an urgent treatment centre or re-directing back to their GP with safety netting advice. A large part of my job role involved flow co-ordinating the department - identifying and avoiding breaches, booking beds after a decision to admit has been made and escalating and making direct referrals to specialties to prevent patients waiting for ED doctors unnecessarily. I also led the 'sit-rep' this is a 3-4 hourly meeting with the matron, operations manager, consultant and site team to give an update on the current situation within the department.

I was also the rota manager for 18 months, ensuring the department was staffed as well and as safely as possible. At times, it was a challenging experience but allowed me to use my organisational skills but also remaining diplomatic and considerate to staff to ensure an adequate work life balance.

After almost 12 years of working in the Emergency Department, I decided it was time for a change of direction and a new challenge.

This brings me onto my current role as a Nurse Practitioner working for Unplanned Care/Rapid Response. This requires autonomous practice, assessment and management of patient's in the community setting for the prevention of hospital admission.
During my time within this role, I have successfully completed the Non-medical prescribing module. Being an Independent Prescriber has allowed me not only to up-skill but to deliver efficient patient care.

With all of the above years of experience and opportunities in my nursing career I would now like to focus on my passion, this being aesthetics. I have always have a keen interest in non-surgical and surgical procedures. I have kept up to update with breakthroughs and advancements in aesthetics. I am currently undertaking the module "Aesthetics Accelerator" with Harley Street Academy to allow me to understand the foundations of injectables.
With all my years of nursing spent in the emergency and acute settings, I feel I have transferable skills and with my strive for achievement and further learning I am confident that I would be an asset in the aesthetic industry.

I feel it is time to change direction, further my learning and skills and settle into a new team with fresh challenges and opportunities.