Reaching 20 years in senior management within the same organisation is a milestone that brings both pride and reflection. For me, as someone whose roots are firmly grounded in mental health nursing, this journey has never been just about leadership – it has always been about patient care, compassion, and making a meaningful difference in people’s lives. While my role has evolved over the years, the core of who I am as a professional remains the same: a nurse first, and a leader second.
Born, Not Made: How My Journey Began
People often ask me how my nursing journey started, or if I was that little girl who always dressed up like a nurse. Truth be told, I did dress up as a nurse when I was little – Nurse Nancy from the Twinkle comic! In junior school, when we had to draw what we wanted to be when we grew up, I drew a nurse.
But life isn’t always a straight line. Coming from my dad’s side of the family, they were draftsmen; my grandfather was a university lecturer in Manchester who taught technical drawing. I was very much geared and pushed in that direction. By the time I left school, I actually had an apprenticeship all set up in the drawing office at British Nuclear Fuels. But that quiet calling toward nursing never left me, and I also went to register for a local pre-nursing course. At the very last minute, once my results came through, I chose the pre-nursing course. All these years later, I know I made the right decision.
The absolute defining moment for me happened the summer before college. On my mum’s side of the family, many of my grandmother’s brothers and sisters had never married and were getting older. My grandmother, who usually looked after them, was going to America for four weeks with my grandfather to celebrate their Ruby wedding anniversary. Two of her siblings became very poorly, so I stepped in. One took to her bed the day my grandmother left; I nursed her through those weeks, and she passed away the day after my grandmother returned. Being there for someone in their hour of need, providing compassionate end-of-life care – that was the bit where I thought, this is exactly what I want to do.
Finding My Way to Mental Health
Even then, I knew I wasn’t cut out to be a general nurse. During my pre-nursing course, I did a placement at the psychiatric hospital up the road. My next-door neighbour, who was a sister at that same hospital, used to say to me when I was a child, “You need to be a psychiatric nurse”. Once I did my placement there, that was it – I was hooked.
I wanted to build my toolkit and gather some genuine life experience before jumping straight into my formal training, because psychiatric nursing truly demands that maturity. From age 18 to 20, I worked as a support worker in a care home. Then, I spent three years in the hospital’s occupational therapy department doing diversional therapy and activities with patients. I toyed with the idea of becoming an OT (funny enough, my daughter actually went on to become an OT herself), but the nursing bit was always steady in my heart. I finally started my formal nurse training at 22. I spent three years training and 13 years working on the wards in that hospital.
After my last child was born, I transitioned to managing a nursing home for four years, followed by a four-year stint as a business development manager for YMCA training. Interestingly, I think I did more mental health nursing with the vulnerable young people on those YMCA training programmes than I did during some of my years in the hospital! When that role closed, destiny called, and I joined Cambian in 2006.
The Cambian & Cygnet Journey: Grounded by Mentorship
I started as Head of Care (Clinical Manager) at Cygnet Delfryn House, and within three months, I took over the Registered Manager’s role. I loved the work, but Cygnet Delfryn House was a 37-mile commute from home. In the bitter winters, I’d get snowed in, and because my children were still quite young, I reached a point where I felt I couldn’t keep doing the drive and decided to leave.
That was when Professor Tony Romero stepped in. Tony was the Clinical Director at the time and had his office in that building. He refused to let me walk away, saying, “No, don’t leave. I’ve got a job for you where you can work from home”. He put me in charge of managing our new clinical assessment team. At the start, there were only three of us going out and doing assessments. Over the next 12 to 13 years, we expanded that team dramatically as the company grew. Today, there are 10 assessors and three admin staff in that team, and even though my career has moved on, I still line-manage the person who runs it, so a piece of my heart remains there.
Tony has been an incredible mentor and a constant on my journey throughout the last two decades. He was my direct line manager for 13 years. Later on, when I needed a new challenge, he guided me to take on project roles, becoming Regional Nurse Director for the North, and eventually I stepped up as the Deputy Director of Nursing. Today, under Shane Mills, Director of Nursing & Quality, my role has expanded so I am the Deputy Director of Nursing, and Director for Nurse Education and Support. It is an incredibly busy space, focusing heavily on everyday challenges in services, university partnerships, Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for our nurses, and competency frameworks to equip our nurses and support staff to deliver the best care possible.
I am so proud of our Cygnet Nursing Directorate, and our on-going work to develop positive pathways for exceptional care.
Proud to be a Cygnet Nurse
When I look back at what originally brought me here and what has kept me here for 20 years, it boils down to two things: environment and leadership.
Before I joined, I had worked in mental health for a long time. In those services patients were relegated to old, depressing buildings and former asylums. When I first walked into Delfyn House, it had only been open for three months, and I was entirely blown away. It was a beautiful, dignified environment. I remember walking in and being greeted so warmly, served fresh coffee on a tray with a paper doily. This wasn’t just how they treated visitors, it was how they treated patients. A positive, therapeutic, high-quality environment is a vital catalyst for a patient’s recovery, and it provides immense comfort to families who are trusting us with their loved ones during challenging times.
A vital ingredient has been Tony’s leadership. I’ve worked in parts of the independent sector where the CEO came from a finance background or had previously managed a supermarket. Because Tony is a clinician himself, the compassion for patient care starts at the very top and filters all the way down through the organisation. Care is genuinely at the heart of everything we do. Our clinical integration in 2017 opened up diverse service lines – from rehab and low secure units to social care. This diversity means our nurses never have to feel pigeonholed; they have a massive landscape of choices to safely grow their careers.
The care we provide to vulnerable people, and the opportunities for our colleagues to develop their careers here, make me proud to be a Cygnet nurse.
Navigating Change While Protecting Care
Of course, the healthcare landscape has changed significantly over 20 years. Policy reforms, surging demands, and complex restructures put a lot of pressure on senior management. Yet, through every period of uncertainty, my core guiding principle has never bent: patient care must never be compromised.
Balancing financial constraints, workforce hurdles, and delivery expectations is an ongoing challenge. But because I am a clinician, I intimately understand the emotional weight our frontline staff carry every single day. Fostering psychological safety, supporting workforce wellbeing, and providing pathways for clinical growth are my highest priorities. When staff feel valued, patient care naturally flourishes. It really is that simple.
There is absolutely nothing more rewarding in this world than being on a ward, seeing a patient arrive incredibly unwell and psychotic, and then watching them walk out the front door down the line, completely transformed. That is the power of mental health nursing.
Looking Ahead
After 20 years, my sense of purpose is as strong as it was on day one. I’ve had the privilege of seeing ideas turn into fully established services, watching care pathways improve outcomes, and seeing nurses I once mentored rise into senior leaders themselves.
As I look ahead to the future of Cygnet’s nursing workforce, I remain fiercely committed to the same values that started it all: compassion, integrity, and an unshakeable focus on the person in front of us. No matter how far you climb into strategic leadership, if you start your career as a nurse, that perspective never leaves you. Nor should it. Patient care isn’t just a metric on a spreadsheet. It is the reason we show up.
I’m excited for what the future holds for our nurses at Cygnet.