CityCare provides a wide range of opportunities for students and newly qualified nurses. Students who work with us can choose one of three pathways, either Community nursing, School nursing or Health visiting.
Newly qualified nurses, or nurses new to community care services, receive the support of a preceptor for a minimum of 12 months to ease their transition into the next stage of their careers and help them find their feet as qualified health professionals.
If our nurses want to move into management, we offer leadership programmes that will prepare them for service manager and training roles.
Sophie Gibney spoke to us about her journey from Student to Senior Staff Nurse. Sophie graduated with a 1st in Adult Nursing in September 2019. She undertook her 3rd-year placement at CityCare, based in St Ann’s community nursing team. She enjoyed working in the community so applied for a Community Nurse role and in March 2020, was successfully appointed as a Senior Staff Nurse.
While a combination of hard work and passion are at the heart of Sophie’s career progression, she also credits having a supportive District Nurse and Team Manager as being key to her success. She stated: “They saw I had the potential and pushed me to put myself forward. They put me onto the necessary training, and I climbed the ladder with more responsibilities and seeing complex patients.”
Sophie described how having to deal with acute and chronic cases as well as dealing with callouts to palliative patients, complex wounds and catheter care has given her the confidence and expertise to work autonomously. As well as having to enrol in very specific training to cover the vast areas of knowledge and expertise required, CityCare Community Nurses often deal with patients who have multiple comorbidities and therefore need to make regular referrals through care navigators to specialist service providers. If anything, Community Nursing very much reflects the new wave of healthcare in line with the Government’s ambition to promote self-care management across an increasing range of patient groups.
When asked what she loved the most about her role, Sophie explained: “I love the autonomous nature of the work. It’s just you and your patient in their home. You learn more about them that way and soon build up the confidence to make decisions with them, with their best interests at heart.
“It’s about having the confidence to make a decision under pressure, but in reality, you always have the support of a colleague, GP or any other allied health professional that is working with the patient.
“It is a big responsibility, but you get a thorough induction and shadowing period and over time you build up the confidence to be an autonomous practitioner.”
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Date published: 3 February 2022
