Inspiring role leads to Anthony Turner’s dream job in community nursing

Anthony Turner with Carol Pilling, district nursing sister.

Anthony Turner, a former administration officer employed within The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust’s community and integrated services at Rochdale, has landed his dream job, got engaged and had a baby boy all thanks to an inspiring job within district nurse liaison.

Anthony worked within the district nurse liaison team within the Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale area for three years and within this time he discovered his desire to become a qualified nurse.

He said: “I had never previously considered becoming a nurse until I was 18 months into my job in district nurse liaison, which is now known as integrated adult nursing liaison. I found that I had become interested in all the different types of clinical visits which the nurses had to undertake, the variety of skills which they had to use when patients rang up and also seeing the difference that the nurses could make to the patient and their family.

“I wanted a respected profession to work within and develop myself and felt that the skills I had developed within my admin role could be transferred.”

After speaking to several nurses within the integrated neighbourhood teams at Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale, Anthony applied and was successful at gaining a place on the nursing degree course at Salford University.

He completed nine placements covering hospital and community services and qualified as a nurse last September after three years of study

Anthony added: “I now work for Pennine Acute community services and have come full circle from being in liaison. I am finding it very rewarding being in a blue uniform and all the team which I used to speak to during my admin role have been very supportive of me. As I know a lot of the staff this has made the transition much easier. I feel respected and ready for the next chapter of my learning. I am now working with the district nurses in Nye Bevan House in Rochdale.”

Steve Wall, cluster lead Rochdale East, division of community and integrated services at Pennine Acute Trust, said: “It is a pleasure to see Anthony return to the service as a qualified nurse. It is a measure of the service that we can develop our own staff and then be the division of choice for Anthony to start his nursing career which we all hope will be a long and successful one.”