Ashley Williams

23/04/21

As the Captain Tom 100 Challenge takes off, raising money for charities including Livability, we talk to some of Livability’s NHS-trained nurses and clinicians about their jobs and why they do it. First up is Fran Hunt, Lead Nurse at Livability Victoria Education Centre.

Fran and student at Victoria School

What’s been your career path as a nurse?

I trained at Bournemouth University, and then went on to work on a surgical ward, an elderly rehab ward and as a district nurse. In June 2018, I started at Victoria School because I fancied a change, a different cohort of patients and, to be brutally honest, having had only two Christmases off in 28 years, school holidays sounded marvellous too!

Having worked for the NHS for years, what’s your opinion of its value?

I think the NHS is the backbone of our society. Without a fit and healthy nation, we are nowhere. And you can have a varied career path as there is so much choice within the NHS.

What is the nursing team’s role at Livability Victoria School?

There are at least three nurses on duty every day at Victoria. We liaise a huge amount with the students’ families and are involved in ‘child in need’ [as defined by the 1989 Children Act] meetings, the students’ annual reviews and with safeguarding. And we train our enabling support workers in medication, feeding, personal care etc. Of course recently, we’ve been doing a huge amount of infection prevention and control.

How difficult was that over the past year?

I feel proud of what we did as team, and across the school, because we kept things running with no real interruption by Covid. We only had two positive tests out of 90 students, who had no symptoms, and they hadn’t contracted Covid through the school. I have to say I was pretty brutal in my application of infection control procedures!

It’s a challenging job – why do you stay in the profession?

I don’t think you can walk away easily from nursing – and I enjoy it.

Now the 2021 Captain Tom 100 challenge gives us all a chance to honour Captain Tom’s memory and make tomorrow a good day for a charity we care about. We have over 70 dedicated nurses and clinicians on staff at Livability, who have poured their hearts and their skill into keeping the people with disabilities we support safe, well and happy in this most difficult of years.

We’d like to invite you to take part in this challenge with Livability, to show your support for these amazing professionals.

When is the Captain Tom 100 happening?

On Friday 30 April through to Bank Holiday Monday 3 May – what would have been Captain Tom’s 101st birthday weekend. You can take the Challenge, based around the number 100, any time and anywhere over the weekend. Find out more