“After finishing university I was unsure what career path I wanted, I had always worked in care homes as a carer since I was 16 yrs old in the holidays and weekends, so caring seemed like a more natural career path. My whole family were ex-army and I looked into doing my nurse training within the armed forces, what started as an idea from my mum, very quickly progressed into army recruitment and selection processes at Pirbright and Lichfield and joining the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps. I started my student nurse training with the Army at University of Portsmouth, becoming a registered nurse in adult health.

I had a varied and exciting army career, being deployed on multiple operational tours to Iraq, Kuwait and Bosnia as well as working in a multitude of ministry of defence hospital units across the UK and carrying out military exercises, I worked predominantly as a high dependency surgical nurse. As with all good things though, it came to an end after 9 years when I fell pregnant with my first child. Realising that operational commitments to the Army and babies definitely do not mix well, I left the Army and immediately moved back to Hastings and St Leonard’s to be closer to family.

As a stop-gap, I applied for a job as a registered nurse at a nursing home in St Leonard’s called “Queen Mary’s”, imagine my surprise at seeing my QARANC cap badge above the door!! I thought this would just be for a little while until I found what I really wanted to do. I found however that the environment suited me really well, I loved the ethos and the camaraderie with colleagues you get to know so well and drive to do a good job that was at the heart of everything. Time progressed and I became a clinical lead, then deputy manager and then was appointed Registered Manager in 2014. We have built a strong team of dedicated and long serving professionals at Mulberry House and I still love it as much as the first day I walked in.

It’s an absolute rollercoaster some days, but I always strive for us to do things better.”