Interesting people – James Emmett
Interesting people – James Emmett
Meet James, Clinical Manager, Older People’s Services, formerly Admiral Nurse Team Leader
#InterestingPeopleFulfillingCareers
My first ever job at 16 was a cleaner in a nursing home near where I grew up. I moved to London to do my degree in nursing – I’m a mental health nurse by background, but immediately after qualifying went on to do a psychology degree. As I was training, I needed to earn some money so started working at a nearby care home close to my halls – the main reason I chose to work there! I was doing bank shifts and the pay wasn’t bad. I tended to work on the dementia specialist unit there and really enjoyed it.
They asked me to be a full-time nurse and I progressed to be unit manager for 30 residents all living with dementia and most with some complex symptoms and clinical frailty. After two years I was deputy home manager – a big step up in a large nursing home with 118 beds in five units. There was a lot of team and clinical management and leadership.
We worked closely with a care home intervention team who came in to support people with dementia who had particularly complex presentations that we were struggling to manage and I really enjoyed that side of the work and went to work for them in December 2019, just ahead of Covid. Having left the care home to support lots of different care homes all dealing with the pandemic was a major challenge and I ran support sessions for staff – mental health first aid in an insanely stressful period for them.
Once back to our core work of assessing people, we used the Newcastle model, really working to understand our patients’ behaviour and creating behavioural care plans that weren’t based on sedation – to find out what’s meaningful for them and base the care plan around that.
After a few years my partner and I were keen to move out of London and the first job I saw was back in Bradford, where I was from, as an Admiral Nurse. Every experience I’d had up until that point set me up perfectly to work as a dementia specialist nurse. I applied and was successful and it was really nice to come home and to be part of what was essentially a brand new service, the first nurse in the team. Terrifying too as I didn’t know the local services and I didn’t drive, but I’ve never ever given up on a challenge.
#InterestingPeopleExcitingProjects
After three months I was appointed team leader and I’d say it took about six months to get our Admiral Nurse team really running well, understanding where we were going to fit with existing services and how we could offer something different. Dementia UK developed the Admiral Nurse model and provides ongoing training and support and access to a real breadth of experience. And as our Admiral Nursing service works closely with the Proactive Care Team which has staff across 11 different disciplines, it’s been good to have that mix of physical and mental health services together to assess the whole person and really tailor the care for each patient. That’s so important with an elderly person because a urine infection for example can impact your mental health as well as your physical health.
#InterestingPeopleRewardingWork
My work in the Admiral Nursing team has been really rewarding but I was terrified at the start, being in a job I’d not done before, in a place I’d never worked, attached to a team that was very physical health based. There was a lot of learning in an intense way and I had times I felt completely out of my depth but the pieces slowly slotted together – how we could best work with PACT, the memory assessment teams and community. And we began getting really wonderful feedback from families saying they don’t know how they would have coped if they didn’t have us. It spurs you on every time you get feedback like that – you think how can we do it better, how can we help more people.
In healthcare historically we’ve separated mental and physical health – my experience has been most positive where we’ve worked together – you see both sides and it improves your job satisfaction as well as the outcomes for patients and that’s all everybody really wants isn’t it. I’d like to see fully integrated physical and mental health services not just for older people.
I’m very proud of the Admiral Nursing team – none of us were Admiral Nurses before we joined this team – we were two mental health nurses and two general nurses – a really positive skill mix from everyone’s experience and a very collaborative way of working – I could not have done it without them and I’m thrilled the service is now expanding.
#InterestingPeopleBestPlaceToWork
It did feel like a big risk for me coming back North but there’s been a real emphasis within the Trust on my development, not just as a member of the team but as an individual. If there’s been training I wanted to go on or an area I felt I need to spend more time developing I’ve been given the opportunity to do that. I’ve experienced a lot of genuine, kind respect – it’s felt genuinely collaborative too. If I’ve said “we need to look into this” people have said, “tell us how we can do it better” – that attitude makes a really big difference – if you can see something coming you work together to put things in place and prepare rather than the standard response of “that isn’t how we do things”.
People here can see if you want to learn and get better. If you acknowledge there’s an area in which you don’t have lots of expertise, they support you – they don’t throw you in the deep end to sink or swim. They ask “What don’t you know? What do you want to know? And how can we help you get there?” and that’s the attitude I’ve taken with my nurses as well – “What are you confident with? What are you really good at that I can rely on you for? And what do you want or need to learn?” Then we help them get there – which is a really positive way to work with anyone. I’m never going to be an expert on respiratory physiotherapy because I’m not a physiotherapist – but I know where to get that specialist expertise.
I’ve now moved to a new role within the Trust building on everything I learned as Admiral Nurse Team Leader working with our older people’s mental health teams, community mental health, care home liaison and memory assessment. It’s another step up in complexity and I’m looking forward to achieving the absolute best that we can.
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