From classroom to nursing care: A journey into leadership
Pictured above L-R: Hannah Wilson, Chief Allied Health Professional and Deputy Director of Therapies, Natalie Willetts, Director of Nursing and Quality, Phill Morgan-Henshaw, Deputy Director of Nursing and Flu Lead.
Hello, I am Phill, the Deputy Director of Nursing for the Trust, working alongside the Director of Nursing and Deputy Director of Therapies/Lead AHP and a wider team to provide professional advice and input into the quality and safety of patient care. In addition I have specific responsibility for and interest in non-medical prescribing, advancing clinical practice and aspects of safer staffing across all teams and units.
I started my career as a Student Mental Health Nurse following the end of the first degree and the realisation that I did not want to be a teacher. It came as a pleasurable surprise to find I was quite good at nursing and as importantly, really enjoyed it; trying to make things better for vulnerable people. After working in various clinical environments and spending some time as an operational and team manager, I was offered the opportunity to develop my skills in Primary Care mental health nursing (working with general practice delivering mental health care in those settings), and found my clinical passion. I moved my career to Herefordshire to join their primary care team due to the forward thinking nature of the work in that sector, and subsequently became an operational and then Service Manager for the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies, IAPT (now NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire Talking Therapies) service, getting this post as Herefordshire merged with Worcestershire. I was lucky enough to be offered a secondment as Deputy Director and then even luckier to be offered the post permanently.
I have had the pleasure of working with some fabulous teams across my career, both as a team member and as a leader. What makes all these teams similar (despite each one being very different) is the idea of a shared purpose, a sense of openness, a willingness to ask for help and the support offered to me (and I hope others) on a professional and personal level. All these are present within my current team, which encourages me and makes me want to come to work.
There are many opportunities available for anyone looking for a career in mental health. Each path will be individualistic and idiosyncratic. Nursing is a fabulous profession to be part of and makes me proud to ‘wear the uniform’ I would encourage anyone thinking about starting a career in nursing to get in touch with the Trust and talk through options and opportunities available via new to care posts, apprenticeships or traditional educational/practice placement routes. Diary and time permitting I am delighted to talk through career options with people both in and outside of the Trust.
The best career decision I made was the return to clinical practice as a Primary Care nurse. That eventually led to being in the post I am now, which is the best job in the world. My note of caution to my younger self would suggest they don’t rush at things so much – but my younger self probably wouldn’t listen!
If you're interested in joining our team as a nurse, take a look at our preceptorship information where you can find out about our 12 month programme and pop over to our vacancies page to see what's available.