With an NHS career spanning an "incredible" 50 years, specialist respiratory nurse Pam Patton has retired from her role with North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust.
Colleagues at Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon and Peterborough City Hospital said farewell to Pam, who has spent the last 20 years of her long NHS career in the Trust treating local patients and mentoring colleagues.
Pam said: "It was a very difficult decision to retire, but I think the time is right."
Pam started her training aged 19 in Birmingham in 1973, and once qualified, she began work in major trauma and burns at the Accident Hospital.
She continued working in Birmingham between growing her family and relocating to Cambridgeshire with her husband and three children in 1987.
On joining a nursing agency, she was offered work at Papworth, Addenbrookes and Hinchingbrooke.
After doing this for a year, she was offered a permanent post in the Chest Medical Unit at Hinchingbrooke and enjoyed it so much that she stayed for 14 years.
However, after five years as a junior sister, she felt more than ready for promotion.
This came in the form of an opportunity to manage a new service for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients in Peterborough, which she did for nine years.
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She said: "The role involved a lot of community input for patients in their own homes. This was very different to all my hospital roles.
"Following this, I became the respiratory outreach nurse, which I did for around three years.
"After this and wanting a new challenge, I applied for and got the job as an advanced nurse practitioner in Ambulatory Care at Peterborough City Hospital."
But missing her respiratory roots, Pam eventually found herself back working in her area of expertise and a service that she has been instrumental in developing over the years.
She added: "Although I very much enjoyed working in Ambulatory Care, I realised I was missing my respiratory patients and, as I live in St Neots, the travelling would be very much shorter."
As well as helping to grow the respiratory service in Hinchingbrooke, Pam has also delivered training and education to staff, including medical students, nurses, junior doctors and healthcare assistants across the Trust.
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This really came into its own during the pandemic. Pam recalled: "I have never known a time like it. It was really a time when we all came together – we took delivery of new ventilation equipment that staff needed to be trained in the use of. It provided an opportunity to use my own expertise to upskill staff."
Pam, who hasn't had a day of sickness absence in the past nine years, leaves a legacy of having mentored many colleagues.
She said: "My highlights are definitely getting the positive feedback from the staff I have mentored and having the feeling that I have really made a difference."
It has been just over a year since building work began on our Main Theatres Block at Hinchingbrooke Hospital and the external building is really taking shape. Find out more about the redevelopment of the Hinchingbrooke site on our website: https://t.co/0UuuAYWjhk pic.twitter.com/z6KkoSHFuV
— NWAngliaFT (@NWAngliaFT) September 1, 2023
Pam's retirement comes as the NHS celebrates its own 75th milestone. She was presented with a long-service certificate and gifts by North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust Chief Executive Officer Caroline Walker.
Caroline said: "Dedicating 50 years' service to the NHS is an outstanding achievement, and I would like to personally thank Pam for all she has done in her exceptional career, including the many local patients she has cared for during the past two decades at our local hospitals."
However, Pam isn't cutting ties with the Trust completely and is "very pleased" that from October 1, she will be working two days a week at Peterborough City and Hinchingbrooke hospitals on a six-month project to upskill her medical and nursing colleagues.
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