A proud Chief Nurse at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (BHRUT) has received an OBE.
Kathryn Halford, whose 37-year career has included treating victims of the London bombings and meeting royalty, was 18 when she started her nursing career.
Kathryn, 54, who spends the week living in Harold Wood and returns to her family home in Gloucestershire every weekend, has been awarded in recognition of her services to nursing.
She said: “After watching Angels, a TV series about nursing, I always wanted to be a nurse. I thought it was a really nice job where you are able to help people. A lot has changed in my career, but that hasn’t.”
Kathryn’s career has taken her to spend a night as the only female at Worth Monastery, so she could speak to one of the monks, a children’s palliative care nurse by day. At the time she was an advisor for the Department of Health leading a report into children’s palliative care. And she opted to spend an evening at a gay sauna, rather than a swingers’ club, as part of an outreach sexual health team.
One of her proudest achievements at the Trust has been reducing the number of pressure ulcers and patient falls – to among the lowest in the country, and reducing serious incidents. “We have a real focus on safety and providing high-quality care,” she said, “but I can’t do that alone. It’s about having a clear vision and understanding and working with our teams.”
“Another thing which gives me huge pride is having had the opportunity to be part of teams which are focused on providing high quality care for patients, improving patient experience and developing the next generation to be excellent nurses and midwives. I have been very lucky to have worked with some great colleagues who share my vision and passion for nursing.”
Setting her apart is the importance Kathryn places on visibility, regularly visiting wards and meeting with frontline staff weekly. She’s keen to point out her job, “is not done in my office.”
Some colleagues are surprised to find out that Kathryn is a mother-of-three, to Rebecca, 29, Oliver, 27 and 23-year-old Freya. She’s spent the majority of career working part-time, job sharing or doing condensed hours and puts her ability to ‘have-it-all’, a career and a family, down to the flexibility of the NHS and said, “fundamentally, I am a mum. My family is really important to me”.
Matthew Hopkins, Chief Executive, BHRUT, said: “I am so proud of Kathryn and I’m delighted that she has been recognised in this way. She has made an enormous contribution to our Trust, and to the NHS as a whole.
“I can only guess at how many thousands of lives that Kathryn must have touched either directly or indirectly over the years.
“She is an inspiration to her colleagues and everyone at the Trust is so proud of her. She’s never afraid to roll her sleeves up and lead from the front.”
Tags: NHS, Barking and Dagenham
