Hannah Donald, lead nurse for the adult critical care transfer service, shares her story as the service celebrates its first birthday.
I fell in love with working in intensive care and did it for ten years at CUH. The staff are immensely intelligent and will give everything to try to save a patient’s life. The patients are really poorly and might have a number of complex issues. If they get a second chance at life, it is such a victory moment; science has got this. You can make some very special bonds with patients, some of their names and faces I will remember forever.
I was working in intensive care when Covid arrived. The staff really came together as a family and it was amazing to see. We’d have nurses that worked inside the unit with patients and others outside who were our running nurses. To keep us going, the ones outside would write words on signs or play charades. When I was with a colleague in full PPE, I asked if we could just have a hug. It pushed me to my limit.
I had to take a step away from intensive care and took a role at Arthur Rank Hospice to set up a service there. It was the best thing, as it reignited my flame for patient safety and patient care. I returned to CUH to become the lead nurse for Transfer when it was set up last year. The service transports adult patients from regional hospitals who need critical care. Something just clicked after meeting the clinical directors, we had the same aims and the same passion.
I am so proud of what we have achieved in Transfer’s first year.
Hannah
We have two ambulances and two day teams that operate in the east of England, serving 18 hospitals. On each vehicle, patients are treated by a consultant and either a nurse or operating department practitioner. With the skills and experience our staff have, we can start treating a patient straight away, as soon as the journey starts. It is quite humbling to walk into a department in a regional hospital and be able to offer this service, that we are there to help and the transfer doesn’t require a member of the hospital’s staff. In the first 12 months we have treated just over 500 patients and travelled 65,000 miles.
Our goal for Transfer’s second year is to become a 24/7 service, so we can offer more support to colleagues in the region and help time-critical patients get the care they need. Our staff are really dedicated and we will move forward together. After Covid, this role has made me fall in love with intensive care again.