Jo Thompson's story: my road to nurse consultancy
Jo Thompson always wanted to be a nurse, but when she started her training in the early 90s becoming a nurse consultant never crossed her mind.
“To be honest, I never wanted to do anything else apart from nursing, but I hadn’t thought beyond getting my first job, I just wanted to get as much experience as I possibly could.”
Now in her unique new post, Jo works alongside consultants and nursing staff in the palliative care team at Royal Surrey, providing palliative and end-of-life care as the Trust’s second nurse consultant.
Still relatively uncommon roles, nurse consultants in any clinical speciality need to be able to demonstrate competency and experience in four pillars of practice – clinical, research, leadership and education – in order to be qualified to apply for a consultant post.
Although admitting to being very competitive with herself, Jo’s ambition to become a nurse consultant was really born out of her passion to combine research and education while continuing clinical work as she progressed in the profession.
“Senior nursing leadership roles certainly advocate patient care amongst their many responsibilities, but it was very clear for me, I absolutely love clinical care, the challenge of seeing someone in front of me and problem solving face to face – being a nurse consultant allows me to do that while taking on management tasks.”
Jo did a nursing degree, which is where her enjoyment of clinical practice combined with research was developed. From her earliest dissertation at university researching the concept of ‘comfort’ she has taken every opportunity to broaden her evidence based clinical practice.
“It’s about seizing the chances when they come. I worked on a general medical ward and became fascinated by haematology and oncology patients, so took the chance to do some related courses and gradually my focus on end of life care developed.”
Jo joined the Royal Surrey in 2009 as a clinical nurse specialist before becoming a lead nurse. She says the encouragement of the leaders in her department was integral to her taking the next steps towards consultancy.
“My medical consultant who pushed me towards it saw our service could really work with a nurse consultant. That motivation was great, but I realised I didn’t have enough strings to my bow and needed to go about getting the right experience and qualifications.”
She completed an MSc in Palliative Care in 2015, began writing for publications and lectured nationally and internationally on symptom management and supportive care in cancer and completed a Florence Nightingale Leadership Scholarship. There’s now a national framework from Health Education England you can go through to self-assess against the criteria for consultant level practice.
Jo says her door is always open to those who are interested in the role at whatever stage they are in their career.
“It would be nice to take away the myth around it; it’s about being really motivated and having a champion. It’s a fantastic, really privileged role, we need more of them because I think it’s a way of keeping really experienced nurses in clinical care and role modelling to others.”