Sarah Nixon

Hello, my name is Sarah Nixon. I’m a learning disability nurse and I work at Alexander House, which is a locked rehabilitation service for males with a learning disability and mental health diagnosis, who are sectioned under the Mental Health Act. The main aim of our work is to support patients to learn new skills and develop existing ones to help them move back into the community and be as independent as possible. We help people for example with their social skills, support them to make friends within the community, help them with cooking, budgeting, and understanding and managing their emotions too.

I have been at Alexander House since I first qualified over 14 years ago and have worked my way up from staff nurse to ward manager. I am new to the role of ward manager, but my goal is to make the ward a supportive therapeutic environment for both patients and staff. Alexander House has seen a lot of change over the past few years especially during the pandemic and I think it is important to refocus the team on our future and how to rebuild our team. I hope to achieve some new creative ideas about how I can bring the team together working towards the same goal, which will in turn create a more supportive environment for the patients. I would like to learn some new skills which I can bring back to the patients to help support their discharge back into the community and skills I can use within supervision for the staff to help their development.