Sarah James

My name is Sarah I am the nurse lead for the Urgent Treatment Centre and MIU in South Devon. I have been in post for 21 months. My background is emergency care, where I spent 29 years working in a variety of Emergency Departments (ED). I first became a nurse practitioner 17 years ago working in ED and over the last 6 years I have been working as a senior nurse practitioner in urgent treatment centres. This has allowed me to expand my skills to not only minor injuries but to minor illnesses also.

My team is a mixture of experienced nurses and paramedic practitioners from a variety of backgrounds, this allows us to draw on and share, each other’s knowledge and experience. We are a nurse led unit working remotely from our nearest ED and we have no doctors on site. My time with this team has seen many challenges, as the team and workload expands along with the complexity of presentations. I am hoping the Inspire Improvement Fellowship programme will allow me to view future challenges in a different way and enable me to facilitate a cohesive team response drawing us closer together.

I am thrilled to have been selected for the Inspire Improvement Fellowship and I am excited to learn, develop, share learning and put theory into practice. I am looking forward to using the tools I will learn to help support and develop the team as we continue to grow together.