Shropshire college celebrates nurses as it rolls out 24-hour medical care on campus

Concord College in Acton Burnell paid tribute to its staff on International Nurses Day, recognising the ‘continual hard work’ of the five nurses and similar number of healthcare assistants in ensuring the campus remains a Covid-safe environment.

Vice principal Jeremy Kerslake said: “We have more reason this year than ever before to be grateful to our hard-working team of college nurses and healthcare assistants for all their efforts in keeping our students and staff safe and healthy during this global pandemic.

“The team have conducted so many health checks and Covid-19 PCR tests in order to stop the transmission of the coronavirus within our community.

“Their clinical skills and knowledge have been more vital than ever before in enabling students to learn and education to continue.”

According to lead nurse Pamela Tomlin, the past year has undoubtedly been challenging for the whole team whom, she said, had ‘gone above and beyond'.

“The team has worked tirelessly to ensure all care has been delivered, often working extra and on days off," she said.

“We ensured the safe return and quarantine of over 300 students requiring more than 600 Covid-19 tests along with new student medicals, regular medication and care of unwell students over the last four months alone.

Compassion

“We’ve also ensured that we’ve cared for both physical and emotional wellbeing and effectively dealt with the challenges and new ways of working around Covid-19.

“The team has played a key part in the mass testing of all staff and students in the thousands and completed almost 150 PCR tests in-house on our Vivylatic PCR machine.”

Miss Tomlin added: “I would like to thank the whole team as working in the independent sector is not high profile and can often get overlooked.

"In a different way they have worked just as hard as acute nursing, but with equal dedication and compassion.

“International Nurses Day gives us the opportunity to recognise this and give our thanks to nurses from all sectors.”

Mr Kerslake added: “During this mental health awareness week we also need to recognise the nursing team’s kindness and people skills in supporting students’ emotional wellbeing and mental health as they face the challenges of assessments during this summer term.

“It is a huge thank you from the Concord community to the incredible medical team at the college as well as a big thank you to all nurses around the world.”