Irene Weaver

I was a nursing leader for over 20 years with extensive experience in Orthopaedics and laterally, plastic surgery nursing. As a leader, I was responsible for operational management of the wards, patient safety and governance, as well as driving high standards of care. I also scrutinised patient records to ensure quality control, and also to enable me to effectively write reports for complaints, incidents, coroners court, legal teams and mortality reports for management.

I am passionate about change and improvement and was able to demonstrate these skills throughout my management career, through transformational leadership, my team and I were able to achieve the highest accolade in our Trust by demonstrating high standards of care each and every time to every patient (SCAPE was the term used for this award). I achieved this on 2 wards that I managed and, I was the only ward manager in the Trust to do so.

I was part of the planning and strategic group for the set up and commencement of the ERAS programme which facilitated our elective patients to reduce their length of stay, by following a nursing and physiotherapy pathway, this was trialled successfully on my ward for a number of years, before the services moved to another part of the Trust.

I currently work for the nurse bank, having retired from my ward manager post this year, this has given me valuable insight into other areas of surgical nursing such as general surgery and also takes me back to patient facing care, which is where my passion for nursing always lay, first and foremost.