“I am the Patient Administration Manager at Bridlington Hospital.  I manage two teams - the Patient Access team based in the Outpatient Department and the Healthcare Records team.

“I have loved all of the roles I have had over the last 30 years.  I started work at Bridlington Hospital on 9 May 1988 as a ward clerk – when it first opened!  I changed roles four years later and went to work as a medical records clerk, which I did for several years before training as a clinical coder.  From there I progressed to becoming medical records supervisor/waiting list clerk, and eventually 12 years ago I became a manager.

“I initially started work in the hospitality trade but I grew up knowing what it is like to work in the NHS as my father was an ambulance driver for many years.  Working in the NHS was always something I had thought about, so when I saw the vacancy for a ward clerk I decided to apply - and I haven’t look back since.

“To me the NHS is about job satisfaction - like walking out of the department on a Friday knowing we have met our deadlines to ensure case notes are where they should be so there is no impact on patient care.

“There is also a sense of pride in being part of a huge team that constantly works together to make a patient’s journey through our hospitals as easy as possible - and there is nothing more rewarding than being thanked by a patient for helping them, no matter how small a contribution it may have been.

“There have been a lot of changes in the NHS over the years, but for me the biggest one is the change in technology and the use of computers.  When I first started at the hospital we were only just beginning to be use them but over the 30 years I have been at Bridlington we have had four different systems…each bringing their own challenges!  Today we are working towards having a paperlite system and electronic patient records which is a massive project and one hopefully I will see starting to take shape before I retire.

“My first boss gave me two pieces of advice.  The first one was ‘never ask anyone to do a job you wouldn’t roll your sleeves up and do yourself’, and the other was ‘always treat people as you would like to be treated yourself’.  I have always remembered this and tried to work to both.”