I was asked at a conference I led a few weeks ago how did you get to doing what you do now from being a nurse?
I love nursing and it will always be why I do what I do, however when I lost my Mum some years ago it all felt just a little too raw seeing other families going through what I was still healing from.So I decided I needed to stay close to healthcare but at a distance from the emotion that more often than not accompanied it. You see you don't harden to it you simply cope. I wasn't coping.
So I went off to be a medical rep. I worked with a great company called Abbott Laboratories, there was something very special about being part of that team. Interestingly when I read Good to Great by Jim Collins some years later, there they are as one of the companies who made the leap, unbeknown to me at the time I was part of that transition.You see sometimes you don't realise you are part of something amazing, it just feels like a great job! My key learning here was how to influence and persuade when you don't have the badge and authority of your title in the hospital.
I left there to work with Innovex another great and new company who worked across the boundaries of the commercial world and the public sector. They developed programmes ahead of their time but didn't realise it then. We had nurse led services doing systematic call and recall for patients with chronic diseases.The programmes were funded by the pharmaceutical industry, nurses did not promote product but by virtue of releasing time for the Drs and nurses to care it delivered better outcomes al round.
Then one Sunday morning I was glancing through the appointments page of the Times and something caught my eye. It was a new team being formed in the NHS called the Primary Care Development Team. It was headed by a GP from Glossop called Dr John Oldham. It talked of collaborative working, improvement, integrating services. improving access and most importantly making a real difference. I was sold. Within a few weeks I was sat in an office in North Bradford with my new team. It was to be the start of the most professionally rewarding seven years of my career.
I learned how to run collaboratives, developed skills in improvement science, met my friend and mentor Dr Sarah Fraser and networked for England!
Now the NPDT is no longer, but the skills and many of the team are still out there doing great work. I decided to go it alone to try and get as much experience as possible and to choose the areas I felt i could most influence and make a difference.
So two years on now and you up to date with me. Who knows what the next adventure will be all I do know is that I'm looking forward to it.
Thank you so much to all the great people who have guided me on this journey from Student Nurse to Director of my own consulting company. x
About Jan Potts
- Jan
- Worston, Lancashire, United Kingdom
- I am an experienced enthusiastic nurse with over 15 years at a senior level. With a passion for delivering the best care we can for patients I have spent the last ten years working at the front line within high profile improvement programs specialising in putting the theory into practice. I'm told I am a strong leader and facilitator of improvement and transformational change I have a track record of developing capacity and capability for improvement, locally, regionally nationally and internationally by developing and facilitating communities of improvement across programmes and clinical disciplines. The work I have done has always focused on developing the emotional intelligence of both individuals and teams and organisations. This combined with a sound practical knowledge of improvement science enables her to ensure the policy and theory is turned into practice.
