Meet The Team: Shirley Bishop, Infection Prevention and Control Nurse

Continuing our ‘meet the team’ series, this time round  we talk to Shirley Bishop, infection prevention and control nurse.

As you may have read in the press,  rigorous hygiene and infection control is an imperative practice in any hospital. he HCA group have very low MRSA and CDiff rates compared to the rest of the country, including no cases of MRSA in 2009 and 2010.

Although the responsibility to  upkeep this is down to everyone working in the hospital, Shirley leads this integral programme here at The Wellington. 

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Shirley Bishop joined us as the new Infection Prevention and Control Nurse at The Wellington Hospital, 4 months ago. Not completely new to the HCA group, Shirley used to be Senior Sister on the Second Floor at the Princess Grace Hospital. Prior to her HCA experience, Shirley was Clinical Governance Lead and Risk Manager with Infection Control at Harpenden Hospital, for the Spire Group. She has also been Infection Control Lead at Spire Bushey Hospital.

Shirley spared us 10 minutes to tell us about her new role and what is involved.

TWHBlog: Tell us about your role as Infection Prevention and Control Nurse?

SB: This new role is vast and involves all teaching and ensuring very high standards of Infection Prevention and Control at The Wellington Hospital, The Platinum Medical Centre and The Wellington Diagnostics & Outpatients Centre in Golders Green. It is a very large site and there are several new challenges ahead.

TWHBlog: What do you enjoy most about your role?

SB: The complete variation of the job – one day I am doing clinical work and the next day I may be working with one of the support services. There is no day the same.

TWHBlog: What is your background in nursing?

SB: I originally trained at The London Hospital as a Registered Nurse and eventually joined the Independent Sector in 1982, where I have worked ever since. Having acquired experience as a nurse at all levels in general nursing, orthopaedics, plastics, ENT, urology and oncology, I became interested in Infection Control in 1986 and achieved a recognised qualification from Oxford Brookes University in 2009.

TWHBlog: Tell us one thing about infection control that we might not know

SB: Wash your hands!

TWHBlog: If you weren’t Infection Prevention and Control Nurse, what would you be?

SB: Probably training race horses in Nairobi, Kenya where I grew up, or being a farmer on the African plains!