As a nurse consultant in health protection I work on all aspects of health protection, including immunisation and prevention of infectious diseases. I am based in Inverness and work full time with a small team of colleagues covering two local authority areas (Highland and Argyll & Bute).
A key part of my role is ensuring that up-to-date, evidence-based information is available to staff working in a variety of health and social care settings with regard to health protection, immunisation and prevention of infectious disease. This includes developing relevant guidance and policy as well as being available to advise or answer any queries.
Since 2010 I have been responsible for ensuring that immunisation programmes run smoothly and that staff have access to the right training. In 2006 I was given the opportunity to write the content of an online educational resource, Promoting Effective Immunisation Practice, and this training is now available throughout Scotland.
There is a lot of variety in this job and I need to be able to react immediately to the demands of new cases on a day-to-day basis. For example, I might be notified about a new case of meningitis and have to investigate which friends or family members need antibiotics and then work with their healthcare providers to make sure that they get them.
It can be a challenge dealing with the unexpected and preparing for possible outbreaks of diseases (such as Ebola) and this means I’m constantly keeping track of cases, outbreaks, and actions, and reviewing and re-prioritising work.
NHS Highland covers a very large geographical area (the size of Denmark) although the population is relatively small. This means much of my work has to be done on the phone, via email and video-conferencing. On the whole this works well and advances in technology have really helped.