Sam Davies is an Urgent Care Clinical Practitioner (Primary Care/GP Out of Hours) for Palliative Care and Frailty at Hywel Dda University Health Board.
I am currently working in Pembrokeshire as an Urgent Care Clinical Practitioner (UCCP), supporting Health Board-managed GP practices and GP Out of Hours (OOH) within the specialty of older people and Palliative Care. There are two of us, Jenny, who is a paramedic, and myself, a registered nurse.
My inspiration to study nursing started as a 12-year-old cadet for St John’s Ambulance Cymru, and doing work experience in a local nursing home while studying for my GCSEs. I was very close to my grandparents and was inspired by their story. They left a lasting impression on me. I soon realised that every older person had their own story and that realisation went on to form my career.
While studying Nursing, my aim was to become an A&E nurse. I achieved that goal. However, in the back of my mind, I knew the most fulfilment I received as a student was on placements in hospice care and a rehabilitation hospital.
While working as a staff nurse in A&E, I often saw how detrimental it could be for older people being in the department: delirium, deconditioning, and long waits created a poor experience for patients.
That left me thinking - what can we do to keep our older people at home, optimising healthcare, and listening to what matters to them?
From my time in A&E onwards, I shaped my career towards working in Geriatric Medicine.
I was fortunate to gain a charge nurse position in a brand new Acute Frailty Unit. This aimed to provide rapid multidisciplinary team (MDT) and geriatrician assessment, and focused on patients from the back of the ambulance and A&E.
I was soon hooked on the impact that front door intervention had. I enjoyed being part of a team that was providing Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) and expediting rapid assessment and discharge back into the community for patients to recover.
The care and knowledge that geriatricians showed, along with the value of a multidisciplinary team (MDT) for older people, inspired me to begin my journey towards being an Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP).
Since starting the ACP training, I have been fortunate to obtain the UCCP role, advocating for good practice in the Primary Care and community settings, asking patients what matters to them, and recognising that their priorities change in later life.
Keeping patients at home to live well is an ethos I feel passionate about. Every day, I see the positive impact that innovative services can have on patients. Providing a wrap-around service of primary, secondary, and third sector care to patients can make them feel supported and empowered to recover safely at home.
Geriatric Medicine has shaped my career and made me the holistic practitioner that I am today. I would encourage anyone, particularly nursing colleagues and students, to consider the move and #ChooseGeriatrics.
