A view from a Queen’s Nurse – QNI Leadership Programmes

After 26 years of nursing and 19 years of working within community settings in 2021 I was thrilled and honoured to become a Queen’s Nurse and also to receive a QNI award in leadership after completing the Aspiring Leaders Programme (rebranded as Ambition to Lead in 2024).

As a Queen’s Nurse, I can raise the profile of leadership and continue to be an advocate for community nursing.

So, what led me to my amazing journey? I receive the monthly QNI newsletters, and I saw the call for applications for the QNI leadership programmes. I thought, why not put in an application and see what happens?

A couple of weeks later I received an invitation to attend an online interview. A handful of places for all the community nurses in the UK – it would be like winning the lottery to gain a place! My imposter syndrome started to nag at me whilst I waited for the interview – who did I think I was imagining I would be chosen for a place!

The day of the interview arrived, fortunately, I was now used to Microsoft Teams style meetings. There was a panel of three people. The questions were directed at leadership that was personal to me – nothing I could have prepared for. I completed the 30-minute call with the QNI leadership team, closing with ‘they would be in touch!’ As promised my email arrived in my inbox – I had a place to start in November 2023 – WOW! I was delighted but the imposter syndrome snuck in again – all the other successful candidates would be far more along in their leadership journey than I.

In October 2023 I attended an online induction for the programme, meeting with the other successful candidates where we started to get to know each other ‘virtually’. November arrived and I drove to a hotel in the South of England where I was to spend the next three days with a group of 13 strangers (#lucky13 we called ourselves on X/Twitter). Unknown to me, they were about to support me with my professional journey and would become a fantastic professional network of lifelong friends.

Not wanting to spoil the programme for those who may be fortunate to attend I will not give too much detail. However, over the next couple of days, we learned more about how to think differently as we opened up more to each other, personally and professionally. At the end of the three days, I started to believe in the magic of the course – with a buddy and a mentor and some guiding words I was ready to execute my next leadership steps. Over the year-long programme with a mixture of study days and online catch-ups with my very approachable mentor, I blossomed and grew.

During the programme, I undertook a project with my team in Hospital at Home supporting 2-hour urgent crisis in the community. I helped developed a telephone contact pathway for care homes within West Cheshire to ring directly 7 days a week 8am-8pm as an alternative to ringing 999. The vision was to reduce Emergency Department admissions. In the year the pathway successfully saved 40% of admissions to the local ED department. This was life-changing for some of the frailest people in the community. NHS England published this case study online, and I was invited to speak nationally to ICBs about this project and to help cascade the idea to make a difference to other frail elderly people around the country.

The QNI Leadership programme gave me the skills to develop the project further by using costings, writing papers and understanding the wider NHS systems to enable me to articulate the need for quality improvements or new business cases.

So, what next? I now have a new post and I am continuing to grow as a leader and consolidate the time spent on the QNI Aspiring Leaders Programme (now Ambition to Lead). My next endeavour will be to firmly put my imposter syndrome in a box and keep the lid on tightly whilst I work towards putting in an application for the QNI Leading Strategically Programme (funded by the National Garden Scheme for 12 Queen’s Nurses). My advice would be to aim high, be bold and apply for one of the QNI programmes you have no idea where it may take you.