OSKA is delighted to welcome Carole Young, Tissue Viability Nurse Specialist and Professional Nurse Advocate, after more than 20 years at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust.
OSKA is delighted to welcome Carole Young to its Clinical Team bringing unparalleled knowledge and experience in the tissue viability specialty. Carole has recently completed her training as Professional Nurse Advocate and in February 2022, she was successful in being nominated as a Florence Nightingale Alumni Champion, joining a national group of Florence Nightingale Foundation Scholars in promoting the Academy work across the UK.
Carole is a third-generation nurse, having started her nurse training in 1988 at the QE2 Hospital in Welwyn Garden City which was part of the Mid Herts School of Nursing at that time. On qualifying, she worked as a staff nurse on a busy Orthopaedic ward caring for both trauma and elective surgery patients and it was here, she first developed an interest in wound management and pressure prevention.
In 1993, Carole joined a private hospital as a senior staff nurse with the aim of expanding her knowledge and skills across a range of specialties. She was involved with the care of major surgery and high dependency patients, oncology patients undergoing chemotherapy and continued to develop her tissue viability interest by leading on research into pressure ulcer development in post-surgical knee and hip patients, implementing a change in practice as a result.
Carole then commenced a post-registration diploma module in wound management at the University of Hertfordshire, which quickly converted to a BSc Tissue Viability. In 2001, Carole joined the team at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge (now Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust), as part-time Tissue Viability Nurse (TVN).
With progressive changes to the role of TVN and a growing strategic presence within the senior nursing team, Carole progressed to Lead TVN for the Trust in 2012 and was successful in increasing the team. As lead TVN, she was also involved with a number of national and regional initiatives including the NHS Improvement Core Curriculum for pressure ulcer education and care planning, pressure ulcer risk assessment and management strategy working groups and wound care formulary working groups.
Carole has gone on to gain her Post Graduate Certificate in Adult Healthcare Education at Masters Level and is also an Associate Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University. Teaching tissue viability related topics and clinical skills for the last 5 years, she has developed an online virtual pressure ulcer module, and more recently, supported in a range of clinical skills training for student nurses.
Over the last year Carole has been fortunate enough to be awarded a Florence Nightingale Academy Scholarship to follow the Emerging Leaders Programme, which has allowed opportunities to further develop her passion for compassionate leadership and complete her training as a Professional Nurse Advocate. In February 2022, she was successful in being nominated as a Florence Nightingale Alumni Champion, joining a national group of FNF Scholars in promoting the Academy work across the UK.
Carole is most proud of the work achieved during the COVID-19 pandemic, developing and leading a service to support staff who were impacted with skin problems due to wearing PPE. This collaborative project involved a number of teams which were awarded a Chief Nurse Award, You Made a Difference Award and were also finalists in the Nursing Times Integrated Care and Workforce Awards in 2021.
Alistair Wickland, Managing Director said,
“We’re so excited to welcome Carole to our Clinical Team at OSKA. As the UK’s pressure care experts, we are in an incredibly exciting time of accelerated growth and with Carole’s extensive knowledge and experience in the tissue viability and wound management specialty, she will be instrumental in further strengthening OSKA’s clinical support to our clients. Being a nurse educator and trainer, Carole will also be developing and delivering in-depth clinical content to the OSKA Academy, our training and education programme.”
To contact Carole, please email nurse@oska.uk.com or call 02394 318 318.
