'I am very proud' - Wolverhampton nurse awarded highest recognition possible

The title dates back to 1889 and is open to Registered Nurses with more than five years’ experience working in the community.

Carolyn, 60, joined the NHS in 1982 at the age of 18, and was the youngest in her group.

She qualified as an adult general nurse at St James Hospital in Leeds and then became a mental health Nurse and finally a health assessor and non-medical prescriber.

She is also a trained counsellor and clinical supervisor.

Carolyn started at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust in 2012, setting up the Alcohol and Drug service as a Clinical Nurse Specialist, prescriber, manager and trainer.

She said: “I am very proud to be awarded the Queen’s Nurse title. It is a real honour and privilege.

“I directly lead a team of eight staff and aim to be an inspiring role model as an active member of the team.

"We work across Wolverhampton to help our patients. We also have additional projects such as the Maternity project for all women experiencing addiction issues who are pregnant, Fibroscan project for dependent drinkers and Pre-op project looking at all patients coming into New Cross Hospital for planned surgery.

"We also ran Incorporated ‘lived experience’ into our team - we have three volunteers who have lived experience of addiction, now in recovery, bringing the voice of experience and hope to our patients.

“I am still very clinically driven and spend most of my time with clients as this brings me the most joy and reward. My staff see this and know that I won’t ask them to do something that I haven’t tried or wouldn’t do myself.

“Addiction is implicated in Mental Health issues and locally we do not have a robust ‘Dual Diagnosis’ pathway, I am hopeful that being a Queens Nurse will allow me to look at national best practice nationally in this area and improve our local situation.”