This podcast series aims to connect healthcare colleagues and share useful information in Somerset. The idea is that it will help primary care and secondary care teams (acute, community and mental health) to work well together for the benefit of our population.

Have a listen in to this episode, where Mary Trotman, childrens community nurse at Somerset FT, shares information and support available to children in Somerset with neurodevelopmental disorders. Find out who is best placed to make a referral (not necessarily the GP), how to make a referral and why a diagnosis is not necessary for accessing support. Hosted by Andrea Trill, medical director for integrated and primary care at Somerset FT and a GP by background.

Yvonne Smith, one of our mental health nurses in the home treatment team, has shared with us her inspirational story.

She talks about her love of her job today, and her journey from it’s beginning in 2019 as a patient in that very same service.

Yvonne was a finalist in the ‘National Lived Experience Awards’ in September, for the category of ‘Hope and Positivity’! She won the ‘service user choice vote’ for her category.

Hayley Peter’s, our chief nurse, said in her supporting statement for the Lived experience awards that

“What I’d want people to know is, that it is a really inclusive organisation, we welcome patients with lived experience, whether that be their own experience of being a patient in our mental health settings or it might be that you’ve got a disability or something else that you’ve experienced that makes you a more empathetic practitioner or clinician. Yvonne is testament to the contribution you can bring with that lived experience.

“Hearing when she got her pin (as a registered nurse) and knowing what that meant to her, makes me really, really, sing with pride because you can’t underestimate what that wonderful human being has had to overcome to achieve that.

“Healthcare careers are for everybody, and if you bring something special with you, I would just say - don’t be afraid to bring it to work. It will help you, it will help others, and don’t see that as barrier or a problem.”