I qualified as a registered nurse in 2002. I worked in the emergency department and the Royal College of Nursing for the first half of my career. The second half of my nursing career has seen me work up the chain in urology.

I have been an uro-oncology clinical nurse specialist (CNS) for 10 years, 4 years as a junior CNS at Broomfield Hospital caring for people affected by prostate cancer throughout the cancer pathway from diagnosis to end of life.

I co-facilitated with those prostate cancer survivors, ‘The Walnut Club’. This fantastic group of individuals and their partners helped develop my knowledge of prostate cancer. I worked 6 years at St Bartholomew’s Cancer Centre as a CNS, with people affected by metastatic urological cancers.

For the past year I have been employed at East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust as their Macmillan Personalised Care Lead, delivering person centred care and aiding communication transfer to primary care to improve streamlining of patient care. Providing self-management skills to those affected by cancer and health and wellbeing events for moving on with daily life. As a CNS I am very interested in biographical disruption.

I hold a BSc (Hons) in Cancer Care from the Royal Marsden and I am currently working towards MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice: Cancer Care. Prostate Cancer UK kindly funded one of my modules.

I have published papers about prostate cancer and lived experiences reported by those affected. My most valued publication we wrote remains open access and can be read here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40487-020-00132-2  Thank you to Tony Collier for sharing his story.

I have served on a number of roundtables, including the Prostate Cancer UK CNS Professional Framework chaired by Professor Alison Leary.

I have sat on roundtables with Errol McKellar and others, and presented at a number of conferences to highlight equalities for black individuals affected by prostate cancer including those from LGBQT communities.