At Cheshire and Wirral Partnership, due to the wide range of services we provide, we are able to offer nursing opportunities across:
Adults' nursing
Mental health nursing
Learning disability nursing
Children's nursing
Health visiting
Giving you time to care, space to think and opportunity to grow
We are passionate about supporting our staff to develop and many of our nurses and nurse leaders began their careers here at CWP as domestic assistants and clinical support workers, and were supported to develop to become registered nurses.
But the development opportunities don't stop there. Once you are a qualified nurse, you can continue to grow and develop, with clinical lead, service management and senior leadership role opportunities available within our care groups.
Below you can watch videos and read inspiring careers stories from our #TeamCWP colleagues who are from various nursing backgrounds, including mental health nursing, adults' nursing and health visiting.
From clinical lead roles to ward management and senior leadership roles, there are so many opportunities for development and progression within nursing here at Cheshire and Wirral Partnership.
The best thing about being a Nurse Consultant is the autonomy you have as a practitioner, which is an extension of the nursing role into areas such as leadership, education, research, and clinical work. It allows a level of autonomy and creativity, whilst ensuring person-centred care is at the forefront of clinical practice.
My pathway has taken me through Project 2000 nurse training, a BSC in psycho-social Interventions, non-medical prescribing (NMP) and an MA in Advanced Practice. I have also received training in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Dialectic Behavioural Therapy, Acceptance CommitmentTherapy, Behavioural Activation and Clinical Structured Management, all of which align with my vision of becoming a nurse/therapist.
Whilst currently completing the portfolio to achieve Approved Clinician status, this will allow me to implement elements of the Mental Health Act and is supporting further role development for Multi-ProfessionalApproved Clinicians (MPACS) nationally and within the Trust.
Many things have enabled me to develop to this level, this includes mypassion for nursing, working with some amazing service users as well assupport from colleagues and supportive supervisors.
Kate Addison, Nurse Consultant/Trainee Approved Clinician for Adult Mental Health
After completing my nurse apprentice course with CWP, I was lucky enough to secure a role at Cherry Bank Resource Centre as a community mental health nurse. The team have been welcoming and supportive, encouraging my learning, development and offer support when needed.
I enjoy being a mental health nurse because I like working with service users, learning about them and their journeys and being an advocate for them. I enjoy working with people and helping them build on their strengths while enabling them to learn new skills to manage their problems allowing them to see a positive future.
Kerry Roberts, Cherry Bank Resource Centre as a Community Mental Health Nurse
When I was six-years-old in 1977, I remember dressing up for Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee in a nursing uniform, and I knew from caring for my teddy bears that this was the career I would pursue.
Whilst at high school, I saw an advertisement for student nurse training in the Army, so at Sixth Form college, after leaving a maths class early, I went to my local recruitment office and a few short weeks later, I was signing an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in Liverpool city centre. I was 17 years old, about to become an adult, as I left on the train bound to Aldershot with my iron and my suitcase.
After three or four years student nurse training (delayed due to the Gulf War), I qualified as a registered general nurse (RGN) at certificate level, serving in a variety of roles from medical centre work overseas, including Cyprus and Gibraltar (delivering babies, applying stitches for service personnel and diving medicals), to deployments in the Army and civilian hospitals in the UK in intensicve care, coronary care, surgery, rheumatology and rehabilitation, to name a few. Manual handling, infection control and quality assurance posts were amongst many of my accomplishments. I gained the dizzy heights of Corporal.
Leaving the Forces in 1999, as medical nursing was what I loved, I joined the Coronary Care Unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital, gaining my Diploma of Higher Education in nursing before moving on in 2004, to develop a nurse-led heart failure service in Ellesmere Port and Neston. Part of my role was to undertake the clinical management of Chronic Heart Failure (master's level at Glasgow University). I was also given the opportunity to undertake the long-term condition pathway, obtaining qualifications in long-term condition management, clinical examination and clinical diagnostic before I transferred some of my qualifications from degree level to access my master’s pathway to the University of Chester, where I was supported to obtain an MSc in professional practice with merit in 2018, following a year-long research project.
The reason I love nursing is because I play a vital role in preserving and enhancing the life of a patient with chronic heart failure and assisting their families and carers. I am an advocate for patients and for my fellow colleagues.
My career aspiration is to become a nurse consultant in my chosen field of specialist nursing, or move into education or an area that enhances both patient and staff experience. I have many interests of nursing due to my generic background and feel if the right opportunity came along, the transferable skills that I've gained in the community through Cheshire and Wirral Partnership would help me greatly.
