She has the toughest job in the world. But Amy never wants to go home
As we launch your chance to salute an NHS hero...
DO YOU know a health hero? The Daily Mail, in association with Pharmacy2U, are asking you to nominate special people in healthcare. Five finalists will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to a Health Hero Awards gala in London — and the winner will also be given a £5,000 holiday. Here LUCY ELKINS describes how mental health nurse Amy Semper goes the extra mile for her patients.
At the end of the working day most people can’t wait to rush home, but such is her dedication to her patients, that 27-year- old Amy Semper often has to be encouraged to do so.
And sometimes, if there’s a staff shortage, she will simply hang her coat back up and go on to do a full night shift — despite having already chalked up an 12-hour day.
this kind of commitment would be commendable from anyone, but what marks Amy out as extraordinary is that she works in what is arguably one of the most challenging sectors of the health service — caring for people on a secure mental health unit.
‘Where we work is a difficult environment, our patients don’t choose to be there and when they come to us it is often at the most difficult point of their life,’ explains Jocelyn White, a senior manager at the Lincolnshire mental health care foundation trust where Amy works.
‘But all of them quickly warm to Amy, and when she’s on duty, they will seek her out to spend time with her. that’s not just when they’re having a bad day — they recognise that she is a kind nurse, who really, really cares.’
the patients in the 15-bed unit come from all walks of life. Some may have had a history of problems, or been referred by a court, others may be professionals with perfectly average lives until poleaxed by a psychotic episode of bipolar disorder.
All will be at their lowest ebb, and this is where Amy, a trained mental health nurse and now a ward manager, comes in — working day and night to give them the best possible care.
this includes simple, but kind human gestures: no birthday is forgotten — ‘Amy always organises a cake, sometimes baking it herself,’ says Jocelyn. ‘And because she talks to the patients so much, she knows when birthdays are coming up.’
Year after year she has forsaken Christmas with her own closeknit family to spend the day at the unit, arriving early to make bacon rolls and other treats for the patients.
She has also helped take patients for home visits to see their families (for some, this can be for the first time in years) and has kept patients’ children busy when they’re visiting the unit, baking with them or playing.
‘People need to feel supported, and that’s what I want to do — to be their rock while they are going through this bad time, and I will do whatever I have to do to help them through,’ says Amy.
She rarely leaves work on time, spending hours on admin after her shift because she’s devoted so much time to her patients.
‘It gets to the point where I actually have to say “go home”,’ says Jocelyn.
‘there have been many times when Amy says “no, I can’t go, I promised I would find time for a chat with such and such a patient,’ adds Rachel Kitchen, Amy’s boss until last year.
‘the fact that she takes time to get to know the patients has a big knock-on impact on their care,’ says Dr Jaspreet Phull, a consultant psychiatrist on the unit, ‘it means she can help diffuse sometimes difficult situations.’
And the patients love her: A ‘ Godsend … a pleasure to be around, devoted and dedicated,’ is how one describes her.
Another said simply: ‘Amy has changed my life. She got loads of different people and services involved to try to help me. She is fair and kind-hearted. even if you don’t like what she says, you know she is doing the best for you.’
Amy is proud of a card she and Dr Phull received from a patient that said: ‘thanks for making me part of my family again.’ ‘that, to me, is a gift,’ she says. It’s not just her compassion that marks her out — there are those double shifts she takes on, often at late notice. ‘ She would rather do that than patients being put at risk,’ says Jocelyn.
But the extra mile in Amy’s case is literally true. When Lincolnshire was badly hit by snow earlier this year, she decided to walk to work from her village eight miles away, which took more than three hours in sub-zero temperatures.
‘If she had wanted to, it would have been quite acceptable to say “there’s no chance I can get in”, says Jocelyn. ‘But she phoned me as she was walking in to say she was a bit late. It’s typical Amy. When she got here, she just got straight on with it.
‘And because other people had been unable to get in she ended up doing a night shift as well — so she worked 24 hours on the trot and then walked home again.’
Amy decided to train as a nurse after doing an NhS apprenticeship at 16 — ‘my dad was a nurse so there was a family connection,’ she laughs — and qualified by the time she was 20. Mental health nursing became her passion.
‘I couldn’t get over the things I saw — people who tried to commit suicide many times — I think suicide can be prevented, with the right care. My biggest bugbear is that people can go into A&e with a broken leg and they fix it; someone goes in with a mental health issue and no one quite knows what to do — seeing this I thought I would like to make a difference.
‘People think it’s just criminals or the homeless, but the patients I look after could be your son, your mum, the children you sat next to at school — you just don’t know if it will happen to you.’
her dedication means that her personal life inevitably has to come second. ‘My friends know that I may be late for things as I’ve been held up at work — they are used to me turning up to hen dos that start at 4pm at 10pm.
‘And as for dating, I couldn’t fit it in, I’m married to my 30- odd colleagues and 15 patients! But I love what I do, so it’s fine.’
She shrugs off any suggestion that walking miles through the snow or any of what she does represents any kind of heroics.
‘It’s what you do when you care,’ she says. ‘ You get to know the patients, and they really matter.’
Amy, who lives with her parents in a village near Lincoln, with her brother and grandparents doors away (‘even my great grandma who is 94 isn’t far,’ she giggles), can’t imagine leaving nursing. ‘I love this job, it’s all I want to do.’
And it was her dedication that inspired Jocelyn to nominate her for this year’s Daily Mail NhS health hero Awards.
Adds Dr Phull: ‘ there is absolutely no doubt that Amy goes that extra mile for her patients on a virtually daily basis. Last year NhS england and NhS Improvement said we were among the best units in the region and nationally — and that’s to do with the dedication of staff like Amy.’