A Day in the Life # 17 – Nicky’s Story
In the 17th of our ‘Day in the Life’ Series of Blogs, I interview The Bayswood Care Group’s new Operations Manager, Nicola – or Nicky, as she prefers to be called.
The arrival of Nicky is the latest piece in the Bayswood jigsaw, adding in experienced senior managers to help take the group to the next level in delivering quality care to residents. Nicky started in mid-October and is already making a positive impact on the direction the travel for the company. Yet, Nicky’s career in social care began more by accident than design.
As a sixteen-year-old studying for her A Levels at a well-known Fylde private school, Nicky earned money by working weekends in her friend’s mum’s care home. Nicky explains, ‘I loved working in care and decided to stay in the health sector. I did nursing at Blackpool Vic in the cardiothoracic team, before moving to midwifery for two years.’
Midwifery gave Nicky the qualifications to go into health visiting. Back then the health service still maintained Beveridge‘s ‘cradle to the grave’ ethos. Nicky visited babies and the over 75s to check on their health and provide home support. Nicky then moved into managing the Childrens’ Community Service team in Fylde & Wyre for a few years before coming full circle, back to the Victoria Hospital, to act as their Clinical Risk Manager.
Nicky describes the Clinical Risk role as being ‘vast’. Nicky says, ‘the job involved joining a triangular process between complaints, the legal team and risk evaluation. I had to manage complex cases and communicate the most serious to the directors, often accompanying them on hospital walk arounds.’
The experience in clinical risk management led Nicky to a job in the Care Quality Commission. Thus began an eight-year career with the CQC, as Inspection Manager across all Directorates. Nicky says, ‘I became interested in and specifically responsible for “Innovation in Healthcare”. I wrote several key papers on the subject to establish innovation principles that fed into the upskilling of inspectors.’
Nicky’s work on Local System Reviews, looking at the health journeys of 65+ year olds, fed directly into changes in legislation that are enshrined in the revised Health & Social Care Act. The Act finally brought local health authorities under the umbrella of one single overriding inspection framework, from small inspection processes through to major ones. Nicky had also gained her BTEC qualifications in the Professional Regulatory Skills Programme (for Social Care), so is undoubtedly one of the country’s foremost experts in the field.
Talking to Nicky, she is both proud of and loved her eight years at the CQC. Nicky explains, ‘I am passionate about person-centred care being at the forefront of all health service delivery, so the CQC gave me the platform to help lead improvements – especially preventing poor care and being able to take action!’
With a feeling of satisfaction at the improvements being driven by the CQC, Nicky was then able to seek a change of career path and used her knowledge and experience at Barchester Services. Nicky became Operations Manager, with a patch covering from Scotland down to Milton Keynes. The role entailed extensive travel and Nicky realised she felt too disconnected from her family to continue at Barchester. After a year in the role, Nicky learned of the opportunity at the Bayswood Care Group and joined in October 2023.
As the above infers, Nicky is very family orientated and enjoys close relationships with both her daughters and her mum and dad (living close by to her parents). Nicky also has three dogs and walks them at 6am every day. The opportunity at Bayswood is ideal for Nicky, because it has allowed her to work locally and see more of her family, plus exercise her dogs.
I ask Nicky more about her dogs and discover she has a nine-month-old white long haired miniature Dachshund, as well as Spaniel rescue dog and a Cavapoo. Over the years Nicky has had four Dachshunds and one now lives with her other daughter. Nicky also likes swimming and reveals her favourite film is Mama Mia. She loves watching Mama Mia with her elder daughter. ‘We blast out the music and enjoy the cheesy fun, singing along to Abba. We have so much fun together,’ Nicky says.
The challenge at Bayswood is one that Nicky relishes. Nicky says, ‘Being Operations Manager allows me to bring all my previous experience into play …’ Nicky’s goals are to create the systems and processes which have the right staff delivering quality care. ‘Everything else will follow on from there,’ Nicky believes.
Nicky is dedicated to the care sector and her family. It is great to have Nicky on board to help drive Bayswood to the next stage of improvements and we wish Nicky all the best in the new chapter of her career and life.
Interview by Kelly Farrington