Carrie takes on Nurse Consultant role

Carrie Wingfield, a dermatology specialist nurse who started her NHS career as a nursing auxiliary, has been appointed the first Nurse Consultant at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, with full responsibility for seeing patients and carrying out clinical procedures for skin cancer that were previously the preserve of doctors.

There are currently around six dermatology nurse consultants working in the NHS but Carrie is the first to practise skin surgery at this level.

A highly respected member of the dermatology team, she has risen through the ranks and studied in her spare time to develop her role as a specialist nurse. In 2005 she made history by becoming the Trust’s first nurse prescriber and she has won several national innovation awards for introducing nurse-led clinics to improve patients’ access to specialist treatment. She has twice been commended for her leadership skills in the NNUH Foundation Trust Staff Awards.

Carrie left school at 16 and worked in retail for ten years before becoming a nursing auxiliary at the West Norwich Hospital in 1990. She went on to complete her general nurse training at the James Paget Hospital and returned to the West Norwich Hospital after qualifying in 1996.

“My son was three years old when I decided to try nursing as a career,” she recalled. “I did an Open University course to get me started and I’ve been studying, one way and another, ever since! My partner retrained as a teacher and both he and my family have been wonderfully supportive – I couldn’t have done it without them.

“Most importantly, I’ve been extremely lucky to have a strong team around me, including dermatology consultants who encouraged me every step of the way.”

Carrie has contributed research and articles to a number of professional journals and she is president-elect of the British Dermatological Nursing Group, a role she will take up in July 2012 for the following three years.