Meet our Nursing team

---

Meet our Clinical Nurse team

---

Samantha Atkins, Regional Clinical Lead for the central area

Samantha has been with Helping Hands for some time and loves being able to help customers stay in their own homes with tailored care to suit their individual needs. She has worked alongside nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists, dietitians, speech and language therapists, and carers.

As well as this, Samantha has worked with a training company providing training to both care workers and student nurses on a range of subjects, including manual handling, safeguarding, infection control, health and safety, and palliative care.

Samantha explained, “My most recent experience has been as the clinical lead/deputy manager in a nursing home, covering areas such as palliative care, dementia care, and chronic conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Parkinson’s disease and heart failure.”

Samantha is extremely passionate about care and she will always go the extra mile for her customers. She is a Registered Nurse with the Nursing & Midwifery Council.

See Samantha’s profile here.

---

Carole Kerton-Church, Regional Clinical Lead for London & Essex

Carole has lived and worked in the London and Essex area her entire life and has over 20 years’ experience caring for adults, beginning her career as a Healthcare Assistant. She has since worked her way up in both private and public health and care organisations, and is now the Regional Clinical Lead for her local area.

Carole is a Registered Nurse and joined the Nursing and Midwifery Council in 2007, acquiring her Nursing Diploma at at Anglia Ruskin University. Since then, she has worked in acute hospitals, as a Community Nurse and as  GP Nurse.

She has supported people with a variety of different conditions, including multiple sclerosis, cancer and motor neurone disease, and has a keen interest in palliative care and elderly care.

Carole says: ” I am passionate about proactive care and health education and I have been lucky enough not only to look after, but also work alongside so many different people – I’ve heard so many amazing and often inspiring stories. Working for Helping Hands enables me and my colleagues to support people in their own home – the place where most people want to stay for as long as they can. It’s so important and extremely rewarding.”

See Carole’s profile here.

---

Kerry Feltwell, Regional Clinical Lead for the south east

Kerry has over 37 years’ experience in nursing, having trained at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London between 1983 and 1986. She initally worked on the regional ophthalmic unit dealing with inpatients post eye-surgery and running busy clinics. She then continued to work in a surgical bowel unit, where she developed her skills with stoma placement and post-operative care

She continued to consolidate her learning in an assortment of specialities at Basingstoke & North Hampshire Hospital until she moved into intensive care in 1989. She developed her knowledge of both invasive and non-invasive ventilation, tracheostomies, PEG feeding and bladder & bowel management.

For over 10 years, Kerry was the clinical lead for the National Bowel Cancer Screening Programme at Basingstoke & North Hampshire Hospital. She managed the patient pathway from the initial clinic visit to the investigations and up to discharge, providing one-to-one care throughout.

Kerry is a Registered Nurse with the Nursing and Midwifery Council. She has also gained a Level 7 qualification in Specialist Bowel Cancer Screening Programme at Liverpool John Moores University.

See Kerry’s profile here.

---

Hannah Gambrell, Clinical Nurse

Hannah primarily supports customers with more complex healthcare needs who are based within East Anglia. She holds a BSc Hons degree in Adult Nursing at the University of East Anglia and as a Registered Nurse with the Nursing & Midwifery Council, she previously supported patients in nursing homes, in a community setting and while working at an acute trust.

During her time working in an acute trust, Hannah worked within stroke services, which included the hyper-acute unit, acute unit and neurology. She has also gained extensive experience in caring for post thrombolysis patients, neurological patients, tracheostomy patients, patients on intravenous infusions, patients on enteral feeding and patients with complex needs.

Hannah is also highly experienced in managing the clinical aspects of care, and is accustomed to working in partnership with Continuing Healthcare, clinical commissioning groups, social services and private case management companies.

“I am passionate about enabling people to live safely at home with the facilitation they require to live as independently as possible,” she says.”It is so rewarding to facilitate them to achieve outcomes that, in another setting, they might not have had the opportunity to pursue.”

With much experience of supervising both upskilled support workers and registered nurses, together with delivering clinical training to support workers and completing their clinical competencies, Hannah talks about the support available at Helping Hands. “Most of our customers have a permanent carer, which means they have consistency and continuity of care. This is paramount in enabling them to achieve their outcomes, and I’m very proud to be part of a team that places so much value on this.”

See Hannah’s profile here

---