Hello, my name is Sue Cook and I am one of the Associate Directors of Nursing at Newcastle Hospitals.
One of my key roles is to provide high quality operational support to the trust’s safe and timely response to the day to day running of its hospitals and many other anchor organisation services.
I have also been directly involved in the establishment and running of the North East’s vaccination, test and trace and staff screening programmes.
I work closely with senior clinical leaders and managers to advise and empower them to rapidly develop and disseminate effective operational procedures thus cultivating strong leadership skills and effectual personal and professional development. These are both areas which I am very passionate about.
My nursing career began when I joined the Freeman Hospital’s School of Nursing as a student nurse in 1980. Once qualified I worked as a staff nurse on a trauma orthopaedic ward at the Newcastle General Hospital which was home to the city’s Accident and Emergency Department at the time, and where I progressed to the position of ward sister.
I then took some time away from full-time work to start a family, although I continued to work as a bank nurse across all of the city centre’s hospitals where I gained an invaluable insight into the many clinical specialties available.
Following that I was appointed to a new role of Site Manager (which has now evolved into the Patient Services Co-ordinator role) again across all three sites. During this time I’ve been involved in a number of major transformational programmes including the merger of Newcastle General Hospital (now Campus for Ageing and Vitality) with the RVI, and then a few years later they merged with the Freeman Hospital forming the Newcastle Hospitals which became an NHS Foundation Trust in 1999.
During these reorganisations I gained huge experience in the full breadth of all aspects involved – financial and staffing in particular – and I also had invaluable oversight of the many layers of multi-professionals working together where roles are often interchangeable and everyone’s contribution is critical.
Following various secondments into different clinical roles including overseeing the coordination of patient discharges, I became one of the first Matrons to be appointed into the Trust firstly in Plastic Surgery, then taking on Ophthalmology, Dermatology and ENT.
I joined the Senior Nursing Team to provide operational advice, guidance and support to the organisation’s response to the day to day running of our hospitals and peripheral services. My role was really borne out of the need to rapidly respond with the emergence of the international COVID-19 pandemic and the need to mobilise major screen programmes for both patients and staff, an innovative, wide-reaching test and trace service and mass vaccination programmes again for both patients and staff.
I love my role. No two days are the same, I enjoy the rapid pace and being responsive to whatever is happening using my vast organisational experience and knowledge, working alongside numerous colleagues all pulling together to meet the same aims and objectives.
One of my main interests is leadership and staff development. Recognising people’s strengths and guiding them to get the best of themselves and meeting their full potential.
Responsibilities
- Providing high quality operational support to the trust’s safe and timely response to the day to day running of its hospitals and many other anchor organisation services
- Mobilising from scratch major screening programmes for both patients and staff responding to the international COVID-19 pandemic:
- Test and Trace
- Staff Vaccination Programme
- Mass Vaccination Programme
