Shirley has excelled within her career and says, “Despite been told ‘No’ and ‘You can’t’ at every point from finishing school to getting my first job in the band 5 rotations at King’s College Hospital (KCH), I have had the amazing opportunity to segway into a new career path as an Operational manager.”
Shirley qualified in the BSc Physiotherapy Class of 2012, and started at King’s College Hospital (KHC) in 2013. After finishing her core rotations and a speciality rotation in Mental Health at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, Shirley specialised as a band 6 in an area at KCH later known as The Medical Pathway. This rotation covered everything from the Acute Medical Units, Elderly Rehab and Orthopaedics to Intermediate Care and a specialist outpatients unit called the King's Older Person's Assessment Unit (KOPAU).
Following a secondment to Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust within a band 7 capacity to lead a domiciliary physio service covering the Borough of Southwark, Shirley returned to KCH in 2017 after successfully securing the role of Team Lead Physiotherapist for the Acute Health and Ageing Unit and KOPAU where she specialised in Dementia, falls/balance and vestibular impairment. She says “The role was my dream job, the focus of my career pursuit since my student placement within the team”.
In 2019, Shirley felt it was time for a new challenge focussing on the operations side of the NHS, and currently works within a service named Sutton Health and Care as an Operational Manager for District Nursing and Community Podiatry services.
Shirley looks forward to discussing non-traditional career paths and why it’s time to smash through the glass-ceiling of Physiotherapy in the NHS.