I’m working as a parish nurse with the Church of England in Burwell [in Cambridgeshire]. Parish nursing here started six years ago, and I was on the first pilot training course in Bristol.

As soon as I heard about it, I said to my vicar and PCC: “Please can I do this?” and they said, “Off you go.”

I was a full-time district nurse for 20 years. For the last five of those, I worked as a parish nurse for just one morning a week. Now I’m retired, I do 20 hours a week. It feels full-time.

It was started by Westberg Granger in America about 35 years ago. He thought that the best way to care for a congregation was to have a nurse working with a vicar, so you could address health in a totally holistic way. Of course, they have a totally dif­ferent system there, and not our free primary health-care; so there are a lot more parish nurses there.

The Baptists seem to put most money into this, but any church who decides that it’s part of their mission plan and outreach can have a parish nurse. A trained nurse is paid a lot more than a vicar; so we had to come down to the level of the pastor. And perhaps funding can be attracted from local services — for example, if you want to set up a day centre. But, of course, the executive committee is looking for funding all the time. And every church that has a parish nurse is encouraged to put in £365 a year to fund the role of the co-ordinators — I’m the co-ordinator for Cambridge, Suffolk, and Norfolk — for training, support, expenses, and development.

I do it voluntarily. I’m so lucky — I’m part of the ministry team here. I work closely with our vicar, and we have a retired vicar who gives us “gift work”, they call it, two days a week.

There was a big battle at the be­ginning: the Church said, was it Health who should pay? Health said, was it the Church? Eighty nurses have been trained, and it’s inter­denomina­tional. Now there are 56 projects around the country. Of those, nine are paid, and the rest are done in a voluntary ca­pacity. In one of the first pilots, the health trust gave them money to en­able the health visitor there to set up a site.

All the time I’m using my nursing eyes, but I’m also aware of people’s spiritual needs. When I was district nursing, I was always keeping people in prayer in my head, but now, as a parish nurse, I’m coming from the Church. Our job is not to go out and convert people: it’s to go out and help people, because that’s what we’ve been told to do, to follow Christ. It’s such a privilege to use my nursing in this way.

We’re also linking in with hospital and hospice chaplains, because they are finding it constantly harder to reach patients, what with data pro­tec­tion and so on. Also more and more of their jobs are being cut, be­cause they’re seen as a soft target. So we can refer patients to chaplains when they are coming into hospital, and they can refer people to us when they are discharged home.

We’re seen as less threatening than the vicar. We can act as a stepping stone, an intermediary.

We don’t do invasive care — stick needles into people and do ban­daging — because there are other people to do this. But we are all regis­tered, all insured, and just as pro­fes-sional as any other nurses. We keep records and do prep work, keep con­fidentiality. Every consultation I do I must give my best advice, and every parish nurse has a clinical supervisor and a spiritual supervisor for sup­port.

The biggest thing is that I’m giving people time — and advice, telling people what they’re entitled to do, referring them to services. It’s a bit like health visiting, but with a spir­itual side. We help the congregation and ministry team, but also en­cour-age them to look out into the com­munity. Our church has now set up a fortnightly drop-in centre, working with the Alzheimers Society and the local authority, giving people com­panion­ship, craft, advice, respite; and the congregation is helping to run it and provide the transport.

I seem to fill in when there’s no family, or the family is away. I liaise with GPs and go with people to see their consultants if they’re worried about what diagnosis they may get. A daughter rang me up to ask me to visit her mum, a member of the con­gregation, because she had hurt her ankle. One lady with a poor memory needs to be rung up to remind her when it’s lunchtime, or time to go to the day centre. It’s no one’s job to do this, but it’s lovely if it can be done.

I also do a shift in the church’s shop, where I meet more people. The Fair­trade stem-ginger cookies are a big hit there.

Some people leave the church in a huff if they’ve been away ill and no one has noticed. So I can keep in touch, do bereavement visits, take com­munion to the housebound, and arrange transport to church. Re­cently, I accompanied two ladies in their 40s through their treatment for breast cancer, though older people are my area of expertise.

I believe in the power of prayer. Some people need to forgive before they can progress. We have a healing service every three months, and a “share a prayer” slot after every ser­vice. That’s a big part of my role.

I’d like parish nursing to grow. It is growing slowly. And I’d like the NHS to stop talking about targets and more about care, so that it’s not about tick­ing boxes.

Every health professional should be stuck in bed for at least a week. It’s a salutary lesson to be on the other side of the uniform. I’m tall, and had back problems and an operation for a slipped disc. I was six weeks on my back before I could have the opera­tion, which was immensely frustrat­ing, when I had a house to run and two small children.

It wasn’t until I was a patient that I appreciated a sister who we thought was an absolute dragon. She was to us nurses; but as patients, we realised how much she cared for her patients, and we missed her when she went off duty.

I never remember wanting to be anything else. My mum was a nurse midwife. She was an absolute in­spira­tion to me. I was the oldest of seven children. One of my sisters also be­came a nurse, and is now a pro­fessor. No, neither of my daughters followed me into nursing, much to my regret, though one of them would have been a good nurse.

My mum said: “You need to find out if you can put up with bed-pans and matrons.” So I went as a nurse cadet to work in a long-stay children’s hos-p­ital in Torquay, and I found that I could. Then I thought the Air Force sounded a very glamorous way to train; so I went into Princess Mary’s Royal Air Force Nursing Service, and met my husband, who was a theatre technician. He left the Air Force and retrained as a plumber. That was my mum again: “People are always going to want plumbers.”

I regret that I never had more con­fidence in myself when I was younger. And would love to have learned to skateboard.

Since going into district nursing, I’ve had a passion for community development. Communities should look after themselves, be good neigh­bours, rather than thinking the state should put in provision. Burwell is a very special place. It has a wonderful community centre, and meals-on-wheels five days a week — hardly any­­one has that any more.

I really love the poet Ann Lewin. She’s been a great influence on me. Her poetry is written from aspects of her life which relate to ours.

I love the sound of running water — we’ve got a tiny pond with a pump in our garden, and I walk on the Lode. If you’re really lucky, you can see a kingfisher there. Ann Lewin wrote a poem called “Disclosure” in my favourite book Waiting for the Kingfisher. I often use her poems at our healing services.

Burwell is my favourite place. I came from Devon and my husband from Wales; so we’re both used to spec­tacular scenery; but there’s a charm about the fenlands.

Marrying my husband — that’s the best thing I did. We have two girls. One is in Australia. She married an Australian and we went to see our first grandchild, Benjamin, born this year. Coming away was the hardest thing. Thank goodness for Skype, so we’ll be able to see him growing up.

Matthew 25 and the parable of the sheep and the goats — that’s my reason for being. I find the begin­ning of Job incredibly difficult. It seems like a game.

I get frustrated recently with the lack of care, especially the discharges of people before the social services are ready to put what they need in place — pushing relatives to accept people home from hospital before the equipment and care they need is ready.

I do know God’s in control, and I’m always an optimistic person. The Church will have the opportunity to fill some of the gaps when things are taken away by the recession. I do worry about medical science helping us to live longer, but not necessarily giving us quality of life. That’s some­thing people need to be talking about.

I’d choose to be locked in a church with my mum. She died at 63, and I feel, not cheated, but when I see patients in their 90s I think of all the time I could have had with her. That’s why I like old ladies especially. They’re built of strong stuff, and they have so much to tell you. They’re won­derful.

www.parishnursing.org.uk