Irthlingborough NHS worker thought honours list inclusion was a scam

An NHS worker who lives in Irthlingborough was so surprised to be on the New Year honours list she spent 30 minutes looking into whether it was a scam.

Debbie Buck, 55, was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to mental health nursing, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, in the list released on Wednesday night (December 30).

The mental health nurse, who has clocked up more than 30 years of NHS service, played a huge role in making sure PPE was distributed quickly in the first wave and then led on training to help those nursing people at high risk of Covid-19.

But she never expected her work to earn her a BEM - and took to Google to look into whether the phone number on an email she received was legitimate.

Debbie, who has lived in Irthlingborough for 11 years, said: "I got the email and thought it was a scam!

"I must have spent a good half an hour trying to work out what the scam was.

"I phoned my manager and they said they had put me forward. I was really moved by it and very, very shocked at the same time."

Debbie is a clinical practice lead at the East London Foundation Trust and works in mental health and wellbeing services in Bedfordshire.

In the last three years she has been working on recruitment and retention strategies for junior qualified nurses, supporting them as they come out of university.

At the start of Covid-19 she, like many others, was asked to take on additional duties to help out in the crisis.

Alongside the procurement department, within days she set up a store, a system and workforce to get PPE equipment out to clinical areas within Luton and Bedford 24/7.

It meant workers were very quickly assured that staff were safe and could significantly reduce the risk of major outbreaks on wards.

And a second wave of government guidance that she led on was additional training required to equip staff with the skill and knowledge to nurse people at high risk of Covid-19.

She mobilised a group of educators to deliver training for more than 300 people both face-to-face and through new multimedia platforms - becoming a dab hand at videos and presentations in the process.

She said: "I can slice things together now and do all sorts of things.

"It's been a steep learning curve and it was quite hard going at the time but you just get on with it.

"When you are in a crisis you all have to pull together - it's all hands on deck."

Debbie took on these reactive duties in addition to her primary task of recruitment and support of newly qualified nurses - and is now back to her day job with another round of 35 nurses about to join for virtual training.

The NHS worker, who has worked in Bedford and Luton since 2001 and previously worked at St Andrew's in Northampton, has also won praise for her work developing the initiation of advanced practice nurses, which is hoped to give nurses care leadership pathways.

She added: "It just feels great to have played a part and to have been part of a great team, delivering something that was required."