Keisha Osmond-Joseph, Lead Nurse for Haemoglobinopathy is the recent winner of our You Made a Difference Award after being nominated by not one, but three colleagues!

One of the Keisha’s colleagues who nominated her was Paul Greaves, Consultant Haematologist and Lead Consultant Haemoglobinopathy. In his nomination, Paul described how much Keisha has developed the team for the benefit of our patients: “Through recruiting a keen, capable group of new nurse specialists and ensuring their training was expedited, she has engineered the re-establishment a safe, effective antenatal screening service with improved cooperation with laboratory and maternity services. She has re-established an automated red cell exchange transfusion programme with improved robustness and capacity for expansion.” Paul added that this has been achieved with “enormous hard work, creativity, and exceptional good nature and good humour.”

In another nomination, Iyabode Helen Caxton a clinical nurse specialist in the team praised “her determination, hard work, and effectiveness”, and Clare Bailey, Divisional Director of Healthcare Professionals commended her role in re-establishing our Apheresis service.

Keisha has worked at our Trust for 18 months, and has been a qualified nurse for almost 18 years. She trained at St Bartholomew’s School of Nursing and Midwifery (now City, University of London) and told us that she was inspired to go into a career in nursing by her grandmother: “She was also a nurse and part of the Windrush Generation; moving to work in the UK from the Caribbean (Tobago) in her thirties. She absolutely loved being a nurse. In her career she worked at many hospitals, including St Thomas’s before moving on to work in a nursing home in the last few years of her career before she retired. She asked me while I was doing my O’ Levels (now A levels) what I wanted to do. I had considered medicine but she suggested a career in nursing, and went with me to an open evening at Barts Hospital.”

Talking about what attracted her to specialise in caring for patients with sickle cell and thalassemia, Keisha said: “I had my last placement in my final year of nursing training at the Royal London working in Medical Haematology/Oncology ward caring for children and I loved it. They were recruiting nurses so I started with four other newly qualified nurses. One of whom is now works as one of the clinical nurse specialists within the team. We’ve come back together, later in our careers!”

As the lead nurse of the service, Keisha has lots of ambitions to improve the care we provide: “My vision for the service is to be established as a Specialist Haemoglobinopathy Team (SHT) which is a nationally recognised status indicating that we provide high quality care for our patients. This status has much needed funding attached to it, which we would invest back into the service.

“I am also passionate that we become and are recognised nationally as an exemplar of the Integrated Care Model.  A fully integrated service would mean incorporating  linked antenatal and new born screening programmes, paediatric service, transition and the adult service; as well as acute care and community support. We offer screening in early pregnancy, so sometimes we know our patients before they have even been born! It’s a real privilege to care for a patient throughout their life. ”

Keisha and her team are going to be running a patient engagement event where there will be a guest speaker presenting on challenges with Sickle Cell & Thalassaemia and employment, the team will give an update on our Trust’s Haemoglobinopathy service, inform patients of some new national changes and how these will affect them and our Trust as a whole. The event will take place on Saturday 4 April, 2020 from 11am to 3pm at Powerhouse Community Network, Unit 4, 280 Oxlow Lane, Dagenham, RM10 8LP. The event is geared towards patients (children and adults) and their families. Patients, carers and parents can book a place, by contacting the team on 01708 435 000 extension 3677.

If you know someone who works at our hospitals and really makes a difference, then nominated them for our monthly You Made a Difference Award. More information and the nomination form can be found on our website.