Mercia Williams recently re-joined our Trust as Lead Nurse for our Infection Prevention and Control team, which is responsible for making sure the right guidance and training is in place to keep our patients and staff safe during the Covid-19 pandemic. We’re lucky to have her – as she managed to get on one of the last flights to the UK from South Africa before they were grounded!

Mercia brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to our Trust, both as a nurse and an educator. Before moving to the UK, she was a lecturer and tutor at Western Cape College of Nursing, University of the Western Cape and University of Cape Town in Ophthalmic Nursing Science. She has also served on the South African Nursing Council to set standards in education, and worked to develop a course for training on ENT and plastics and burns for Grootte Schuur Hospital and University of Cape Town .

Mercia first started working at our Trust in 1999 as nurse in cardiology at Harold Wood Hospital then went on to specialise in infection prevention and control (IPC) at our Trust before retiring and moving to South Africa in 2017. Re-joining our Trust during a pandemic could be daunting for some, but Mercia had the confidence and experience to hit the ground running.

She said: “Anyone who knows me will say I love a challenge. In a time like this I look at a situation objectively and think, number one, ‘how am I going to keep patients and staff safe?’ I also think about how we can effectively use our resources and work as a team.  It would be nice to have the time to sit down and write a plan, but when you are thrown in the deep end you just have to swim – and draw on your knowledge. This is my strength with 20 years of experience in IPC.”

On Sunday 22 March, South Africa announced a national lockdown but thankfully Mercia was able to travel: “I left on Monday 23 March. I was able to fly due to being a British citizen and also as I was joining the NHS as an IPC nurse. I was on one of the last flights from Cape Town to England.”

Mercia commented that it was the relationships she had built working here that made her want to return: “I was working as an IPC consultant in South Africa when I was offered the role. When I took the decision to come back, I thought about all the people who have had an impact on my career, right back to a healthcare assistant I met when I joined in 1999. I have a lot of close friends here, last June when I visited the hospital while on holiday it felt like coming home. Everyone has been welcoming me back and it is such a nice feeling.

“Seeing how our Trust has been working together is heart-warming. There is real unity and we are working as one. The other day the Occupational Health team was giving out water and fruit to staff. Sometimes when you are working you forget about taking a break, so that was so valuable in making staff stop and eat something. They may not have realised how appreciated it was and the difference it made.”

Mercia also spoke about how incredibly grateful our staff are for the donations from the public: “I was elated when I saw the donations of goggles from local schools. The father of one of our Emergency Department nurses has also donated PPE. It’s been great to see the community come together.”