This International Women’s Day, we’re celebrating a nurse who champions collaborative working between Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust (Shropcom) and The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital (RJAH). 

Sam Young, who works across both organisations as Associate Director of Infection Prevention and Control (IPC), described her dual role as “rewarding and beneficial to the whole of Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin.” 

Sam had been working at as Associate Director of IPC at Shropcom and in September 2022, she had the opportunity to extend her role to RJAH due to a gap in the organisation. 

She said: “I’m only about six months into my dual role and, alongside my teams, have achieved so much including a successful IPC Summit event, team development day, peer reviews to assess audits and a bespoke IPC programme for the Shropshire Telford and Wrekin Healthcare Support Worker Academy. 

“The main benefit of my role is we’re able to standardise IPC, not only to benefit Shropcom and RJAH, but also the other providers that sit across Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin. We can also delegate work across both teams, ensuring we are avoiding duplication and making the most of the resource we have available.  

“My cross-provider role is extremely rewarding and I’m a huge advocate for collaboratively working across the health and care system to get the best out of staff and the processes we have in place.” 

Sam is also a Reservist, working as the Lead IPC Nurse part of 202 (Midlands) Field Hospital. 

She added: “My military and civilian roles really complement each other and allow me to transfer the skills I have across both roles. As an example, the majority of my leadership training has taken place through the military, and over the years I’ve been able to apply this knowledge to my role in the NHS.”