Nurse retires after almost six decades in the NHS

Maureen Scaife (right) with Group Chief Nurse Amanda Stanford after she was presented with flowers and Champagne for her long service

A Hull nurse has retired after spending 58 years working for the NHS.

Maureen Scaife, 76, was born a few weeks after the creation of the health service in 1948 and began her nursing career in 1966.

She said: “A lot of the nurses I’ve mentored over the years have said that if they had to come into hospital, I’d be the one they’d want to look after them.

“But it’s time for me to enjoy a bit of me time now.”

Maureen Scaife was one of the student nurses chosen to form an arc of honour as the Queen officially opened Hull Royal Infirmary in June 1967

Ms Scaife was inspired to become a nurse after helping a customer who collapsed in the shop she was working at after leaving school.

She began working on the geriatric unit at Castle Hill Hospital in Cottingham on completion of her training, which she said would often "make or break" new recruits.

Ms Scaife worked on several wards over the years and moved to the surgical wards at Hull Royal Infirmary in 1999 after losing her partner to a brain haemorrhage.

She retired as a full time nurse at 65, but has helped on the nursing bank since then.

During the Covid-19 pandemic she worked on the patient discharge lounge.

'Vast experience'

Ms Scaife said she had seen "massive improvements" in patient care over the years she had been working, and said nursing had come on "leaps and bounds".

She said patients often described her as "old school", and said matrons had been very different when she started nursing - explaining how nurses would "stand to attention" when one walked onto a ward.

Amanda Stanford, group chief nurse at Humber Health Partnership, the organisation running Hull University Teaching Hospitals and Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Foundation Trust, paid tribute.

Ms Stanford said Ms Scaife had "spent her entire career caring for our patients" and offered her "heartfelt thanks" to the nurse.

She added: “Many of our staff have benefited from Maureen’s vast experience and we thank her for how generous she’s been to share her knowledge and skills with countless other members of staff over the years."

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