'Mum thought I'd never empty a bedpan, but 50 years later here I am'

Nurse Maureen Wallis has worked in Manchester, Leeds, Wakefield and Dewsbury

When Nurse Maureen Wallis started working in the NHS in 1975, patients were still allowed to lie in their beds smoking cigarettes, meanwhile nurses were not supposed to ask questions, just simply do what doctors told them. Fifty years on, and now working as a senior sister on the elective surgical unit at Dewsbury Hospital, it is fair to say she has seen a lot of changes in the health service.

"It's like a different world compared to how it was when I started," she says.

"I was someone else. It was more a vocation when I started than the profession as it is now.

"It was still driven by patient care, but it was a lot more regimented.

"Staff and consultants were all scary people - you just did as you were told. You weren't taught to question like you are now.

"So, even if you thought, 'all this seems a bit wrong', you just did what the seniors told you to do."

Ms Wallis, who began her NHS career at Withington Hospital in Manchester, says she is the only woman left out of a group of five trainees who is still working as a nurse.

Members of that group have met since and all have had varied careers in the health service.

"We met up at 25 years and then we met up again in Manchester at 50," Ms Wallis explains.

"They're all retired now. One friend came to Leeds to do midwifery. She went into health visiting and then she did a stop smoking clinic. Another girl started out doing elderly care. I think she went over to work in Northern Ireland.

"There was another girl who lives in London and she was the head of the Royal College of Nursing, but she retired a few years ago. The other two worked in community and psychiatry."

'Mother did the best to put me off'

Ms Wallis is the first to admit that nursing was not her dream career.

At school she was given three options: secretarial, arts or science - none of which really appealed.

Her mother, who had emigrated from Ireland, worked in a nursing home with her sister and Ms Wallis wondered if that might be the way forward.

"Some friends were going off to university to be teachers and I really didn't fancy that, so I got to thinking, what shall I do? I thought, well, nursing sounds good," she remembers.

"Mother did the best to put me off. She thought I'd never empty a bedpan in my life, but I stuck with it and that was me hooked. Fifty years later, here I am."

After training in Manchester, she decided it was time to leave home and so she moved to St. James's Hospital in Leeds to study midwifery.

Before long, she had moved to orthopaedics and then to the burns unit at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield.

The Bradford City stadium fire at Valley Parade led to the deaths of 56 spectators left at least 265 injured

Ms Wallis says that she had just moved back to orthopaedics when the Bradford City fire tragedy happened.

A total of 56 spectators died as a result of the blaze at Valley Parade on 11 May 1985, with at least 265 other people injured, many of whom were treated at Pinderfields.

"Anyone who had any burns experience was called back to help support on the burns unit, so that's where I went until they got over the worst of it," says Ms Wallis.

"The burns unit is very hard work and very complex, but things have improved there as well.

"The treatment of burns patients has really improved. The outcomes were not good in those days."

It was during that time that Ms Wallis met King Charles, then Prince of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales.

Ms Wallis recollects that she was working a day shift and was due to go to a wedding dress fitting the same day.

"I'd been working with a Bradford fire victim that morning, but they moved me to the other side of the ward," she says.

"I remember I didn't know the patient and I thought, if they [the royal couple] ask me anything, I don't know who this person is.

"So, they got to our bed, they shook hands and Charles said to me, 'have you been working all night as well?'

"I hadn't. I had just been on days and I was about to say, 'do I look that bad?' when the nursing officer behind, well, if looks could kill. She was like, 'you dare open your mouth', so I just said, 'no'.

"But I thought he'd be dead embarrassed, wouldn't he, if I just said, 'no, do I look bad?'

"They were lovely. He was really nice. Diana was very quiet. It was a bit of a highlight in a bad situation. It was something that got spirits up."

Princess Diana was "very quiet", Prince Charles was "really nice", Ms Wallis says

In 1994, Ms Wallis moved to a urology ward, which remains her favourite specialism. Then, in 2017, she moved to Dewsbury Hospital.

During the Covid pandemic, she gave vaccinations and while the elective surgery unit was closed she covered for a colleague who was working on an Intensive Care Unit.

Ms Wallis says that since Covid, nursing has changed immensely, especially in regards to training and opportunities.

"There's so much opportunity now. You can digress into all sorts of specialities," she says.

But, she believes that young nurses are maybe not as confident as her peers once were.

"When I started, we were employed so we got a wage. It wasn't that great, but we were paid by the hospital and so we were the main workforce," she says.

"You had third years telling second or first years what to do. You didn't have that many trained staff around like you do now.

"So, for example, at the end of my first year, I had nine weeks on a gynae word and some nights I was the nurse in charge at the end. It just wouldn't happen now."

'Let the young ones come in'

Ms Wallis says: "A lot of people would say some of the training was better in our day because we were more resilient.

"But then it would be a bit dangerous, I think, to leave a first year in charge of a ward these days."

Despite having spent half a century working for the NHS, Ms Wallis says her time as a nurse has "gone quite quick".

"I don't feel like it's been 50 years," she admits.

However, with that in mind, Ms Wallis says she is preparing to make a big decision soon.

"My age is catching up with me, otherwise I'd be here for another 50, probably," she says.

"I'm planning on retiring properly next year, but that's just because of my age."

"Let the young ones come in," she smiles.

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