Being an IBD clinical nurse specialist in the NHS: challenges, stressors and coping mechanisms - Sponsored by Tillotts

Isobel works as a nurse consultant in gastroenterology at the Royal Free Hospital and leads the IBD nursing strategy at Crohn’s & Colitis UK.

She has a busy clinical role running advanced nursing services for patients referred with iron deficiency anaemia, coeliac disease, IBD and dyspepsia.

Her NHS leadership role includes leading teams of clinical nurse specialists in gastroenterology & hepatology.

At Crohn’s and Colitis UK she leads the nursing strategy, which aims for all those living with IBD have access to a suitably qualified nurse specialist. The strategy includes the Crohn’s & Colitis UK nurse specialist programme, funding and supporting nurses career development and delivering the charity’s strategy in secondary care in all 4 UK countries.

Lesley qualified as a general nurse in 1984, and as a Sick Children’s Nurse in 1986. After several years in clinical practice during which time she completed her BSc, she pursued initially an academic career – gaining her MPhil – and later turning her attention to becoming a fulltime researcher. In a serendipitous turn, she secured a post with Professor Christine Norton at King’s College London in 2008, and over the next 9 years completed 12 research projects all related in some way to patient experiences of Inflammatory Bowel Disease and other chronic illnesses. She was awarded her PhD in 2014 for a hermeneutic phenomenological study of the experience of stigma in IBD. Lesley is an acknowledged qualitative researcher with a particular expertise in hermeneutic phenomenology. She is committed to enabling advanced study and academic progression in IBD CNSs, and regularly collaborates with these specialist nurses to deliver research projects addressing issues of relevance in clinical practice. She received her Chair from the University of Greenwich in August 2021.