Staff spotlight on Nicki, Healthcare Assistant

We are delighted to introduce Nicki, one of the newest members of our Hospice at Home team.

With a nursing career that began in the early nineties, I have worked in a variety of settings, from stroke rehabilitation to gynaecology emergencies.

After choosing to focus on raising my children while running my own craft business and working as a childminder, I was keen to return to my nursing roots.

When a vacancy arose at Beaumond House, I was excited to apply. I had always loved palliative care during my training and had heard such wonderful things about Beaumond House.

Despite feeling nervous at first, I’ve been made to feel so welcome and valued as part of the Hospice at Home team and the wider Beaumond House family.

Outside of work, I am an avid runner, swimmer, and cyclist and find joy in the outdoors - especially by the sea.

I’m also an early-morning wildlife enthusiast, often rising at 4:30am to photograph local animals, and slightly obsessed with grey seals, deer, and puffins.

We are welcomed into people’s homes at some of the lowest and darkest moments of their lives.

We are treated as care professionals, but also as family. We hear life stories, ups, downs, and everything in between, and are trusted with secrets some have never shared, even with their families. It’s an incredible privilege.

I was honoured to attend a patient’s Thanksgiving service. It was a quiet, contemplative time where friends and family spoke of a brilliant, gifted gentleman whose life had touched so many.

Being there, having cared for him in his final months, and being welcomed to celebrate his life was truly humbling.

It’s hard to put into words.

But privilege definitely is a start.