Susie Scales
SAPHNA Committee member
I am a registered general nurse and started my Journey as a nurse at The royal London Hospital In 1988 and once qualified worked in Neurosurgery and vascular surgery. My career in School Nursing began in 1997 when I started working as a staff nurse in a special needs school, where I remained for a number of years before moving into ‘Mainstream’ School nursing. I completed My SCPHN qualification in 2003 and from there have done various roles, including School Nurse, team lead, leadership of special needs teams, School Nurse practice teacher, School age immunisation lead and Clinical lead of School nursing and have worked in a number of areas both in London and the East Midlands. I am proud to have the title of Queens nurse.
I am passionate about the public health role of School Nursing, Staff supervision, leadership and workforce development. I have been involved in changing services and have redesigned services, including moving service away from being a ‘safeguarding service’ to being a public health service and have been involved in a number of change management processes. I have been involved in tendering for new services and have set up new services including special needs services, school age immunisations services and children’s continence service. As a school nurse I always strive to get it right for children and young people and the teams that work with them.
In 2017 I was the RCNi Nurse leader of the year (joint)and have since then, been part of the editorial advisory board for the journal, Nursing Management. 2023 was a year of pride and firsts, I was privileged to be invited to NHS 75th anniversary service at Westminster Abbey and was interviewed by ITV, I gained the Queen’s nurse title (interviewed by the BBC radio Derby) and became a SAPHNA committee member.
Outside of nursing I enjoy swimming, walking, crochet and have just started to learn church bell ringing. You can follow me on X (formally Twitter) @susiesis
