Kate Murdock

SAPHNA Committee member

I qualified as a general nurse and health visitor in 1995 and started off my nursing career in the North East as a renal nurse.  Life brought me back to Manchester where I had qualified and I soon took up my first post as a health visitor in Harpurhey, North Manchester.

I moved into Trafford as a health visitor in 1999, and have worked in the borough ever since.  Between 2005 and 2008 I took on the role of the Immunisation coordinator in Trafford, throughout which time we transformed the delivery of immunisations and implemented an immunisation team to focus on schools based immunisation alongside the implementation of the HPV vaccine.

I moved back into public health nursing in 2008 as a multi agency operations manager, at a key transition point for Trafford and have helped in my management role to lead public health nurses through the transition to work in an integrated Children and Young Peoples Service.  It was at this time I was asked to take School Nursing into my portfolio and where my love for the profession began.  I had a baptism of fire, leading a complete service review and restructure of the service, which has transformed service delivery locally.  More recently a further commissioner led review has enabled us to refocus on public health delivery to enable us to support children, young people and families as we settle into our new ‘norm’ following the pandemic.

Following a secondment into our local public health team throughout the pandemic to  lead the outbreak control hub, I have returned to a lead manager role in Manchester NHS foundation Trust as  part of the leadership team for Children Community Service Directorate, which provides all childrens community services across Manchester and Trafford.  Alongside being the lead for Trafford 0-19 services I have also been supporting Manchester School Health service,  giving me the opportunity to help shape and develop service to meet the extraordinarily diverse needs of the communities across Trafford and Manchester.

I was delighted when I was asked to become a member of the SAPHNA team in 2014 and have thoroughly enjoyed being part of the organisation and the opportunities it offers to influence policy and practice and to impact on services for children and young people. 

I am keen to embrace the changes and challenges the profession will face and am passionate about delivering services that can really impact on outcomes for our young people.