14 INTERVIEW
Conquering Covid ’ s peaks
Like all nurses , Mark Radford ’ s job has been transformed by Covid-19 . Talking with Nursing in Practice via video from his home , the Health Education England chief nurse and deputy chief nursing officer for England tells Mimi Launder about one of the toughest times of his career – and his priorities for nursing training post-pandemic .
While practice nurses got to grips with virtual consultations , and community nurses were redeployed to entirely new healthcare settings , Mark Radford had to get his head around his own radically evolving role – one he had only just taken on permanently when the pandemic began to take hold . He was confirmed as Health Education England ’ s chief nurse in March last year , after carrying out the role on an interim basis since October 2019 . During his time in post he has already overseen rapid , revolutionary changes to nurse education , with students nearing the end of their course asked to join the paid workforce to help tackle Covid-19 , and others told they had to undertake more academic work online . On top of this HEE role , Mr Radford was asked to head the workforce and training strand of the national vaccination programme , led by NHS England and NHS Improvement .
And , like the rest of us , he found life outside work changed too . Unable to travel abroad , the keen mountaineer is obviously missing climbing as he often posts stunning pictures of peaks from around the world on Twitter . While the actual Alps and Pyrenees may be beyond reach , he – along with the rest of the nursing world – has had plenty of mountains to scale at home .
‘ My job changed overnight ’ Mr Radford , who has experience as a consultant nurse in emergency and trauma care , was asked to help lead the workforce element of the Covid vaccine pilot programme in October last year . He helped oversee months of work , culminating in the moment 90-year-old Margaret Keenan was given the world ’ s first Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 jab in Coventry , on 8 December last year .
‘ Initially it was a pretty small team leading the national programme delivery for the NHS , but it rapidly expanded over a few months ,’ he says .
That team recruited and organised training for vaccinators , making the most of existing nursing expertise in general practice and community teams to deliver mass vaccination programmes . But it also enlisted thousands of volunteers to support the effort , and introduced a change in legislation to allow registered healthcare professionals , such as paramedics and physiotherapists , who do not normally vaccinate , to do so . The team also gathered evidence from suppliers and manufacturers to set up distribution systems ,
Fact file Mark Radford
Oct 2019- present : HEE chief nurse
Mar 2019- present : deputy CNO for England
2009-present : visiting professor of nursing , Birmingham City and Coventry universities
Sept 2016- Mar 2019 : national director of nursing for improvement , NHS Improvement
June 2012- Sept 2017 : CNO , University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire nursinginpractice . com Summer 2021