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New team : Sandra Flynn , Julie Watkinson and Kate Rossiter .
NEW DIRECTOR SPEARHEADS RECRUITMENT DRIVE AT TOP WIRRAL PRIVATE HOSPITAL
A newly-appointed hospital director has launched a major recruitment and training drive as part of a £ 1.1 million investment programme .
The private Spire Murrayfield Hospital at Heswall is aiming to take on new experienced healthcare staff and has already developed a training and apprenticeship programme which will be led by the new director , Julie Watkinson . Julie has also been joined on the top team by two more key appointments , new Matron Sandra Flynn and new acting-Theatre Manager Kate Rossiter . Julie will head up the latest phase in the hospital ’ s development programme which has seen it spend £ 850,000 on an advanced MRI scanner and £ 330,000 on a new day care centre .
Julie , a 51-year-old , mother of one , who lists bell-ringing as a hobby and lives in Halewood with her partner , has spent most of her career in the NHS after going into nursing at 18 . She wants to strengthen the hospital ’ s links with the local community and to increase the availability of jobs and training for local people . She said : “ I ’ m passionate about education and have a post-graduate qualification to prove it and I believe it ’ s vital that we grow and develop our own staff as part of our succession planning .”
The new Matron , Sandra , 52 , a mother of two from Sefton Park , Liverpool , began her career as an auxiliary nurse at Mossley Hill Hospital in the 1980s and trained at Walton and Fazakerley Hospital . Her career includes working at Liverpool
Women ’ s Hospital and Arrowe Park Hospital where she was Matron for five years before leaving the NHS to care for her husband , Dave , who is now in remission after suffering from lymphatic cancer . She returned to nursing as Matron of Spire Liverpool and she said : “ I like the fact that in the private sector you are not limited to a speciality and can work in all sorts of nursing disciplines .”
Kate Rossiter , 35 , from Heswall , also married with two children , is the hospital ’ s new acting-Theatre Manager after training as an Operating Theatre Practitioner at Whiston Hospital and working at Spire Liverpool Hospital . She said : “ I was working in the pharmacy at the Royal Liverpool Hospital and was just very interested in the operating theatres and they told me about the course in Operating Department Practice at Whiston . I really loved it . It was even better than I ’ d thought with assisting the anaesthetist , working as a scrub nurse and helping with recovery and I got involved with all the areas and that ’ s what I like about Spire , I can use all my skills rather than specialising . We ’ ve got three theatres here and in one theatre you can do three different types of surgery in the same day . It ’ s a very different healthcare economy here compared to Liverpool which is much more multi-cultural and densely populated . It is a lovely place to work and we ’ re very much an extended family and that ’ s true of the Spire organisation because even if we can ’ t provide a particular service here our Spire family will be able to at one of our sister hospitals .”
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