Hospital heroes: Lee Conway, ward sister at York Hospital

“Are you all right, Mrs Metcalfe?” she asks. “Can you manage? Shall I get that for you?” She helps her gather personal belongings from the small bedside cabinet.

“We’re just getting your discharge bits and bobs together, and then you’ll be ready to go,” Lee says. “What time is your son coming?”

“Five o’clock, when he finishes work.”

It is still only midday. But once she has been given all her medication and been officially discharged, Mrs Metcalfe will go to a waiting area for patients who are ready to go home, there to wait for her son.

It can’t come a moment too soon, she admits. She has been in hospital to have her knee replaced, and it has been a long stay, lasting for 11 days.

“The staff here are all very nice,” she says. “They are marvellous. Nothing is too much trouble for them.” She pauses. “But it will be nice to go home.”

It is a common response among patients who have been in hospital for a long time. In the next bay along, Shirley Mattinson is sitting in the chair beside her bed. She laughs and jokes cheerfully with Press photographer Nigel Holland as he takes a photo of Lee straightening her pillows.

But it is clear that she, too, would like nothing better than to be able to go home.

She has had a replacement hip ‘revised’ – and has been in hospital for nine weeks.

The hospital needs to be satisfied that she can manage at home before she is discharged, Lee explains, gently, leaning close to chat to her.

“I thought I was going home today, but they won’t let me,” Mrs Mattinson protests, once Lee has gone. “They are going to go with me to see my house.” She sighs, then smiles again resignedly. “The staff are very kind here, but it is a bit boring. All the sitting around. I’m not one for sitting around.”

Welcome to life on York Hospital’s elective orthopaedic ward. The patients who come here are mostly admitted for planned hip or knee replacements, or sometimes back or shoulder surgery.

As you would expect, many – though not all – are quite elderly. Lee clearly has a gift for dealing with patients: she is kind, and warm, and soothing. But at 28, she is young to be in charge of a busy ward like this. She seems, however, to be effortlessly in control.

She is constantly being stopped by other nurses so they can ask for advice, or called to the telephone to speak to a concerned relative, or asked to brief doctors on how patients are doing, or conferring with the ward’s domestic assistant, Rudy Bokar, to make sure everything is spick and span.

Does she enjoy the job? It doesn’t leave much time for a life outside the hospital, she jokes. But yes, she loves it.

As ward sister, she is responsible about 30 staff on the ward – other nurses, the ward housekeeper, the clerk and the cleaner. Then there are the doctors and other health professionals such as physiotherapists who are constantly on the ward. She is not in charge of them, but she does have to liaise with them.

There are lots of people always after her, she jokes. “But I’m still a hands-on nurse. And the part that I most enjoy is looking after the patients – making sure that they have as nice a time as they can. You get to meet and know a huge number of people – a very diverse group of people. And, hopefully, we will really be able to improve the quality of their life.

“They have all been in pain before they come in here, or they have had problems with mobility. Hopefully, we’ll have been able to do something for them.”

And she doesn’t mind that most people who come into the ward really just want to be able to go home again?

She smiles. “They’re away from their families,” she says. “However much we try to make their stay as nice as possible, this is a hospital. It isn’t home.”

Beside, she says, the aim on this ward is to try to get people up and about and back home as quickly as possible.

As soon as is practicable after an operation, hip or knee replacement patients are encouraged top get up out of bed, with the help of physiotherapists, to start moving again.

“With hip and knee patients we aim if we can to discharge at day five after the operation,” she says. But it is not always possible, if a patient has had complications, or has a difficult medical history. “So it is about a balance. We need to be sure they are going to be able to manage at home.”

Despite the occasional frustrations, there is no other job she’d rather do. Her nan was a nurse. Growing up in York, and going to Fulford School, she wasn’t really sure at first what she wanted to do. “Except that I didn’t want a job that involved being stuck at a desk. And I liked the idea of doing something caring.”

Nursing seemed the obvious choice. She did her nurse training at Oxford Brookes University, then worked for 18 months in the trauma unit at the John Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford.

From there, she came back to York – working as a staff nurse, then a deputy sister on another ward, before coming to Ward 26 a year ago as sister.

She lives near Bootham Crescent, has a boyfriend, James, and in the little spare time she has, enjoys hanging out with family and friends. “And I go to the gym a couple of times a week.”

And what about her future career? She’s already made ward sister at 28. Where does she go from here?

“I don’t know,” she says. “I really do love nursing. And I’ve only been in this post for a year, so I want to stay here for a while.”

Lee Conway’s day on the ward

Lee works the ‘early shift’ – 7.30am to 3.30pm Monday to Friday. Deputy ward sister Rachel Kingston, who recently married, tends to work weekends and late shifts.

Lee’s day starts with the handover from the night shift. She checks with the outgoing shift on how patients did overnight, brings herself up to speed on medications and the overnight observations, and then dispatches a nurse to give out the morning’s medicines.

Other nurses will then start to help patients wash and get themselves ready for the day.

Once patients are washed and have had their breakfast, physiotherapists and occupational therapists start to put in an appearance, helping patients who have had hip or knee replacements to get up and moving again, and finding out about what their situation is at home.

Lee will circulate, make sure all the patients are washed and comfortable, chat to them about their medication or any concerns they have, and brief junior doctors making ward visits.

Lunch is at midday – and after lunch, new patients start to arrive from theatre, having had their operations. As they come round from their anaesthetics, nurses make sure they are okay, check that they know where they are, and make sure they know how to call for help if they need it.

Visiting starts at 3pm, so there is time for Lee to chat to relatives before her shift finishes at 3.30pm.

• YORK Hospital employs 1,188 nurses, of which 81 are ward sisters, and 129 deputy ward sisters.

The role of ward sisters such as Lee is absolutely vital, says Libby McManus, York Hospital’s chief nurse.

“Ward sisters and charge nurses have many roles, but their responsibility is clear: to oversee all aspects of patient care on a ward,” she says.

“As a professional they are significant role models to others. We often remember a few ward sisters from our training who we considered firm and fair in upholding the best possible standards of patient care.

“I remember aspiring to be just like them and Lee will have someone she remembers too in this way. I suspect they would be very proud of her now.

“They are managers and leaders of teams as well as someone patients and relatives regard as being in charge and responsible for the care of their loved ones. Their role is critical in so many aspects of the daily management of the hospital. They are not only a role model for junior staff but also for those considering nursing as a profession.”