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Dave Davis

David Davis

00:00:00 My name's David Davis, I'm a senior staff nurse at West Park Rehabilitation Hospital. My job entails looking after stroke rehabilitation and making sure that the patients are healthy, fit, keeping their blood pressure intact and also liaising with a multi disciplinary team of physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists.

00:00:26 My school days, it was pretty restricted back in the 60s, pretty strict. I used to enjoy chemistry, physics, biology. At school I enjoyed chemistry so much I decided that that would be my career. I got a job at a place called Norton Villiers where they make motorcycles as a lab assistant, really, to start with and when I was at the age of 20 it actually folded. So, I got a job at the Ministry of Defence working in their laboratory there on powder technology.

00:00:58 The following year there was an advert for Qualcast for a foundry chemist and it just happened to be nearly twice the money so I left and went to Qualcast. I was there until 1983 when I was made redundant and literally my heart sank. I've never felt so low in my life. I got on the bus, went in the wrong direction, didn't go home and completely confused, just did not know what to do with myself. I felt absolutely worthless.

00:01:25 And then one day a letter came through the door so I opened it up and it was from the Qualcast and they wanted me to return but not as a foundry chemist but as chief metalogist.

00:01:39 During the final years the firm was struggling and we had no pay rises and I knew the economic climate was going to change and I was thinking, "What can I do with my life because this isn't going to last?" And this is when I made the decision to go into nursing. My sister's a nurse and I knew a couple of nurses and I thought, "Well, I could do that, I think." I discussed it with my wife and my family that I'd like to go into nursing and there'd be a massive financial hardship, at least for three years.

00:02:07 Everybody backed me and that gave me the confidence to actually say after 24 years, "I'm sorry, here's a months' notice." To start with I actually got a job at West Park as an auxiliary nurse and then got seconded four months later to do my training at the University of Wolverhampton which I passed in 2003 and in 2007 I was promoted to senior staff nurse. That's where I am at this present moment in time.

00:02:34 The hardest decision was actually going back to university after goodness knows what, at 45. Having to go right back down to basics from being in charge of 130 people to being a fresher and on the bottom ladder was rather hard to bear, especially in the first year of university, second and third year it was fine, fine. But first year, hard.

00:02:58 What I love makes my job worthwhile is seeing patients who come in, they're virtually immobile, can't talk, maybe have food through a tube and they walk out. To see them actually go after three months is absolutely marvellous. You become friends with the family and you become friends with the patient and sometimes when they go you feel upset, you know. It's obviously the right thing for them.

00:03:24 I think when you start out in life you look pretty well in a straight line and you don't tend to see any side corners. I never imagined myself at 16 being a nurse, good grief, the farthest thing from my mind and really, this is the most fulfilling job that I could ever, ever imagine. It's not paid the best in the world but, my goodness me, the quality of life and the feedback from patients and the satisfaction that you get can't be beaten.

00:03:57 ENDS