ydia joined St John in October 2022. She qualified as a General Nurse in Staffordshire in 1988. On qualifying she went on to gain Operating theatre experience in The Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford and St Thomas’ in London. She qualified as a Theatre & Anaesthetic nurse in 1992 at Guy’s Hospital and took up a Sister post at Guy’s Nuffield House, London. In 1993, she joined the Royal Air Force as a Nursing officer retiring 28 years later as a Wing Commander. During her service career, she completed tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, specialised in Aeromedical evacuation and took up positions in aeromedical training for the RAF, medical planning with NATO, policy development for Defence Nursing, Recruitment, Clinical Governance, personnel management and medical logistics. During the pandemic she returned to the NHS to support the vaccination programme. Her previous job was as the Polyclinic Manager in the Athletes Village for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022 which involved volunteer recruitment, role and venue specific training, medical planning, logistics. During games time, she managed 85 volunteer healthcare professionals per shift covering 11 venues across Birmingham providing physical therapies, imaging, optometry, dentistry, GP services, immediate emergency care and first aid.
She currently lives in Cheltenham and has a grown-up daughter, Abbi. A social butterfly, she likes to cook and entertain, loves all genres of music, enjoys musical theatre and has done Ceroc and amateur dramatics on and off over the years.
