RCN UK Nursing Support Workers Committee

Kevin Morley, Chair

Nursing Support Worker member of RCN Council 

Kevin is an active RCN member and is an accredited RCN Steward and the current Chair of the RCN Nursing Support Workers Committee. He has gained valuable experience working as a Nursing Support Worker within a Community District Nursing Team and a community staff governor at a local Trust. 

Kevin has also achieved significant work as Chair of the Nursing Support Worker Committee and would like to keep up the momentum of this work as the Nursing Support Worker member on RCN Council.

Lorraine McLauchlan, Vice Chair

Member for Scotland

Lorraine is a Recreation Assistant working at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, a role she has held since 2010. Her work involves assisting clients with a range of day-to-day activities as part of a multi-disciplinary team. Lorraine began her career as a nursing support worker in 1985 and has significant experience supporting clients with disabilities. 

Prior to joining the RCN, Lorraine was a member of UNISON and was a Rep for 14 years. She joined the RCN in 2012 and was first elected to the Nursing Support Workers Committee in 2017, before being elected as Vice Chair in 2023. Lorraine also served as an RCN Steward for two years.

Sandra-Jane Stock

Member for Eastern

Sandra-Jane (SJ) is a Band 2 Health Care Assistant at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, working mainly with children.

SJ started working in the NHS in 1982, qualifying as a RGN in 1986 and a RSCN in 1988. SJ has worked in hospital, schools and the community with children and their families in many different roles, including Band 7 Children’s respiratory & allergy nurse specialist with a non-medical prescribing qualification in West London. Owing to disability, SJ took ill health retirement and left the NMC register at the end of 2021. Finding retirement not to her liking, SJ joined NNUH as a Health Care Assistant.

Life-long learning has always been an important part of SJ’s life, undertaking post-registration qualifications in teaching and assessing, paediatric asthma, allergy in practice, Diploma in Professional Studies in Nursing followed by a top-up degree at the RCN – BSc (Hons) in Child Health Nursing. Apart from annual updates in respiratory, allergy and prescribing, SJ’s most recent formal qualification was Non-Medical Prescribing registered with the NMC in 2012. Now, however, SJ is undertaking a MA in Childhood & Youth studies with the OU. SJ had an article published in RCNi Journal, Nursing Children & Young People in 2019.

SJ has been a member of the RCN since 1982, as a student member, Registered Nurse member, retired member (very briefly) and as a NSW member. SJ became the elected member of the Nursing Support Workers (NSW) Committee representing the Eastern Region in 2023. Having been a Registered Nurse, SJ felt that she was well placed to support NSWs due to her breadth of knowledge and experience of competencies and acknowledgement of increased role expectations – NSW’s taking on more of the clinical skills that used to be in the Registered Nurse domain and highlighting when NSWs being asked to take on roles / tasks beyond their job description and taking action on behalf of other NSWs. Recently SJ has become the NSW Committee representative on the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee, having had practical experience of how difficult it is to argue for necessary adjustments.

Outside of work, studying and RCN commitments, SJ has a long history of volunteering - previously as a School Governor, PCC Treasurer, Lead Chaperone & safeguarding officer for a youth theatre group and currently as an Age UK phone friend, Beaver Leader in training (Scouting) and Rainbow Leader in training (Guiding).

SJ has a "long-suffering" husband, two grown up sons and a beautiful rescue dog.

Georgia Bowers

Member for East Midlands

Georgia is a Nursing Associate working in social care. Prior to training at university, Georgia was a support worker, working in a Butterfly Care Home since 2019, specialising in advanced dementia care. Georgia continues to work here post registration. Georgia has been a member of the NSW Committee since April 2024 and hopes that this role will allow her to connect with fellow members in the region to help advocate on their behalf and discover ways that we can share knowledge and experiences. Georgia hopes for a long career working within a nursing team to deliver high levels of care.

Catalina Cerlinca

Member for London

Catalina is a nursing associate and the London region representative on the Nursing Support Workers Committee. Catalina came to the UK 13 years ago and started her NHS career working in domestic services before training to become a nursing associate. Catalina was one of the first 1000 nursing associates after being part of the pilot programme and is passionate about highlighting the vital role nursing support workers play.

Vacant

Member for Northern 

Geraldine Russell

Member for Northern Ireland

Geraldine is an Operating Theatre Assistant working at South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, a role she has held for the past sixteen years. Geraldine has worked in healthcare provision for her entire career to date, working in a wide range of healthcare environments. She has a Level 5 Diploma in Direct Care.

After attending RCN HQ in November 2023 for the Nursing Support Workers' Day 'Shining a Light' conference, Geraldine was encouraged by members of the committee to consider putting herself forward to represent Nursing Support Worker members in Northern Ireland. She gave this some consideration and decided that she would like the opportunity to connect with other RCN members in Northern Ireland and to work with the committee members from across the UK. 

Geraldine's confidence has already developed as a member of the committee, and she hopes to make a difference for other Nursing Support Worker members and to raise their collective voice.

Sunday Babanumi

Member for North West

Biography to follow.

Sharon Mitchel

Member for South East

Sharon began as a Health Care Assistant before progressing into a role of a Medical Assistant. She has been in her current position as a Healthcare Assistant Practice Educator for the last 5 years and has a high degree of autonomy, delivering a range of training to new and existing HCAs and individuals in similar roles, that enhances their ability to deliver high-quality patient care. This role also enhances her ability to advocate for NSWs.                                                                                                                                                                 

Sharon has never wanted to be a registered nurse, her passion has always been about supporting, developing and training HCAs to provide gold standard care, but at the same time making sure that HCAs are appreciated for the important role they play within a patient's journey. Sharon has been a Learning Rep for the Royal College of Nursing for 9 years and finds this to be an excellent way of keeping up with best practice and new initiatives.                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Sharon is also undertaking the accreditation process to become an RCN Steward and hopes to be a resource of support for those members that need assistance with issues in their workplace. She has chaired her local branch in the past and is currently the treasurer. She finds this is a good way of being active within the RCN and a way of making sure the NSW voice is heard at branch level. Sharon joined the Nursing Support Workers Committee as the member for the South East region in 2022 and attended her first Congress as part of the committee in 2023. Sharon really enjoys being part of such an active, engaging, friendly committee which makes sure that the voice of the NSW workforce is heard, listened to and acted on. Sharon's favourite quote about NSWs is 'Having a voice is about belonging, having ownership of our surroundings and being understood'.

Vacant

David Parry

Member for Wales

Dave is an Assistant Behavioural Practitioner for the Specialist Behavioural Support Service, within Learning Disability Services, based in Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. He has been in post for 25 years, supporting people with a Learning Disability who present with Challenging Behaviour, and the services that support them. Prior to that he worked in the private sector, in a residential setting for people with a Learning Disability for just under 5 years.

Dave first joined the RCN in 2013 while studying for his Diploma in Healthcare Practice at Bangor University. He then had a small break before returning to the RCN in early 2023. Dave joined the committee in February 2024 as he wanted to become more involved with the RCN following the pay dispute of 2022/2023, and after he and some colleagues attended the Nursing Support Worker Conference in Llandudno in November 2023. 

Along with gaining his Diploma in HealthCare Practice, Dave has also studied Applied Behavioural Analysis through Bangor University (2007).

Dave’s aim is to give NSWs from across Wales a voice within the committee. His key personal priorities include:

• Fair Pay. Not just the basic salary but also making sure NSWs receive pay consistent with Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions of Service, and the non-pay agreement following industrial action (2023) are delivered in full.
• Wales is currently planning to introduce Nursing Associates to its workforce. Dave is taking an active role in developing the planning for the role.
• For NSWs to be respected within the wider Nursing Community for the role they play in delivering quality health care. Dave wants to see the term ‘qualified’, when referring to Nurses, become a thing of the past. All Nursing staff are ‘qualified’, including you. We just have different qualifications to one another. It should never be inferred that Nursing Support Workers are ‘unqualified’.

Dave would be happy to hear from NSW members in Wales with any issues that you would like him to raise within the committee. Dave is a part to the North Wales RCN Branch based in Colwyn Bay. He is also a member of the RCN Nursing Support Workers Facebook Group. 

Ilva Jones

Member for West Midlands

Ilva is a Band 4 Nursing Support Worker at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham working with the Nutrition Nurses. looking after patients with Feeding tubes. She started her HCA journey in 1997 working in a Nursing Home. Ilva started working at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 1999 working on Surgical Liver Ward, then worked in Endoscopy and has been working in her current role since 2008. She completed her NVQ Level 3 in Direct Care in 2004.

Ilva has been an RCN member since 2012, and became an accredited Steward in 2020. She was also elected to the Nursing Support Workers Committee in 2020. Ilva is also the Lead for NSWs for the South Birmingham Branch.

Ilva is hoping to achieve proper recognition for Nursing Support Workers; working to achieve regulation of Nursing Support Workers in the future, and fair pay for what they do. 

Katherine Davis

Member for Yorkshire & the Humber

Biography to follow.

Tracie Culpitt

Member of the Professional Nursing Committee and ex-officio member of the Nursing Support Workers Committee

Tracie works in Education and Organisational development at an NHS Trust as the lead for Quality Assurance. She currently works with bands 2-4, around apprenticeship standards. She also sits on the RCN Education and Clinical Governance Forums. As the Nursing Support Worker member of the Professional Nursing Committee, Tracie is a voice for the unregistered workforce. She is an ex-officio member of the RCN UK Nursing Support Workers committee.

Dennis Greer

Member of the Trade Union Committee and ex-officio member of the Nursing Support Workers Committee

Dennis is a Senior Nursing Assistant in the Rapid Response Team and a Healthcare Practitioner in a GP practice at Omagh Hospital and primary care complex. He served on the Nursing Support Workers Committee as a directly elected member from 2014-2020, including as Vice-Chair from 2016 and is very active within his branch as the RCN South Western Branch Secretary and as an RCN Network lead for Nursing Support Workers in Northern Ireland. Dennis is a Steward and is currently undertaking training as a Safety Rep. He is an ex-officio member of the RCN UK Nursing Support Workers committee.