"I feel very fortunate" - Sharon on working for the NHS since 1976 for NHS 75 celebrations
A member of #TeamUHDB says they feel "very thankful" to have played a part in helping patients across Derbyshire receive the care they needed during her 47-year career as we mark the NHS' 75th anniversary.
Sharon Babb has worked in a number of roles administrative roles in arranging patient appointments and consultations during her NHS career, which spans five decades - something she says she feels "very grateful to have worked to benefit our patients" for so long.
It was back in 1976 that Sharon began her NHS career shortly after leaving school, which was until this year the hottest summer on record - but it could have been a very different story.
She explained: "I left school on a Friday and had applied for a few jobs, including in the NHS and at Rolls-Royce. However, I was offered a job at what was the former Derbyshire Royal Infirmary (DRI) and started the week after finishing school.
"I began working in the Records team running errands all over the hospital and interacting with lots of different teams, so this gave me a really good grounding in understanding more about how the hospital and NHS worked."
This foundation helped Sharon to progress in her career, and she later went on to run the Dermatology reception area for around 14 years before moving on to become a supervisor and later, a manager in our Outpatients department.
During her career, much has changed in terms of hospital buildings and processes of the job itself, with a move to more modern, less manual approaches.
Sharon continued: "When I started, we used to have to write all of our appointment cards and keep our records up to date by hand - I used to write hundreds of cards every week. When I look back, it reminds me a bit of writing lines if you got in trouble at school and we used to get through a lot of tip-ex when appointments needed to be rescheduled or altered.
"We used to manually put the appointment cards in little brown envelopes, and I can remember the first basic computer system being installed and thinking how amazing it was as it was going to massively improve the efficiency of our work.
"I also remember fondly my time at the old DRI building with its one long corridor that you had to walk down to get to any department - so you'd always be bumping into people you know multiple times every day."
Although buildings and processes may have changed, one thing that has remained a constant is the support and warmth from the colleagues Sharon has worked with over the years.
Sharon explained: "I feel very fortunate to have worked in the NHS in Derby for as long as I have and to have worked with, and continue to work with, so many nice people.
"Whatever we do, it's always for the benefit of our patients, and I feel thankful to have played my part in helping patients through our pathways. I always like to approach my role by thinking that we or our loved ones will all one day be patients in some way, so I think about how I'd want to be treated if I was on the other side."
In such a long career, it can be hard to pick out highlights, but Sharon singled out a more recent memory as one of her proudest during her time in the NHS.
In 2021, Sharon's colleagues surprised her with a presentation recognising her achieving 45 years of service to the NHS following a pause on such events during the pandemic - something which completely caught her by surprise:
"I remember being called into a meeting by my manager at a time when I was quite busy, which wasn't ideal timing I remember thinking! I went through to the room and thinking everything felt very serious, and then our Executive Chief Operating Officer, Sharon Martin, appeared, and my heart really started racing.
"But then Sharon presented my with my certificate for my service and I was gobsmacked. I'm normally pretty cute on things like this, but this really took me back and I'll always remember that."
It is this camaraderie that Sharon says she will miss the most as she looks to the future and her potential upcoming retirement.
Sharon said: "I do think retirement is on the horizon for me, but I'm not sure how I'll feel after working almost non-stop for 47 years. I haven't had any breaks for maternity leave or things like that, so it'll be a big change for me and I will certainly miss being around my colleagues every day and helping to make a difference to the lives of our patients."