Following an undergraduate degree in Biological Science, Louise embarked on a Graduate Diploma in Adult Nursing at the University of Nottingham, qualifying in 1996. Throughout her nursing career, she has worked in a variety of clinical areas such as neurosciences and intensive care and then developed specialist interest in hypertension whilst working as a Clinical Nurse Specialist within a tertiary care hypertension service. During this role she had the opportunity to develop nurse led clinics and partake in both academic and commercial research trials within the field of hypertension. Her dissertation for the Masters in Advanced Clinical Practice explored how to accurately measure interarm blood pressure difference.
Following completion of a Masters in Advanced Practice, Louise embarked upon a new challenge as an Advanced Nurse Practitioner within a large general practice partnership in inner city Birmingham. Here she developed generalist skills working at this advanced clinical level, as well as supporting the primary care specialist diabetes and hypertension clinics.
Louise’s passion for education, culminated in her first academic role as Course Lead for the MSc. Advanced Clinical Practice at the University of Wolverhampton where she led the curriculum development for the newly established Health Education England West Midlands endorsed Advanced Clinical Practice Masters programme, developing level 7 modules in Advanced Health Assessment and Long Term Conditions.
Louise joined the Postgraduate Studies team within the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Birmingham in July 2018 and has since been instrumental in the curriculum development for the new Level 7 Degree Apprenticeship for Advanced Clinical Practice and contributes to the wider CPD portfolio including Advanced Health Assessment and Clinical Decision Making and the new First Contact module. She also teaches on the undergraduate BNurs and MNurs programme. With over 15 years experience as a non-medical prescriber, Louise is also Independent Prescribing Lead for Nurses and Midwives on the Practice Certificate in Independent Prescribing, a multi-professional postgraduate course within the School of Pharmacy.
Louise’s research interests include the management and monitoring of hypertension, with future Doctorial level studies focussing on this area of clinical practice. She has also developed an interest in the preservation of professional identity in the advancement of clinical practice in view of her multi-professional teaching and in the development of Clinical Nurse Specialist roles at an advanced level.
Louise has been a member of the British and Irish Hypertension Society for over 15 years and was a committee member of the Nurses and Allied Health Professionals Working Party for many of these years. During this time, she has been actively involved in the delivery of educational programmes nationally within the Society and co-directed a video on Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring to support the roll out of the 2011 NICE guidelines for the Management of Hypertension in Primary Care.