Next Tuesday, 27th August sees Community Palliative Care Sister, Helen Farrell’s last working day before retiring after a career spanning 40 years.

Helen started her career at CHFT in 1984 where she trained as a pupil nurse at the Willows School of Nursing Halifax.

Following her qualification, she trained as an Enrolled nurse and worked on several wards across the Halifax General and also infirmary sites.

Then in 1990 Helen undertook the nursing conversion course and qualified as RGN, when she started work at the old General Hospital on Ward 7, which at that time was a female elderly ward.

Having developed an interest in palliative care, Helen took a post at St Gemma’s Hospice Leeds before returning to CHFT in 2000 to become a Community Specialist Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Specialist, where she has remained ever since.

Helen said: "This is my ideal job, I did not expect to get the post but I applied and went for the interview experience. I was offered the job and have been here ever since, part of the fixtures and fitting so to speak.

"The team that I joined in 2000 has changed so much, and I have met some amazing colleagues who have now become lifelong friends. Being born and brought up in Halifax, I feel very privileged to be able to support patients and their families in their own homes at the most difficult and vulnerable time of their life."

Team Leader, Jayne Bargh, said: “Helen has been an integral part of the Community Specialist Palliative Care Team now for 24 years impacting on so many patients’ end of life experience, that it’s difficult to calculate how many!

“Her skills and expertise are going to be greatly missed, not only in our service but the whole trust, not to mention the patients and professionals, doctors and nurses she supports in the community.”