Kirsty King

I am an experienced Registered Children's Nurse and Clinical Lead with extensive experience delivering and leading highly complex paediatric healthcare across acute, community and homecare settings. Alongside my senior leadership role, I continue to work as an NHS Bank and Agency Theatre Recovery Nurse, maintaining advanced acute clinical skills in the management of adults and children following surgery. My clinical background spans community nursing, complex continuing care, palliative and end-of-life care, theatre recovery, autism, learning disability and mental health services.

This combination of acute and community experience enables me to confidently assess deteriorating patients, make complex clinical decisions, coordinate multidisciplinary care and provide expert support to families caring for children with life-limiting conditions. Within my current role I lead the mobilisation and clinical oversight of highly complex packages of care, including palliative and end-of-life services, emergency hospital discharges and rapidly changing clinical situations. I work closely with families, hospices, community nursing teams, consultants, commissioners and wider multidisciplinary teams to ensure children can receive safe, compassionate and family-centred care within their own homes wherever possible.

I combine compassionate leadership with sound clinical judgement, advanced communication skills, strong governance and a commitment to developing high-performing teams and improving patient outcomes.

Clinical Lead at NurtureCare Ltd (Present)

• Provide strategic and operational leadership across nurse-led complex healthcare services.
• Lead clinical governance, safeguarding, audits, quality improvement and workforce development.
• Hold clinical responsibility for children with highly complex, life-limiting and palliative care needs receiving care within the community.
• Lead the rapid mobilisation of complex care packages, including emergency hospital discharge, palliative care at home and end-of-life services.
• Complete holistic clinical assessments and develop comprehensive care plans, symptom management plans, emergency care plans and detailed risk assessments.
• Coordinate multidisciplinary care involving consultants, hospices, community nursing teams, GPs, therapists, schools and commissioners.
• Support children and families through deterioration and end-of-life care, ensuring plans remain responsive, compassionate and focused on comfort, dignity and quality of life.
• Provide clinical advice and escalation support to nursing teams caring for unstable or deteriorating children in the community.
• Deliver competency-based education in tracheostomy care, long-term ventilation, non-invasive ventilation, suction, chest physiotherapy, gastrostomy care, medication management and emergency procedures.
• Lead incident investigations, safeguarding reviews and governance actions to improve safety and service quality.

Bank Theatre Recovery Nurse at King's Mill Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (Present)

• Provide specialist post-anaesthetic recovery care across adult and paediatric surgical services within a busy acute theatre environment.
• Complete comprehensive ABCDE assessment and continuous post-operative monitoring following general, regional and local anaesthesia.
• Manage and maintain patient airways using positioning, suction, oxygen therapy, oral and nasopharyngeal airways and supraglottic airway support, escalating promptly to the anaesthetic team when required.
• Recognise and respond to airway obstruction, laryngospasm, bronchospasm, respiratory depression, hypoxia and other acute post-anaesthetic complications.
• Administer and monitor intravenous medicines in accordance with prescriptions and local policy, including opioid and non-opioid analgesia, antiemetics, antibiotics, intravenous fluids and emergency medication.
• Assess and manage acute pain using multimodal analgesia, clinical observation and validated pain assessment tools.
• Monitor ECG, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, temperature, consciousness level, fluid balance and surgical sites, identifying early signs of deterioration.
• Recognise and escalate haemodynamic instability, bleeding, sepsis, hypothermia, postoperative nausea and vomiting, delayed emergence and emergence delirium.
• Care for patients requiring enhanced or high-dependency observation following major or complex surgery.
• Use clinical judgement to determine readiness for discharge from recovery and ensure safe transfer to wards, critical care or specialist areas.
• Provide structured clinical handover using relevant observations, medications, airway concerns, pain management and ongoing care requirements.
• Work closely with anaesthetists, surgeons, operating department practitioners, theatre staff and ward teams to support safe perioperative pathways.
• Maintain current acute clinical competence through regular frontline NHS practice across varied surgical specialties.

Agency Theatre Recovery Nurse at Pioneer Healthcare (Present)

• Deliver specialist recovery nursing across multiple NHS Trusts and adapt quickly to different theatre departments, policies and clinical environments.
• Provide safe post-anaesthetic care for adults and children following elective and emergency procedures.
• Undertake acute patient assessment, advanced airway support, intravenous medication administration and management of postoperative complications.
• Work autonomously while maintaining effective communication and high standards of patient safety.

Paediatric Nurse Team Leader at Premium Care Solutions

• Provided clinical leadership and oversight to teams caring for children with complex and life-limiting conditions in their own homes.
• Supported family-centred care, staff development, clinical supervision and competency assessment.
• Coordinated multidisciplinary input and ensured safe delivery of individualised care plans.

Assistant Practitioner at NHS

• Supported Community Children's Nursing services before qualifying as a Registered Children's Nurse.
• Delivered nursing care in community and outpatient settings and developed strong foundations in holistic, family-centred practice.
• Contributed to the pilot programme supporting the development and implementation of Education, Health and Care Plans, working with health, education and local authority professionals.

Day Case Coordinator at Castlebeck

• Coordinated care within autism, learning disability and mental health services in a medium secure environment.
• Worked closely with multidisciplinary teams to coordinate patient pathways and manage complex communication.

Supported Living Support Worker at Community Services

• Supported adults with complex physical disabilities, learning disabilities and autism while promoting independence, dignity and person-centred care.
• Developed the compassionate values and communication skills that continue to underpin my nursing practice.

BSc (Hons) in Children's Nursing