Occupational Health will be losing one of its biggest and brightest personalities following the retirement of Ann Marshall this week, who has spent 40 years working at Blackpool Victoria.
Ann began her career as a domestic at the Trust in the late 1970s, before qualifying as an enrol nurse and become a registered nurse in 1994. After retiring for the first time in 1997, Ann was tempted back to the hospital four years later and for the past 12 years has been a key member of occupational health.
“I’ll miss the staff. I know I’ll miss the staff,” Ann said before saying goodbye to her colleagues this week. “You don’t miss the work so much I think, you take that for granted, you’ve done it for that long. I will miss everybody and I will miss the banter, finding out what people did at the weekend, that kind of thing. You might only do it in passing. It will be a bit strange, but I am sure I will get used to it.”
Ann is now looking forward to enjoying a well-deserved holiday and will spend lots of time with her grandson, with her daughter Natalie working at the Trust as a student nurse. And as for her replacement? Ann would encourage anyone to pursue a career in the NHS.
She said: “It is a fabulous career. It is hard work and everybody knows it is hard work but on most of the wards I have had an association to work on, they are a good bunch. They look after each other, which is what you need, that bit of camaraderie. You’ve pretty much got a job for life, which in these uncertain times is important. For young people the prospects are endless.”
Speaking about a loss of one of the Trust’s longest serving members of staff, Sue Wild, Head of Workforce, Health and Wellbeing said: “Ann is absolutely incredible. We are really going to miss her presence in the department, her manner with our patients, she is just the most fabulous work colleague.
“We are really going to miss her laugh, because every time she comes into the department she just fills it with that laugh. She makes everybody who comes in as a patient feel so at ease. She is so kind and we are just going to be lost without her, but we wish her all the best in her retirement and she has got a really happy one ahead of her.”