A royal appointment for specialist epilepsy nurse Emma Christie

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A royal appointment for specialist epilepsy nurse Emma Christie

This summer was one that Emma Christie, one of our Roald Dahl children’s epilepsy nurse specialists, will never forget - accepting an invite to Buckingham Palace.

Emma was invited to one of the summer Buckingham Palace garden parties as a special thanks for her work with the Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity, of which she’s an ambassador.

It was back in 2022 that the Roald Dahl charity granted the post to our trust, following a joint bid from the Yeovil and Musgrove Park hospital paediatric teams, where they had to outline why the role was needed, and where there were gaps in the service.

The ethos from the charity is that they fund these posts to provide specialist nurses, and the idea is that Roald Dahl felt that every child with a special illness needed a specialist nurse to help to support them.

Since then, the trust has taken on another epilepsy nurse, Jess Hewlett, who works with Emma two days a week, and the service at Yeovil Hospital has an ever growing caseload of over 200 patients.

Emma shares how her trip to Buckingham Palace very much came out of the blue: “The phone rang while I was in clinic one day and I thought it was a parent ringing me back, but it actually happened to be a colleague from the Roald Dahl charity on the line, who asked whether I was busy on 7 May, as they’d like to invite me to the garden party at Buckingham Palace.

“I was a little bit shocked, because I was never expecting something like that, and she told me that my work for the charity and being an ambassador had been recognised and they wanted to say thank you.

“Last year I ran the London Marathon for the charity, which was brilliant and a really good experience…and who’s going to say no to going to Buckingham Palace?!

“I didn’t speak to any VIPs or royals unfortunately, as there were many more people there than I anticipated, but I could see King Charles and Queen Camilla – who’s one of the Roald Dahl charity patrons – from a distance. We also saw Edward and Sophie, as well as Anne and Timothy Lawrence.

“It was great to be able to share the experience with another Roald Dahl Nurse who is a complex medical needs specialist nurse based in London - and we got on like a house on fire, which was lovely!

“It was great to see people from so many backgrounds and there were a lot of military representatives, lots of different charities, and it felt really special to be part of – a lovely few hours.

“I have to admit I was really nervous beforehand because it’s totally outside of my comfort zone, but it was a really lovely experience and we got to chat to lots of people from different charities about their inspiring stories. It made me feel quite humbled, and then listening to the national anthem with the king nearby really topped it off, and it gave me goosebumps to be so close to the band.”

The Roald Dahl charity has adopted a second nurse for the trust, Jess, who while not funded by the charity, has access to all the same training as Emma. This means Jess’ patients are also able to access the same services, such as emotional and financial support.

“The charity is truly marvellous and also offers various online workshops for parents, such as how to navigate the Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) system, understanding law and legislation, manual handling, First Aid, transition and many more," continues Emma.

“Online training means families can dip in and out and not have to worry about childcare. They are also very happy to support individual nurses with ideas, and they recently financially supported a face-to-face First Aid session, provided by the Mini First Aid franchise, which was very successful.

“My role is varied and involves providing lots of support face-to-face, via text, email, and WhatsApp. We offer lots of training to families and schools to try to raise the awareness of epilepsy to make it less scary, and we also hold nurse-led clinics, which helps reduce our overall waiting times.

“Both Jess and I sit in on a consultant-led clinic once a week too, and we support the outreach neurology clinic once a month with a visiting consultant from Bristol.

“When we first diagnose a patient, there are lots of questions and worries and it’s valuable to be able to have the time with them as they get used to their diagnosis, including what it means and how it may affect family life going forward.

“We organise lots of social events that are supported by our own Yeovil Hospital Charity and the Roald Dahl charity. Activities include a skittles night every now and again for the children who’re over 10 years of age, which is really nice for the family, as they’re able to take them somewhere that they know they’ll be safe and can have a little bit of fun doing something normal.

“Parents are encouraged to stay and play if they want to, or they can chat together in the bar area, and this can be useful to shares stories and make new friends with people who understand them. We also have regular parent/carer support groups that are very informal and usually involved cake and lots of chat.

“In addition, we also host a family picnic once a year, with the last one taking place in July, where 30 families attended. We also had three families under the care of the team at Musgrove Park Hospital come along, which was really exciting.

“This annual event is always a great opportunity for families and children alike to make friends in an informal way, have fun, play games and maybe share some tips that might make their life a bit easier.

“Last October we also did a little sponsored walk to raise money for some of the charities that support us throughout the year. The families that we support are amazing and always support the events that we put on, with some even running their own fundraising events, which is great.”