Celebrating our amazing High Peak nurses this Nurses Week

And as part of International Nurses Day, we’re celebrating the dedication and commitment of the wonderful nurses here in the High Peak.

Dan Stevenson who oversees district nursing across the borough, said: “It’s been one hell of a year but I’m so proud of my team, they are real troopers.

"They have worked extra shifts, worked longer and harder than ever before and faced every emotion under the sun but they have never given up.

"They make me proud to be a nurse when I see them doing their very best in such tough times.”

Free beauty treatments for NHS staff at Buxton's Devonshire Dome Salon

Dan said Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust started putting extra measures in place early last year to make the job more manageable.

He added: “We’ve had to adapt but so has everyone. With GPs reducing face to face appointments they were relying on nurses doing home visits.

"We introduced a traffic light system so patients categorised as red got priority treatment but we never forgot our other patients.

"We taught family members and residential care homes how to do basic tasks like changing dressings and taking blood sugar levels and with video calling we were able to support a lot of patients this way."

Dan, who lost his grandma to Covid in March 2020, said: “We want to help our patients and make them feel comfortable even in death but this last year has shown me and the team a different side of death and that is something that will stay with me for a long time.

"The team understands what everyone else is going through and that support has been invaluable when we haven’t been able to talk to loved ones at home.”

Kate Casey, manager of the Fenton Ward at Buxton’s Cavendish Hospital, added: “The team were close before but we are so much closer now a year into a pandemic.

"At the beginning we were stepping into the unknown but everyone has risen to everything which has been thrown at them and I can’t thank them enough.

"I think we are slowly turning a corner and hopefully getting back to normal soon and for us that means being able to offer more visitors for patients.”

Calling all witches, wizards and muggles - a new Harry Potter themed shop has opened in the High Peak