Pamela J. Hibbs
CBE, BA, DSC(Hons), RGN, RGV, FRCN
For the last 20 years Pam Hibbs has used her management skills to lead nursing, encouraging the nurses in her charge to advance their own practice. She has developed multidisciplinary and collaborative quality assurance and clinical audit programmes for health care. Pam has always wanted to make a difference, and decided that she could achieve more in a leadership role, while remaining focused on the quality of patient care.
Pam developed and implemented standards of nursing practice, in particular, for older patients, pain management and for the prevention of pressure sores. In 1976 she started the pressure sore research programme when the incidence of hospital-acquired pressure sores at the Hackney hospitals reached 25% – when she retired in 1997 the incidence had been reduced to less than 2%.
She retired from her role as Chief Nurse and Director of Quality Assurance at the Royal Hospitals Trust in London in March 1997. She is still very active and is Chairman of St Joseph’s Hospice and Chairman of the charity Counsel and Care which gives advice and information to older people, their relatives and carers across the UK.
Being awarded the RCN Fellowship by her peers for the advancement of clinical nursing was a particularly proud moment. Pam is also delighted with the success of the pressure sore programme that she led. But most of all she is proud of the nursing team and the quality of their work that was achieved during her years of leadership.
Many excellent nurses were her role models, but it was one of the matrons at St Bartholomew’s Hospital who saw her potential and encouraged Pam’s career development.
In the future Pam would like to see nurses continuing to develop in expertise and in co-ordinating care, with a particular emphasis on meeting the needs of young children and frail older people.
Publications
Some of Pam’s publications include:
- Various publications for City and Hackney Health Authority, including Achievable Standards of Care for the Elderly Patient (1989), Strategy for Fractured Neck of Femur Patients (1989), Symptom Control and Supportive Care (1990), Strategies for Patients with Sickle Cell Disease (1990), and Nursing Organisational Standards (1990).
- Strategies for the elimination of pressure sores, Care Science and Practice (1987)
- Systems of prevention, Nursing Mirror (1992).