Hartlepool's new assistant director of nursing, Sharon Haggerty, is overseeing a revolution, as staff acquire new skills and responsibilities. She talks to Barry Nelson.

SHE may no longer wear the uniform but Sharon Haggerty remains a nurse to the core, just like her mother Isabel, her husband Ken, and perhaps in years to come, her daughter Katherine. In 2001, she was awarded the accolade Respiratory Nurse of the Year by the Royal College of Nursing and in 2002, the Independent newspaper included her in the top ten nurses in Britain.

Today, she is Hartlepool Primary Care Trust's new assistant director of nursing and clinical excellence, charged with moulding the nurses of the 21st Century.

"My mother was a nurse for 30 years and is astounded by what nurses do nowadays compared to when she was working," says Mrs Haggerty, who was born in Newton Hall, Durham, and now lives in Chester-le-Street.

"It makes me wonder what nurses may be doing in the future. There is massive change in the NHS under the present government and nurses are adept at change and thinking on their feet. That's why they are the cornerstone of the NHS."

Even before joining the health service, Mrs Haggerty worked in care. "I worked in residential homes as a care assistant, working my way up to matron," she recalls. "Everyone says they can see me as a matron."

Then she began training as a nurse, starting as an auxiliary and later becoming a staff nurse, nurse specialist and lead nurse, before taking up her current post as assistant director.

She is time-served on hospital wards and in the community and comes to Hartlepool with a particular breadth of knowledge of cancer and respiratory disease.

"I am motivated by people and totally believe in the NHS, which is a great British institution," she says. "Nurses are excellent people and a lot of fun and it is nice to care for people because you get instant feedback.

"To nurse someone at the final stages of life is a real privilege. Their goals in life change and it is remarkable to see it. I remember one lady whose goal was to get her daughter to nursery and to get to her husband's Christmas party. We helped her get ready and got her a taxi to the party. She hung on and died shortly after Christmas. That had a real effect on my life. I can still remember her name and her lying in bed - and the laughs we had together."

While her new post appears to take her to the corporate side of the NHS and away from day to day nursing, she feels it is a place where she can still make a difference.

"Up until recently, I was still in practice with a heavy caseload so I am well placed to know what nurses need and am in a position where I can now make changes," she says. "If I find I am missing the patients, I can go out and visit a clinic, which keeps me grounded and reminds me what I am doing in the job.

"In Hartlepool, I want to make sure we are providing a range of services that meet the needs of the people but by doing things differently. It could be exercise classes for the elderly or expert patient schemes.

"I have got high expectations of myself and I pass those on to others. It should be nothing but the best, especially as it is patients, real people, at the end of it, so we have to make sure we are doing things right."

Nurses are being encouraged to take the lead in how the NHS develops. In Hartlepool, they have just written their own nursing strategy and community matrons are to be introduced to manage people with chronic ailments. The PCT is also looking at the issue of integrating health and social care.

"So I am managing people at a local and a strategic level," she says. "Ultimately, people just want someone to care for them so, as a nurse, you can make a real difference; I couldn't do anything else."