When our lead TB nurse had to go off sick unexpectedly, we knew there were big shoes to be filled.  Shyna had been helping with the role part-time for a little while but we needed her to suddenly step up to work well above her usual role. She has done this with great skill, dedication, and compassion.

Shyna has worked really hard to develop the skills and knowledge necessary for the job quickly to ensure the care she delivers is safe and effective. She has rapidly established a good rapport with all our current active TB patients to ensure they persist with treatment and used her new knowledge to help guide them through complex shared decision-making processes.

As new problems have arisen, she has shown great leadership, for instance, developing better systems for communication within the TB MDT to ensure better continuity of care and improving the database for monitoring patients' treatment progress, making care safer.  

Some of the problems she has overcome have been utterly unique and required great skill and ingenuity. Many of our TB patients suffer severe social problems, and deprivation and drug addiction is common. Communication can be very challenging; for instance, one patient whose first language was an obscure African sign language had no effective verbal communication. Shyna has shown great initiative in overcoming these challenges with combinations of picture communication and text message emojis to ensure safe and effective care.

As these and many other challenges have come our way, Shyna has been totally professional and completely unflappable, making a huge difference to our patients and being an outstanding exemplar of the Trust's values.