Twenty seven years after joining the Trust as a housekeeper, senior community matron Kelly Gray has become the first Frimley Health employee to be awarded the title of Queen’s Nurse (QN).

Kelly joins a small number of other community nurses, health visitors and midwives in Hampshire to receive the honour, which was announced by the Queen's Nursing Institute last week.

The QN title is available across England, Wales and Northern Ireland to nurses with a minimum of five years’ experience working in the community who demonstrate a high level of commitment to patient care and nursing practice. According to the Queen’s Nursing Institute, the title “provides formal recognition of the nurse’s commitment to improving care for patients".

Kelly joined Frimley Health as a housekeeper in 1995, aged 17, before switching to nursing and rising through the ranks to become senior community matron looking after five regional teams including Aldershot, Farnborough, Fleet, Yateley and the out of hours team.

Kelly said: “I started at Frimley Park working a few hours in the evenings when I was at college, serving tea and coffee and cleaning toilets. I was promoted to care assistant and then HCA on the surgical wards and stayed for 10 years before going to university to do my nurse training.”

After qualifying as a registered nurse, Kelly worked in the community and then rejoined the Trust as a sister looking after the Fleet team. She then trained to be a district nurse and was promoted to her current position last year. As a Queen’s Nurse, Kelly will be part of the professional QN network with access to developmental programmes, bursaries and a range of learning and leadership opportunities.

“I’m really proud to be awarded the Queen’s Nurse title,” said Kelly.” I was overwhelmed at first but now I’m excited for the future and what we can achieve in the community. The title opens so many doors and we will have more access to the Institute’s research and different services to further improve care for patients.

“The teams I work with are just amazing hard-working professionals who make me proud to be their clinical lead I have stayed at Frimley because I do not want to work anywhere else, I especially like the ethos of the senior management team – Fran (Campbell) and Nicky (Seargent).”