Lucy's Journey - HART Paramedic

Before becoming a paramedic, I worked as a lifeguard and in a gym as a gym instructor/personal trainer.

I then joined the Trust after completing my paramedic science degree at university and initially worked as a paramedic in Norfolk. During my time at university, I had heard about the hazardous area response team (HART) and was lucky enough to do one of my 3rd year university placements with HART, giving me a great insight into their skillsets and scope of practice. From then onwards I was keen to find out more and angle my career towards HART as much as possible, including completing the specialist operations response team (SORT) training.

I joined HART in October 2021 and have loved being part of the team since. I love the training we are provided with and look forward to our training weeks. I have been able to do activities I would have never done if I wasn't part of HART, and have pushed myself to build new skills that would have otherwise been unavailable to me. For example, we attend incidents and training for hazardous environments, the team attended Sailsbury for the Novichok poisonings, and fire/breathing incidents, where the London HART team attended the Grenfell tower block fire.

I also love my team and my colleagues who have always been so supportive in both personal and career endeavours. This supportive environment has meant that I've felt comfortable to push myself to do new things including becoming an instructor in a HART skillset and teaching both in-house staff and on a national level at national ambulance resilience unit (NARU). People often told me I wasn't 'assertive' enough to join HART and that they only hire people with 'strong' characters, or that it was 'a bit of a boys club'. These statements really couldn't be further from the truth! To work well in HART, you need to be able to work well in team, which means being open to feedback and open to new ideas. I have also never felt disadvantaged being a female and, in my experience, I have never been treated differently because I am female. I find that all my teammates are supportive of each other and value each member of the team equally.

I'm proud to be part of HART and I feel that it really is a unique (and the best) career in the NHS.