NURSE Helen Parfitt has retired from Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, after nearly half-a-century in the NHS.

Ms Parfitt said she was always going to be a nurse from primary school age, when her mother was in hospital for 18 months.

She arrived in 1976 on a student nurse placement in Musgrove, where she fell in love with children’s nursing, inspired by then-ward sister Mary Lawrence.

After completing an obstetric course in Queen’s Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital, one of the UK’s oldest maternity units, where she gained experience in midwifery, she undertook her children’s nursing registration in Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Once her training was over Ms Parfitt started work in what is now Musgrove’s Acorn children's ward.

Ms Parfitt said: “Going into nursing has been the single best decision of my life and, other than maternity leave, I have been at Musgrove Park Hospital for over 40 years, and I cannot believe the time has come to leave.

“It is fair to say so many things have changed for the better since then.

“Back then, mothers used to sleep on camp beds next to the cot, so we had to be careful not to fall over them when we went in to do the observations at night.

“Babies died of meningitis in those days, but less so now that several vaccines are routine.

“Treatment has improved with cystic fibrosis, too, with so many people with the condition living to adulthood, some even having children of their own.”

Ms Parfitt set up Musgrove’s ‘Return to Practice’ programme and induction course for overseas nurses to be registered in the UK, helping nurses back into the profession.

In 2009 she joined the hospital’s pharmacy team as its first-ever medicines management nurse.

Now, she has retired after a 48-year nursing career, missing out on a 50th anniversary only because she took time out for an English Literature degree before joining the NHS.

She said: “I would like to think I have done my bit and am leaving somewhere near the top of my game.”

In retirement she is working on ‘decluttering the house, as well as a bit of gardening’.