#2 Ellie Robinson - The Nurse Who Skipped Every Meal but Never Missed a Shift

From insisting her mum sew her a nurse's uniform at age seven, to leading an entire cancer nursing team at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Ellie Robinson has spent her whole life in devoted service to others.

In this Episode, Ellie joins Jayne for an honest and deeply moving conversation about what happens when the people who care for everyone else, stop caring for themselves.

Ellie traces her journey from a surgical urology ward to building a cancer nurse specialist team from the ground up over 17 years - and reflects on the moment that changed everything: being encouraged by Jayne to stay for training on Compassion Fatigue that she set up for her team and discovering there was a name for what she and her colleagues had been silently carrying. 

She opens up about the weight of leadership in the NHS, why saying "I'm fine" becomes almost a reflex when you're conditioned to put everyone else first, especially when responsible as a leader.

But this story is also about recovery and reclaimed wellbeing.  Ellie shares how a 5.15am solo walk - come rain, snow or darkness - became the strategy that replaced her 3am anxious thoughts, restoring her sleep and gave her back herself.

A quiet but powerful reminder that even the most devoted carers need someone to ask - and really mean it - "how are you"?

Follow Ellie on X - https://x.com/EleanorRobins16 

EF training exists because nobody should have to pour from an empty cup. Founded by Jayne Ellis who learnt the hard way so you don't have too.

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If you or someone you know would like to join the conversation and be a guest on our podcast, please get in touch. 

Connect with us at info@eftraining.co.uk

Visit us at http://eftraining.co.uk for more information about Jayne Ellis and learn about our Compassion Fatigue and Emotional Resilience Training for Organisations and Individuals.

Please note: This podcast is intended for education and supportive purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health support. If you are struggling, please reach out to a qualified professional or contact your GP. 

The views and options expressed by guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views, values or position of EF training Ltd. Guest content is shared in the spirit of open conversation, learning and intended as a safe space for honest dialogue. 

Transcript

0:00

My guest today is the lovely Ellie who I met when we went and did some training for her and her team in Nottingham which was just before the beginning of the pandemic. And I can quite clearly remember that she came rushing into the room and was very excited that she got our training for her team and then rushed out. Is that not right? That is absolutely correct. And, I remember it very well. The first thing I guess to say is how fortuitous that we got that training at the time that we did. And I know that I speak to, members of staff who did that training back then just before COVID. And and everyone says how useful it was and how it equipped all of us who were. Looking after patients during COVID and the difficulties that we experienced. But absolutely, and if I remember rightly, you man marked me and frog marched me back into the room to make sure that I participated is my recollection, Jayne. Correct. Because I earmarked you as somebody who potentially needed to stay that day rather than somebody that needed to rush off and do what you normally do for everybody, which is look after everybody else and not yourself. Absolutely. I think you recognize some not so subtle body language. Absolutely. And do you just want to explain why it is that you decided that nursing was going to be your career and how you've ended up in the role that you're in at the moment? In all honesty, I can't ever remember a time when I wasn't very clear that I wanted to be a nurse. I think it was always something that I wanted to do. I even remember insisting that my mom made me a nurse's uniform when I was about seven. And I guess that's my earliest recollection. And I have pictures of me wearing that, but I know I had insisted. Despite my dad telling me on numerous occasions that banking is the way to be. And the career for me I was always very adamant that I wanted to be a nurse. I wanted to care for people. I wanted to support people. And even jobs that I took I did some volunteering work when I was at school in a nursing home. I was lucky enough to get a care assistant job. After my exams and continued to do that through my A levels. And really it was that job that got me in nursing school. It was the fact that I'd had some practical experience that led me down that path. I was always very clear during my training that healthcare of the older person was where I wanted to go right up until the end of my training. When I did a I did a placement within a urology surgical ward. At which point I thought actually I quite enjoy this. 'Cause, most of the patients are elderly and it's really interesting. There's a bit of surgery, there's a bit of cancer, there's a bit of everything. And I really quite enjoy that. And so when I was given a choice of jobs, either on a urology ward or healthcare of the elderly, it was the urology job that I chose. Just thinking that I'd do it for a little while and then maybe progress to something else. I had a long career in urology, firstly on a. Surgical ward. And then back in 2000 developed a urology cancer nursing post and developed a team. And so worked in that role for 17 years and left that role at a point that we'd got a team of six of us and had developed a number of nurse led clinics a number of roles for cancer nurse specialists and then went to do a cancer performance role and a deputy lead cancer nurse role. Which was the point that we met Jayne when I'd managed to get that training supported for recognizing and responded to compassion fatigue for our cancer nurse specialists. And then for the last six years, I've been the lead cancer nurse at the trust. So it is all down, to mom deciding that she would agree with me and make me a nurse's uniform when I was seven. I hope there's a photograph of that somewhere. There is. But not for the podcast, Jayne. Now obviously the podcast is called I'm Fine. And the reason for that is because that is what we tend to say when anybody asks us if you're all right. And so my next question to you is, how often do you say, I'm fine when somebody asks you? So my question would be, is that an hour? Is that a day or is that a week? Because I think my response would be it's probably the first thing I say to any question. I don't think I'd be able to count how many times a day I say that. Yeah. It's almost a script that I reel out. I think. Why do you think we do that? So I think it's difficult in a leadership role because I think you become very ingrained in looking after everybody else and in supporting everybody else. And I guess from my perspective, when I reflect on this, it's, for me it's about not wanting to burden other people with. How I'm feeling, what's more important to me is how they're feeling and how I can support them rather than me wanting to burden them. And I also think sometimes we ask people how they are. And I think the NHS is a can be. A terribly uncaring place. And I think sometimes people ask that question and they don't necessarily want an honest response, sadly. Yeah. I agree. But that's not to say that's the same for me. I am genuine in when I ask people how they are, but but I think over the years. When I think back actually, maybe there have been times when I have been honest and actually that hasn't really been heard and so perhaps that makes you less likely to be honest with people when they ask them? Yes. Yeah. Have there been times when you look back now where you recognize that you are experiencing. Burnout, compassion fatigue or stress and how it's affected you? Yeah, most definitely. Certainly over the last six years and I think all of us in healthcare appreciate that the last six years have been unprecedented. Really. I don't think we've ever. Ever got over the pandemic? I think it'll take a long time for us to to get over that. Quite honestly. I'm really grateful that that you man marked me that day. I'm really grateful that that I was able to sit in that training and I'm really grateful that that there was. An understanding and a suddenly a that myself and everybody else were able to recognize that this is normal. Yeah it's not something that is unusual., And it's to be expected. When you devote your life and you devote your career to looking after people and supporting other people, that there is a consequence to that. However, if you are able to recognize that and you're given a toolkit when that toolkit is different for different people. But if you are able to pull out the things that you know, and the strategies that work for you to protect you and to look after yourself, then that has a really positive effect on your wellbeing. Do you feel that you recognize your warning signs now A bit better? Definitely. And I am much healthier. I think, there are still times when things are overwhelming but I'm much healthier for. Recognizing that now and for managing some of that I think there was a time where I didn't do any exercise at all. I will go out and walk now for a good hour. Every single day come, rain, shine, snow, whatever. And sometimes it's grim, but actually and I'm very odd because I walk at quarter past five in the morning, so sometimes I see people this time of the year, I see people when it's snowing and it's icy. And it's black. I don't see anybody. But actually one of my. Strategies is to go out and be on my own and to think. And so while some people would think that is a ridiculous thing to do, actually, I find, just that hour on my own with my own thoughts. I find that really helpful to to organize. What I'm going to do, how I'm going to approach various things. Previously, those would be my 2:00 AM or 3:00 AM thoughts. Those would be the things that would wake me up in the middle of the night. Yeah. And I'd be trying to think about how I would approach a situation or deal with a situation, whereas I can have protected sleep now knowing that, my time to think and organize things, I've got that time for an hour. Yeah, hopefully that hour will be enough. But yeah. Yeah. So I sleep much better and I'm much healthier for doing that. Yeah. That's good. If you could go back to, how old were you when you started your nurse training? I was 18. 18-year-old Ellie Yeah. What would you say to her about how to manage the emotional impact, do you think? As as an 18-year-old, we understand what we're about to set foot into when we begin our training. Not at all. I was certainly brought up in the time where nursing was talked about as being a vocation. Yeah. And therefore it was almost like being a nun. You lived and breathed it, and, the impact of it was almost to be expected. I presume people recognize the impact that it had in those days, in the early nineties, but it was certainly never discussed during my training or any strategies to help cope. And I don't think I was unusual in that speaking to people who are much younger than me I don't think we discuss it enough. And actually sometimes it's just the validation and giving people permission to know that, if you feel a bit distant, if it's affecting your family life and you are a bit snappy and you are tired, et cetera, that you know that. That is potentially an impact of the things that you're doing and the things that you are experiencing at work? I can remember the photographs they take of you when you're first in your uniform and with your red belt. 'cause you're a student. Yeah. And I can see that girl sitting on that bench having a photograph taken and yes, you're right. It was seen as a vocation and it was almost like. There was going to be some inevitable emotional fallout from it, but you just had to accept that's what it was. But we were never given any, I certainly wasn't, I don't think you probably, you were either, we were never given any emotional health and safety training. We were given lots of other training but nothing on looking after that. No. When I think of the key things that I've taken apart from all of the knowledge, but the advice that tutors gave me or gave us all at the time were things like you should care for everybody in the same way that you would care for a member of your family. Your family and you cannot, with the best will in the world care for a family member and put as many hours in as you would do in your nursing career and it not have some kind of psychological impact. So yeah. So blue sky thinking then. Yes. If you were going to design a unit from scratch and you had lots of money, obviously that meant that the culture within that unit supported. The nurses To decrease the stress on them. What would you do? Is there something that comes to mind that you think that you could implement straight away? Definitely as Jayne, I'm a massive advocate for the training. Having six years ago tried to get as many staff through as possible and as you pointed out, neglecting myself and having seen the impact, the positive impact on staff of that training and it being the thing that they still refer to and still request, in terms of that suite of training? It would most definitely be that everybody that I recruited and I'm not actually just talking about the nursing workforce actually I'm talking about the receptionists. I'm talking about the doctors. I'm talking about everybody who supports the patients within that unit? First of all, I would be looking at training recognizing and responding compassion fatigue would be the first thing. I think one of the things that people really appreciate and, was. During COVID times actually was one of the things that people really struggled with. If they didn't have somewhere to go away from the ward to go and relax and have a cup of tea and something to eat. I think most wards perhaps do have a staff room, but actually some people want to walk away and I think it's healthy to walk away and to Yeah. Have a break and not and not be accessible that somebody whilst you are mid coffee and mid sandwiches come and say Mr. So and so's family member is here. Can you come and talk to them? Because. Unfortunately we do that too much. Yeah. And and we all deserve some protected time. So I would be looking at that kind of thing. I would be looking at a culture where, clinical supervision isn't seen as a weakness. Yeah, that it's seen an essential part of work and that there is protected time to allow people to, to have that clinical supervision and equally to train and be supervisors. I think you, those three things. There are numerous other ones, but I think those three things Yeah. Would go some way to developing a positive culture. Yeah. So what misconceptions do you think that the senior managements have about what it is that they need to do to support the nursing teams? I think senior managers think that every nurse actually wants, resource. They want more feet on the ground. Yeah. And don't get me wrong, I think in some cases, I think that is really important. And I think,, we need to find appropriate tools to recognize that staffing is not enough and the resource isn't enough. But I also think in my experience, actually what people want is a visible leader. And not only that, they want to be thanked for the work that they do. And I think that goes an awfully long way. I have always tried to, and I hope I've always done this, but I, tried to do is to thank everybody as they leave work for everything that they've done and. What I've always tried to do with the team if we're working together, if it's a bit hard, is okay. It's gonna be a tough one today, but we're in it together. And we'll only get through this by working together actually. But, just a simple thank you at the end of the day and, that was tough. And do you wanna talk about any of that? I think that goes a really long way and probably a couple of months ago we were in critical incident and I was on call for the trust. And in all honesty in my role and a silver on call, there wasn't probably very much that I could do. But I came into the hospital and the pressures in terms of staffing and in, in terms of the amount of patients that we'd got within the organization across both sites were huge. But what I did do was I went round every ward and I checked in with them all. Asked whether they needed anything. I made an inordinate amount of cups of tea and coffee. And but, just basically checked in with people. Said it's gonna be a tough one. But thank you for everything you're doing. And they were immediately. It struck me at the time how suspicious they were of me because I'm in a, no, I'm in a uniform. Yeah. With spots on and they associate that with you are either gonna take staff offers or you're going to put more patients on the ward. And so I almost had to. I recognized it quite early on, within about the first three or four wards that I walked on because they're clearly not used to seeing somebody coming on to say, are you okay? Do you need anything? Is there anything that I can do for you? Which I just think is a really sad state of affairs. But actually, once I got over that and once I walked onto the ward saying, I'm not here to take your staff. I'm not here to add you more patience, I've come to see how you are. Once we got over that and I started with those few questions, I had some really good conversations. I was able to escalate some issues. They thanked me. I said, oh, we don't normally see somebody like you. And they thanked me for going to see them. And sometimes I think that's all that people need. That's all it need, that validation of it's a hard day, we can get through this, but actually we just want recognition that it's hard yeah. Yeah. Who supports you. I'm really lucky in that I've recently had a a change of structure and so that could have been really unsettling. I have a very good manager, who's very supportive, and he is always at the end of a phone. And I think that means a lot, even if it's a text message that goes, this is hard, or not sure what to do. It's usually followed up with a phone call or a. I'll tell you what, could you ring me at such and such a time and I think that means a lot. Yeah. 'cause again, it's that validation, isn't it? It's, yeah. It's not the ignoring of the impact of everything. It's an acknowledgement straight away of Okay, I hear you. And I think, some of that comes from I'm not somebody that would reach out. And I think when he first started to manage me, I think my words to him were thank you for taking over the management of me. I'm not needy, I promise. And so therefore, he knows that, if I'm reaching out to him, there's probably a genuine reason for me doing that. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's good. It's good that you've got somebody like that now because Yeah. It's so important for someone who's listening who isn't from a health and social care background, but has a family member who is, yeah. What support do you think that they can give? We've all got the people that we live with that are, not in that world, and they do try. Yeah. But what advice would you give them? I think it's so important for everybody to know and I just wish that there is more that we could do that there's still work to do to make it known within the health and social care sector the impact of caring. But I think for those people around those, if we could make everyone aware in an ideal world, everybody would have this training. It would be talked about, it'd be recognized. And it would almost be like. I'm in Nottingham, traditionally a mining community. And so we still have a lot of people with really grotty chests from mining that is well known to everybody in the public. You worked in the mine, you're probably gonna have a horrible chest as you grow older. It should almost be you work in healthcare. You might lose it a little bit occasionally. But that's, yeah, that's an, it's a good analogy. It's an occupational hazard. And so the things that I can, as somebody close to somebody working in the health sector, the things that I can do are okay. If they've not been able to recognize that they're a bit short with me. Having a calm conversation about okay. Do you need to go off for a walk on your own for an hour? What is there that I can do? Can I run a bath? Can I cook you a meal? What is it that, that I can do for you? So in an ideal world it should be an occupational stressor that people. Recognize yeah. That they're aware of that it gets talked about. Yeah. I've said to you many times, I still go to conferences and talk about this since people have never heard of it before and they still come up to me and say, I thought I was going mad. Until you stood there in front of me and said, actually it's normal. Yeah. And it's an occupational hazard and it's to do with vicarious trauma and it's to be expected. But yeah it's still a work in progress, as you say. It's work in progress. We're starting to make a dent in it and hopefully when our article gets published in the British Journal of Nursing. Absolutely. And people that start to learn. Yeah. And I think the interesting bit about that article is the fact that we didn't focus just on our nursing colleagues. We were very clear from the outset that, the impact can be felt across the whole team. So nursing, medical our admin colleagues who are frequently speaking to patients. And I think you, the evaluation of it has shown the benefit. So yeah, very proud of that. We should be. Yeah. So your responsible selfishness is your walking. Yes. The responsible selfishness for anyone who hasn't done the course is the phrase that we use when you are taking care of yourself. And we often find it very difficult. We are very giving people who find that we feel guilty if we look after ourselves. So we called it responsible selfishness. So is there anything else that you do that you consider to be responsibly selfish? Yes. And anybody that's listening that has worked with me for any length of time I will not be surprised by what I'm going to say next, but for probably about 20 years of my career most of my team never saw me eat at work. And so I would not eat breakfast. I would skip lunch and then I'd usually eat when I got home from work. And and so the first time that one of my teams saw me, with some fruit and yogurt and some nuts eating breakfast. They were a bit confused. But i'm one of those people who really can't eat breakfast as soon as I get up in the morning. And I really struggle with that, but I do make time within my working day, and if that means blocking out some time for me to have lunch. When I say relatively new, I'm talking over the last few years I survived. Most of my career by not eating at work. And that is incredibly unhealthy physically and psychologically actually. And that is my, the second bit, and I carve my time out and I arrange my meetings. I'm in a lucky situation where I am able to organize those meetings but I do deliberately leave time for me to eat. That's good. That's good. And it's obviously made a difference to you, even the few years that I've known you. Yeah. I can see a difference in you. Yeah. So the last question is, if you can leave a question for our next guest, what do you think everyone should be asked in our field? What I'd like everyone to think about is what is within their gift, what is in their sphere of responsibility? So if we go back to saying what we said a few minutes ago about the fact that everybody should be aware of the occupational hazards. So everybody will, I hope that you speak to will have some sphere of responsibility that they can have a conversation with somebody about. For me in my role, it's how can I influence? Our organization to put money towards training and the impact that training then has on the workforce in terms of resilience and hopefully less time off in terms of sickness. So that's what I can, take forward. But I hope everybody that you speak to and everybody that's listening is able to just take something from this and go what is it that I can do? Even if it's, I know somebody whose wife's a nurse. Okay. So I can share what I've heard about the impact of caring and. And have a conversation and just try and raise awareness of of this yeah. But I think we can all take something away. Yeah, I agree. Thank you very much for your time. It's lovely to speak to you as always. It's a pleasure. Thank you. Carry on being responsibly selfish and looking after yourself i'll. And and yeah, and carry on taking good care of yourself because you are the most important thing at the end of the day so that you can care for other people. And thank you. Thank you Ellie. Thank you for man marking me, Jayne. Oh, anytime. Thank you.