After a career as a decorator, a shock injury led one North East NHS nurse into a dramatic change in career - and he's described it as the best decision he ever made.
Adrian Anim, 52, has now been a qualified nurse nine years. He works as a care co-ordinator in the Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Trust's learning disability team - and has won the Social Care Nurse of the Year award twice in a row at the North East Great British Care Awards, having been nominated by the families he works with.
Denton-based Adrian - who went to school moments from where he is now based at the Walkergate Park Hospital - said the recognition was nice, but that it was his day to day work with families in need that he found most rewarding. Speaking about one of the families who nominated him for the gong - with whom he spent several months working - he said: "They are a family who had a learning disabled child with a range of physical disabilities.
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"They had been on their own for about 20 years they had always found they were always battling against things to improve their son's quality of life. Initially, it was about doing some behavioural assessment. It was really about understanding what this person was trying to communicate."
The mum he had helped said: "I have never met anyone who shows compassion like this gentleman does. Adrian was truly amazing with my son, who normally asks people to go home and doesn’t like them in our house, but Adrian nearly had me in tears over how understanding and caring he was with him.
"To see my son so happy around him was a day I will remember for a very long time."
Adrian explained that his aim was always to put in place plans for care which involved families - and making them feel "empowered". He said that this kind of work often led to "lightbulb moments" where families were better able to understand what their loved one might have been struggling with.
But this life in care is a far from cry from Adrian's past career, where he spent more time up ladders with a paint brush in hand. He said: "I was a painter-decorator but I broke a vertebrae in my neck and that turned my life upside down. Everything changed. I was living in London, earning good money and had a good career, but then that happened and changed everything. It just wasn't the same following the injury.
"And I started decorating homes for people with learning disabilities and found it so refreshing. I felt so happy being around these lovely people."
Adrian moved back up to Newcastle and got a job as a support worker for those with disabilities - and he loved it, then was asked if he had thought about going into nursing. "I hadn't, really," he said. "But the spark was lit. So I went to college and got my qualifications, did an NVQ and then I went to uni. That was massive for me."
Now, Adrian is a leading voice promoting the rights of people with learning disabilities, and said he was concerned about the impact loss of provision - whether that be day centres, respite care or other support services - had had over recent years. He said: "It's all about provision, funding and services."
He said supporting learning disabled individuals in his job was vital, adding: "It's so important, if I'm coming into contact with someone in my job whether they've been dealing with the NHS or social care, it's because there's a need that's not being met.
"And It's so important for their voices to be heard. Often, especially people with learning disabilities can be excluded from places or situations within society. I think it's really important for learning disability nurses to go into bat for these people and promote their rights.
"There's still work to be done but yes, I would say that, in the nine years I've been qualified but before that in my experience training and working before that, there have been significant improvements."
Adrian is also a member of the Future Learning Disability Nurse network, and works to encourage new entrants into the profession. By winning the regional social care nurse of the year award, he is through to the national round - and will find out if he wins that later this year.
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