Guest editor role for Millie Holley at the Nursing Times

It’s not every day that a colleague at Somerset NHS Foundation Trust gets invited to
pen a regular column for a national media outlet…but that’s just what’s happened to
Millie Holley, a student nursing associate in the trust’s intensive dementia service.
As an avid reader of the leading publication for nursing colleagues – the Nursing
Times – Millie spotted an advert seeking expert contributions from students.
Millie went to school in Taunton, before going onto a sixth form college, where she
studied social care for a year during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I felt that my time in college was a bit too much like school,” she said. “I therefore
didn’t stay and instead transferred over to Bridgwater and Taunton College, where I
did the more hands-on T Level course – and I loved every minute of it!

“We went on some really cool trips, including the USA for a couple of weeks, as well
as Italy, where we worked in a care home.
“My time in America was more about learning about the way they do things and
visiting museums and things like that, whereas Italy gave me a lot more hands-on
care experience.

“I then began a student nursing associate placement last September within our
intensive dementia service, where I started to go out and see patients under
supervision from my colleagues.

“I’m progressing really well and I’m now able to go out and have conversations with
patients and their family members who support them.
“In fact, on the morning of the interview for this article, we’ve just had our daily
multidisciplinary meeting, and I’ll relay much of what we talk about to the patients’
families to keep them more involved.

“I’m hoping to qualify later in 2025 as a nursing associate, and then starting on the
registered nurse programme a year or so later.”

Millie said she often uses the Nursing Times to help with the referencing on her
assignments, as there’s so much content written by peers and experts.
“One day when I was on the website looking for articles to use as references, up
popped a text box asking whether I’d like to keep in the loop.

“I signed up and a few days later I got an email with their
newest articles, and one of them was asking for people to sign up as a student editor
for the Nursing Times, so I thought, ‘why not?!
“They told me that it was a selective process, but a few months went by and I hadn’t
heard back from them, so I just assumed that I wasn’t going to get it and forgot all
about it.

“But I was sat at home one day and had a phone call where they told me I got it! It
took me completely by surprise, as I was only saying to my mum a few days before
that I didn’t think I’d got it.

“I didn’t realise how widely the Nursing Times was read, as although me and my
peers used it for our studies, people clearly take the matters discussed really
seriously, at all levels of nursing, and even beyond our profession.

“I’m quite keen on writing about the apprenticeship route into nursing, mainly
because I don’t feel that it’s widely known about and I think there’s a bit of a stigma
around apprenticeships, which is a bit of a shame as they are such fantastic routes
into nursing and healthcare.

“In fact, apprenticeships are equal in the content that we learn, and although I may
be biased, I feel that we actually get a bit more experience as we’re permanently at
work doing hands-on care, whereas when studying for a normal degree, you tend to
do either one or the other.

“I feel that it better prepares you for the time you qualify, and I’m certainly planning
on staying here as it’s somewhere that I really enjoy working.

“I’m extremely excited by the challenge of being a student editor, and of course very
nervous at the same time! I didn’t realise that so many people read the publication,
and it’s such a nice feeling that people might read my articles.

“It’s also a bit nerve wracking as I want to represent the trust and the university as
best I can, and just make sure that I give them a well-rounded point of view of
everything.

“Things aren’t all great, but they’re also not all bad, so I just want to shed some light
on the tricky bits and the really good bits of nursing.”