PrimeLife said goodbye to a long standing QCF Assessor Maureen Turner, who retired today after a long career in nursing and assessing. We’d like to wish her a very happy, relaxing retirement!
Maureen initially trained as a cadet nurse and successfully progressed through the ranks, from staff nurse to ward sister. In 1987, she qualified as a Registered Nurse Teacher before completing a master’s degree and becoming a Principal Lecturer at University.
In 2008, Maureen worked for a training provider and provided training for PrimeLife staff through this provider when she met our previous Learning & Development Manager. Maureen talked about her passion for helping to improve the health and social care sector, and the rest is history! Maureen has been working as an assessor in vocational qualifications ever since.
Throughout the years Maureen has supported over 300 staff to gain a variety of both NVQ and more recently QCF qualifications in Health & Social Care at Levels 2, 3 and the management Level 5.
Both learners and colleagues speak highly of Maureen – she has always gone the extra mile to help staff achieve their best.
Barbara Lambert, the Internal Verifier for the QCF Centre at PrimeLife said “ It has always been a pleasure to work with Maureen, we have had some laughs over the years and her work has always been of a high standard.”
Michelle Smith, Manager at PrimeLife’s Holmes House in Wigston, worked with Maureen to achieve her Level 5 Diploma in Management & Leadership said “Maureen was really thorough and pushed me to achieve my best, I learnt such a lot. It was great to have an assessor that was so supportive.”
Vicki Shaw, Director of Quality Matters said “Maureen has made a huge difference to the lives of residents that live in our care homes by supporting staff to develop their knowledge and put their skills into practice.”
Maureen says that the best part of her role as an assessor has been encouraging those who often lack self-esteem to learn, grow and progress in their confidence and skills, “I love to see people develop and blossom.”
The QCF Centre;
Prime Life re-launched their QCF Centre in June 2016 and have been actively promoting staff to achieve their QCF qualifications in Health & Social Care with the pay review also reflecting staff achieving qualifications. This investment in staff is helping to improve the quality of services that we provide and reduce the turnover of staff with staff feeling more valued in their workplace.
Over 220 staff (12% of the workforce) have taken advantage of the qualification programme since the re-launch in June covering levels 2, 3 in Health & Social Care, support services such as administration and catering plus Leadership & Management qualifications at Level 5. The aim is to continue with this investment to further help staff to realise their potential and support them to progress further in the organisation.
PrimeLife is proud to offer a learning pathway that enables staff to develop through the company with a ‘grow your own’ model that means that a member of staff starting as a carer, can work their way up to senior Management roles.