11 October 2024

Celebrating our Northumbria AHP workforce - Deborah shares her story 

I qualified as a diagnostic radiographer in 1987 and commenced my career at Preston hospital. I have worked across the trust working my way up to a site lead at North Tyneside General Hospital and then at the Northumbria when it opened. Since 2016, I have held the position of trust lead radiographer. This is a trust wide post which includes workforce planning, radiation safety, procurement of high-cost equipment etc.  deborah henderson.jpg

I am always looking at new innovate ways of working and was involved in setting up one of the first radiographer discharge services for minor injuries in 2006, which was a real highlight.

In 2020 I was lucky enough to be asked to validate the new Fujifilm FDR X-air portable x-ray system. This led to the Xray Response Team (XRT) Pilot which looked at the concept of delivering plain film imaging combined with pre-hospital care within the community.

The XRT project I feel has been my greatest achievement as it was something completely brand new and done during the pandemic. The patients seen during this pilot gave us feedback of 100% satisfaction and we felt very much that we had made a difference to their care. We also managed to keep 50% of patients at home which would otherwise have had to attend hospital. This pilot led to us being shortlisted for awards by HSJ and the BMJ, we’ve also presented this pilot at several national conferences.

A key moment in my career was when I attended to a lady in her home after she had a fall overnight. It was a day when the ambulance service was overwhelmed and unable to attend. On arrival she had a deformed knee, and the x-ray confirmed a very displaced complicated fracture of her distal femur. She was given analgesia as was in a lot of pain, but we were able to splint her leg to make her more comfortable. The team were able to assign an ambulance due to the confirmed diagnosis and she was operated on later that day. If we had not gone out, she could have waited in pain for several hours.

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