Blog

Celebrating our Northumbria AHP workforce - Sian shares her story 

I didn’t follow the conventional route into dietetics! After graduating I worked for a food manufacturing company, quickly I realised it wasn’t for me but discovered ‘product development’ which I then decided to pursue. I secured a role with a specialist nutrition company in research and development which meant I was developing products that were then used by dietitians in the NHS! 

My role was varied and exciting with responsibility for developing complex nutritional specifications, then working with researchers in hospitals worldwide to design and run clinical trials to support the efficacy of the products for use in practice. We use many of those products today although mostly in tertiary hospitals where they see metabolic disorders that require an extensively modified artificial diet.

I returned to the North East in 2000 where I worked as a consultant to specialist nutrition companies and shortly after was encouraged to return to dietetics where I began working at the old Ashington Hospital. I had to complete a ‘return to practice’ process having not practised since graduation some 10 years earlier. I was the Morpeth Cottage Hospital Dietitian for a number of years and I then worked as part of a new initiative to set up the NoT Community Nutrition Support Service in collaboration with the Medicine Management Team.

Fast forward another 10 years and I was appointed as Team Lead at Wansbeck General Hospital, quickly followed by a secondment as Head of Service, which is where I find myself today!