Acute Frailty & Rehabilitation Ward Manager, June Cairns has been honoured with an MBE in recognition of her Services to Health in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
June has worked in Lagan Valley Hospital for over 41 years; she started her career as a young nurse on the surgical ward and has managing to work her way through every single ward within the hospital, which is an achievement that not many people hold.
June took up a Ward Manager post in Ward 14 in 2003 when the ward specialised in rehabilitation for strokes and fractures, as the population became older and pressures on beds increased, the ethos of the ward changed quickly to acute medicine with a focus on frailty. June embraced this change with a ‘can do’ attitude and has enjoyed working within this speciality ever since.
June has always been active in encouraging staff within the multi-disciplinary team to develop their skills and knowledge to enable them to produce innovative and creative ideas to provide solutions to issues they face. This approach won them an SQE award for their work in this area in 2016. June has absolute faith in her team and decided it was time to step back from full time work in January 2022, safe in the knowledge that the ward is in excellent hands, she continues to work 16hrs per week.
June is thrilled to receive this honour and said, “I am absolutely humbled and delighted to receive my MBE, I have achieved so many wonderful things in my career, including winning RCN Manager of the Year and various awards based on the work within ward 14. I always come to work to do my best but I would not be able to do my job without the support of the fabulous and dynamic multidisciplinary team that I work with and of course my husband.”