Five minutes with Fiona Peniston-Bird

I was working as a nanny and it literally came into my head. I had no previous desire to be a nurse. It was a strangely overpowering decision, which I had no doubt at all about.

I have fond memories of my first staff nurse post where I won a team award, back in 1990, for a patient self-medication pilot. I worked in the community and then trained as a health visitor. In 2002, I did the V200 and was one of the first nurses to learn to prescribe. Following this, I led a 4-year regional project developing non-medical prescribing across south east England. In 2007, I set up my own business, nmprescribing, delivering non-medical prescribing (NMP) continuous professional development (CPD) nationally, and at the same time I started teaching prescribing at university. I am external examiner for all of the prescribing programmes at University of Hertfordshire, and I sit on the Nurse Prescribers Advisory Group, working with the British National Formulary to review the Nurse Prescribers' Formulary.