Mrs Cathy Rant

I qualified as an Adult Nurse in 1986 and began my career working in an NHS Community Hospital with a small minor injury unit. After 10 years I moved into Further Education managing a team at Gloucestershire College supporting NHS and Social Care settings with vocational training awards and diplomas. In 2010 I returned to clinical practice, and my love of Social Care Nursing. I started my own care consultancy and training centre, supporting social care settings across the South of England. I worked as the Operations Director and Registered Manager for a care home for older people and through the COVID pandemic developed a network group for resources and support for Registered Managers. In 2022 I joined Devon Training Hub for a year working with a team on placement expansion for student nurses and allied health care professionals into social care. This year long project was an immense success and in February 2022 I joined the University of Exeter Academy of Nursing as Clinical Practice Lead. In the past 18 months placement into social care has grown considerably and we are now working on projects to ensure all nursing students have a practice experience in this often underrated and undervalued sector.

I am excited to be ending my career in Higher Education, although new to academia my ambition is to support students to experience a diverse range of environments promoting holistic awareness of journeys and trajectories through our health and social care system sharing learning as we develop together.