Wendy is a retired nurse, having had an interest in continence care since 1981 and been actively working in the specialty since 1987 until retiring at the end of 2013. Before this, she trained at Scarborough Hospital. Between 1972 and 1979 Wendy and her husband opened and ran a small residential care home in Scarborough, before relocating to the Lake District.

Two years working at the local Cheshire Home, opened Wendy’s eyes to good continence management and an interest in the specialty. She then trained as a District Nurse and in 1987, was appointed as Continence Nurse Specialist in West Cumbria. Wendy published many articles in the nursing press including the Colley Model, a resource for assessing bladder symptoms in adults, which won the Sir Bernard Tomlinson Quality of Care prize in 1992. She was also Chairman of the Association for Continence Advice between 1993 and 1995. In 2000, she was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to continence nursing in West Cumbria.

Until retirement, Wendy worked for 10 years as Clinical Resource Manager for Paul HARTMANN Ltd, developing educational resources and training programmes for patients and professionals.

In 2013, Wendy's husband had a radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer and suffered urinary incontinence post-operatively. Wendy feels there are still many groups of people with continence problems who have little or no support, such as these men who are otherwise well and not known to services. She says “The BBF provides an indispensable support to patients and professionals. I can envisage this becoming relied on more and more in the future. I will do my best to support this excellent organisation and it was a privilege to be appointed as a Trustee of the BBF in January 2014”.

Related Links

Bladder & Bowel Foundation