Specialist nurse Carly back home in North Wales for World Parkinson's Day

11.04.2025

A nurse has given up the big city to advance her career in North Wales, by taking up an exciting specialist nursing role.

Carly Griffiths is from Flintshire but has spent the past 13 years working on an acute neurology unit in Salford. That’s until recently, when she became Glan Clwyd Hospital’s first inpatient Parkinson’s Disease specialist nurse.

She jumped at the opportunity to come home and help inpatients with the illness. Carly has been employed permanently, with her first two years funded by the Parkinson’s UK charity, and she is delighted to be in post for World Parkinson’s Day.

Carly said: “We had acute Parkinson’s patients on our ward in Salford. So, when I saw this job I was really interested in coming back and helping to prevent readmission of patients here.

“World Parkinson’s Day is really important in raising awareness of the disease, which is part of what I am aiming to do in my new specialist role.”

Among her tasks in this specialised position, she will provide reviews for inpatients admitted with Parkinson’s Disease, ensuring medications are properly prescribed and on time. This will help to avoid medication issues for patients - and by leading care and review clinics Carly will also free up consultant time.

Regular medication reviews can help to spot circulatory and neurological side effects of certain drugs and reduce additional problems for patients with Parkinson’s.

Carly hopes she will also be able to cut the number of emergency admissions for people with Parkinson’s through advanced care planning. This will give her the opportunity to build up longer term relationships with patients and their carers, providing continuity and becoming a point of contact for them in emergencies.

Part of her role will be to educate and train health and social care staff around the specific needs of people with Parkinson’s, in both the community and acute hospitals. That includes supporting other Parkinson’s nurses out in the community to help prevent admissions to Glan Clwyd and improve the clinical outcomes of patients in Conwy and Denbighshire.

She added: “It is a really exciting opportunity and I just want to help get the best outcomes for people with Parkinson’s. They can then can spend more time at home, which is where they want to be.”

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