Returning to an NHS role in a COVID-19 swabbing service has been challenging and surprising – but it’s worth it

After a 35-year career as a nurse in the NHS, specialising mostly in oncology and haematology, I retired in 2016. When the pandemic started, I was working as a health and well-being manager in a secondary school, but returned to the NHS to help out. Then when the trust I had worked for offered nurses who had ‘retired and returned’ a longer-term role, I came back as a senior sister in the COVID-19 swabbing service, set up rapidly last spring.