Alison Hopkins has improved the lives of countless patients with leg ulcers and complex wounds. She explains how the MBE that she received is also a celebration of community nursing

Alison Hopkins qualified as a general nurse at Westminster Hospital in 1984. She became a district nurse in Tower Hamlets in London in 1986 and has lived and worked in the borough ever since. She set up one of the first leg ulcer clinics in 1989, became a tissue viability specialist in 1995 and took a sabbatical as a lecturer in the Cardiff Wound Healing Unit, now known as the Welsh Wounds Innovation Centre. She led the movement of a specialist wound and lymphoedema service from the local primary care trust to an independent social enterprise – Accelerate.