Judy Waterlow - pressure ulcer care reformer

Judy began her nurse training at St Thomas’s Hospital in 1953. Having worked in general nursing and as a theatre sister she gave up work to raise three daughters, all of whom are nurses. She returned to nursing in 1976 and trained as a clinical teacher.

Judy worked as an RCNT until 1987, when she was forced to retire due to the increasing severity of rheumatoid arthritis. In 1985 she designed and researched the Waterlow Pressure Ulcer Risk Assessment Tool, which bears her name.

After retiring she joined the Tissue Viability Society and for 13 years was the organiser of its regional study days, at which she was a principal lecturer. Retiring from the TVS she devoted time to becoming a teacher in the Challenging Arthritis and Expert Patient Programmes. She has also become a Musgrove Partner, a voluntary helper for the Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton with her expressed aims of improving patient care and nurse education.

Judywas awarded the MBE in 2008 for services to nursing and the Somerset area. Despite suffering from RA for 40 years she has never let the disease prevent her from devoting her efforts to improve patient care and endeavouring to make sure that nurse education does not forget the basics of nursing people.

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