Our Team - ARNS

Executive Board Members

Joanne King

ARNS Chair

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Joanne qualified in 1991 and has been a senior nurse at Frimley Health (formerly Heatherwood & Wexham Park) NHS Trust for 26 years in a variety of acute roles. She took up the role as respiratory nurse specialist in 2008 before obtaining a Respiratory Consultant Nurse post in 2016.

Joanne has restructured the respiratory services in Berkshire East to form The Adult Integrated Respiratory Service or AIR team providing respiratory services across primary and secondary care, integrating community and hospital trusts in providing a seamless journey to the patient. The service offers expertise to patients with COPD, Asthma, ILD, and home oxygen needs, Bronchiectasis, specialist physiotherapy and provides pulmonary rehabilitation including maintenance classes. As clinical lead her current role is to provide support, guidance, management and clinical leadership whilst developing services in respiratory care in both acute and primary care sectors which has now extended across Frimley Health Integrated Care System.

Joanne has obtained qualifications in Asthma, COPD and spirometry as well as being a non-medical prescriber. She has also received a BSc (Hons) in Nurse Practitioner Studies from Buckinghamshire University and an MSc in Clinical Health Care from Oxford Brookes University.

Joanne is the ARNS Chair. She is also a member of the National Asthma and COPD Audit programme Board, the COPD / Pulmonary Rehabilitation advisory group and a national member of ACT on COPD working group. She is a committee member of the Service Development Committee, PCRS UK and chairs the respiratory forum and specialist nursing group locally.

Joanne was awarded respiratory Nurse Leader at ARNS in 2018.

Maria Parsonage

ARNS Vice Chair

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Maria qualified as a nurse in 1995 and worked across respiratory medicine, coronary and critical care in her early career. She became a cardiac specialist nurse in 2000 and gained her BSc in specialist practice in 2003. With a strong interest in advanced practice she went on to become an Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) in 2002 and completed an MSc in Clinical Nursing with distinction in 2005. This was followed by a non-medical prescribing qualification in 2006 and NMC Sign off Mentor in 2009.

Since 2007, Maria has worked across advanced practice boundaries currently leading as a Respiratory Consultant Nurse and Pleural Disease Specialist. Her local responsibilities include providing specialist clinical assessment and advanced clinical skills, prescribing and policy development across the breadth of respiratory medicine but with a specialist interest in pleural disease.

Nationally, Maria is the ARNS Vice Chair. She has represented ARNS with pleural disease related NatPSA alerts and NHSE virtual ward projects and is a member of the British Thoracic Society (BTS) Pleural Procedures Training Standard Group. Maria is also the Taskforce for Lung Health Workforce Committee co-chair, sits on BTS updated Pleural Guideline group, is a member of the National Institute for Care & Excellence (NICE) Interventional Procedures Advisory Committee (IPAC) and a member of the Mesothelioma UK Clinical Expert Panel.

Sarah Kearney

ARNS Treasurer

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I have worked as a Respiratory Nurse Specialist on the Isle of Wight since 1998. I jointly manage the respiratory department, share clinical leadership with our consultant and work closely with the CCG lead GP to lead a local respiratory network. I had my post ‘badged’ by the BLF in August 2010 and my clinical work is almost entirely in the community supporting patients to stay at home and developing self-management plans. I am the service lead for home oxygen and assessment and see patients for both assessment and review; follow up visits after acute admissions and provide palliative care. I lead a small multi- disciplinary team whose main focus is COPD and pulmonary rehabilitation, although we see any non-malignant respiratory disease.

In 2010 I worked for one day a week with South Central SHA as a clinical fellow, supporting Maxine Hardinge on the National Strategy and sat on the regional respiratory board. I recently participated as an assessor for the RCP pulmonary rehabilitation accreditation pilot project.

I have been a member of ARNS for many years and joined the Executive Committee in 2016.