Karen Elton

Karen joined Northumbria University after 20 year career within Primary Care. Initially she worked as a General Practice Nurse and then extended her knowledge and skills to be a Nurse Practitoner/Nurse Manager within a large teaching general practice. During this time she undertook continuing professional development across multiple clinical field areas in order to provide high quality and autonomous patient care. She   completed her BSc (Hons) in Community Health Studies in 1998  and was also awarded the English National Board Higher Award in Nursing and her Specialist Practitioner Qualification. In 2002 Karen qualified as an independant and supplementary non medical prescriber. 

Her role changed in 2005  to lead the development of  the  general practice nurse population across a large geographical area as a lead nurse and modernsiation facilitator for a local primary care trust. As this role involved many aspects of teaching and education Karen undertook a Post Graduate Diploma in Academic and Professional Learning resulting in an   a distinction award,  and also the status of Nurse Tutor by the Nursing & Midwifery Council.  In 2010 Karen achieved a promotion and undertook the role of Service Transformation Manager which involved managing a service transformation team across multiple community and primary care service developments.

In 2011, Karen completed her MSc in Academic & Professional Learning, and also completed a Graduate Certificate in Practice Development (Sexual Health). At this time, Karen left full time clinical practice and  moved into the Higher Education system at Northumbria University,  where she commenced a role of Practice Educator within the field of sexual health. Her career at Northumbria University has resulted in presenting at National conferences and being  core to the development of Primary Care workforce development provision.  This  continues to date, and Karen works collaboratively with multiple organisations to ensure high quality and often bespoke workforce development requests are provided on behalf of the university. She also attends regional workforce development working parties as a representative of the university.

In 2013 Karen was awarded the Fellowship of the Higher Education Authority, and this has been further superceeded by the status of Senior Fellow in 2020 for recognition of her role in education.

In 2014 Karen was sucessful in achieving a promotion to Senior Lecturer, and this role has since been migrated over to the role of Assistant Professor within the Nursing & Midwifery Faculty.

In 2016 Karen was recognised by the Queens Nursing Institute and given the status of a Queens Nurse. Following on from this status she now is a member of one of their national sub groups, the Association of Academic General Pracice Nurse Educators. This sub group has been responsible for developing national standards and equity for general practice nurse education across England.

As part of her ongoing personal development, Karen has offered her  support and expertise to other universities in the role of external examiner to ensure their standards and quality assurance mechanisms related to general practice nurse education is achieved and maintained. She has undertaken external examiner roles at University of South Wales, De Monfort University in the midlands and Ulster University in Northern Ireland.

Karen maintains a clinical role alongside her Higher Education role to ensure she remains an active clinical member of the Nursing & Midwifery Council register.