Career profile: Jane Bolster, Avon and Wiltshire

How did you begin your career in healthcare?

Aged 22, I was contemplating what I really wanted to do with my career and applied for a health care assistant (HCA) post in my local mental health unit. I applied because I recalled a visit I had made to an old psychiatric hospital during my college days, where I was haunted by the experience of meeting a woman who had been detained in hospital for many decades due to a pregnancy out of wedlock; she had lived her life institutionalised in services. I wanted to make a difference but did not know how. Little did I know that this visit would change my life; I was offered the post and have not looked back once in the past 28 years.