Andy Kerr
Committee Member
Andy started his career in nursing following a position within the Fleet Air Arm (Royal Navy) as an aircraft engineer. This was unfortunately cut short due to a road traffic accident resulting in multiple fractures and open wounds on his left leg for some 18 months and 3 years off work, undergoing continuous medical corrective procedures. In 1992 and following in his Mother’s footsteps, Andy decided to pursue a career in direct care, starting as a Health Care Assistant at St Dunstan’s Care Facility, providing rehabilitation, training and lifelong support for all vision-impaired ex-Servicemen and women. It was here that Andy started his learning journey, completing a national vocational qualification in ‘Direct Care’. This led to a thirst for knowledge and in 1996 Andy plucked up the courage to enrol as a student nurse at the University of Brighton.
Andy qualified in 1999 and started as a Junior Staff Nurse on a vascular ward at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. It was here Andy began his interest in wound management, becoming the ward Link Nurse for tissue viability education and delivery. From there Andy moved into the community and in 2004 was appointed Trust Coordinator initiating leg clubs within the tissue viability team. It was here where his team was awarded the ‘NHS Innovation of the Year’ award for patient care.
In 2008, Andy helped coordinate the set-up of a complex wound healing centre with Sylvie Hampton for what was then TVCS Ltd (then Healogics and now Pioneer). This service supported the local community nursing teams advance their practice and provide direct care for non-healing complex wounds.
From 2009-2019 Andy worked as a Scientific Affairs Specialist for 3M UK and then across West Europe where he was responsible for internal and external support and education across Advanced Wound Care and Compression, continuing to drive his passion for the lower limb. Working for the corporate sector undoubtedly allowed Andy to develop his commercial and general business skills, although his passion remained centred on clinical best practice and improving patient care. Therefore, Andy continued to hold many honorary contracts, working 1-2 days a week in patient focused, hands on clinical practice.
In 2019 Andy finally plucked up the courage to set up his own lower limb consultancy business providing education, support, advice and care pathway strategies to service providers (NHS and private), innovation companies and the medical market industry. Andy currently has an honorary TVN contract with Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust which he has held for more than 6 years. This role aligns to his continued drive within Tissue Viability and lower limb management and currently concentrates on a project managing a lower limb service redesign programme. This is focused on SystmOne clinical coding and audit, patient education, clinical education, a self-care delivery model and a framework for staff competency amongst other key workstreams.