A pediatric nurse retiring after almost 50 years says her career choice was “the best decision of my life”.

Helen Parfitt, who worked her last shift at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, Somerset, in late September, said: “I can’t believe it’s time to leave.”

Ms Parfitt has spent her entire career in hospital and has seen huge changes in healthcare but added: “People are not changing, people are equally scared and grateful.”

“It’s amazing how people remember nurses even after such a long time,” she said.

Ms Parfitt decided to go into nursing at the age of 11 after watching the care her mother received for 18 months for a heart infection.

He worked his first shift at Musgrove in 1976 and would spend 48 years and one month at the hospital.

During this time, new treatments and vaccines have significantly reduced death rates from diseases such as meningitis and cystic fibrosis.

He stated that children who would die from cystic fibrosis before the age of 10 are now growing up and starting to have children of their own.

But Ms Parfitt said not all the changes were for the better.

“One of the things I feel very strongly about is that I get paid to do my education.

“Now people have to pay to be students and come out with debt, and it’s very difficult,” he said.

In the early 1990s, Ms. Parfitt began her nursing training; She founded the hospital’s Return to Practice program and helped overseas nurses to register in the UK.

“Initially, I felt guilty for not doing it hands-on, but at least there are a lot of people who do it hands-on,” he said.

She joined Musgrove Park Hospital’s pharmacy team in 2009 as their first medication management nurse.

The prescription charts he helped design for children’s painkillers and epidurals, acute pain in adults, and variable rates of insulin infusion are still used today.

When asked about the best thing about the job, he said: “Feeling like I was doing something that made a difference – whether it was me personally, the people I taught, a system I built, or doing some research. It made life easier for us.”

A spokesperson for Somerset NHS Foundation Trust said: “We are forever grateful for Helen’s extraordinary commitment to the NHS, which demonstrates her remarkable commitment to patient care, nurse education and the future of healthcare.”