A student nurse from Tring formed part of the elite national panel that drew up the headline-grabbing Keogh Mortality Review, published yesterday.
The panel assessed 14 hospital trusts that were highlighted by the NHS as having unacceptably high death rates.
Former Territorial Army medic Libby McKerrow, a second-year nursing student at the University of Bedfordshire’s Aylesbury campus, reviewed Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
The review led to the Essex health body – and 10 other hospital trusts – being put in special measures after being found to be responsible for ‘fundamental breaches of care’.
The 46-year-old mother-of-three said: “Being at the University of Bedfordshire, it is made clear to us that nursing is not just a job.
“You have to have the right mindset and you have to be the right type of caring person to make sure the patients have exactly what they need.
“Feeding back what I found to such an informative panel was inspirational and empowering.”