Louise Armstrong

Welcoming Louise to the Headlands team

Advanced nurse practitioner Louise Armstong has fulfilled her ambition of working in Primary Care after a career in urgent and emergency care. She made the change after the death of a colleague made her determined to pursue her dream and she is now working at Headlands Surgery in Kettering, with ambitions to complete further training and development.

She described being offered the role on Christmas Eve as the ‘best present ever!’ and has settled in well to the ‘friendly and welcoming’ team. To prepare she undertook training in minor illnesses and she is keen to do more. ‘I am interested in women’s health, sexual health and contraception so I am currently doing an online course in that. I mainly see adult patients but am going to be completing a paediatric course soon to expand my role further.'

She was a hospital ward manager for seven years, moving to same day emergency care after the Covid pandemic as a trainee ACP, and although she always wanted to move into General Practice, she never found the right time or role: ‘When a long-standing colleague died suddenly and unexpectedly last year it made me re-evaluate. To be a nurse practitioner within Primary Care is what I wanted to do all along and I know Headlands is a good surgery with a lovely team.’

She has spent time shadowing colleagues in Kettering and Corby to prepare for the role: ‘Obviously having my Master’s in Advanced Clinical Practice puts me in good stead, and I see a lot of the minor illness cases, such as coughs, colds, ear, nose, throat and skin problems. I am currently doing my immunisation training to get ready for winter. It is definitely busy and can be stressful, and is very different to the role I had before. Getting used to different systems has been a big learning curve but the staff and GPs here have been really supportive.’

Published: Jul 8, 2025