Helpforce Champions 2023 Finalist - Nicole Magnier
2nd October 2023
Nominated for Volunteer of the Year 2023
Video entry
Nicole Magnier began her NHS volunteering in 2020 with the local ‘Community Immunity’ COVID vaccination project led by Dr Razak (of Golborne Medical GP surgery). She revelled in “a sense of gaining back control and being able to help … an incredible experience that I will never forget”.
A chance conversation then led her to volunteering as a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist with Golborne Medical. The Pandemic and its aftermath have hit many people in an area still reeling from the Grenfell Fire. Between June 2021 and April 2023, Nicole has volunteered c. 450 hours of trained therapist time, c. 400 of these in one-to-on sessions with patients. Nicole has worked with 38 patients, 25 of these in an intensive and sustained manner. Goldborne Medical are delighted to have found a means to employ her so that even more of their patients can receive her expert care.
Visits to A&E are down 50% in the 12 months after commencing therapy compared with the prior 12 months (from 16 total to 8 total). Out of Hours service doctor consultations are likewise down 58% (from 12 total to 5 total). These numbers are relatively small because the project to date has targeted individual need rather than high intensity users of health services. In patient self-reporting, meanwhile, Nicole herself consistently receives scores of nearly 10/10 for the experience of those who have sessions with her, while the self-reported impacts of her sessions average above 9.5/10.
Nicole has made substantial differences in patients’ lives, and she reports her pride in contributing to the NHS. “During our first session together, one of my early patients broke down in tears. She had been struggling with anxiety and panic attacks for nearly four years since the Grenfell Fire. Despite her struggles, she had never sought help, and her symptoms had worsened over time. It was incredibly rewarding to see her regain control of her life, to feel in control of it and able to manage her anxiety.”
Nicole regards the transformations of her patients as testament to their resilience and inner strength, and their courage and determination in the face of adversity. She loves being able to offer this help in an area of London W10 that is at once vibrant yet hosts much social deprivation, where she herself lives and sees a strong sense of community.
Surgery-based therapy is generally preferred by patients to referrals into a relatively faceless mental health care system, and Nicole’s patients become folded more effectively as needed into the surgery as a community of care. Nicole has often been able to work with people who have suddenly appeared at the surgery in wellbeing crisis. She has been also a wonderfully positive presence to the rest of the GP surgery team, and Golborne Medical is proud of and profoundly grateful of Nicole's association with them.