IF you have visited Royston Health Centre over the past three decades there is a good chance you would have been cared for by nurse Anne Muir.

But that will now be changing, as the long-serving Sister is retiring after more than 26 years of service.

“I have always enjoyed my work here,” said the 69-year-old. “But it’s time for me to retire and make way for new nurses.

“I have a party organised for me in a couple of weeks by my workmates, but they haven’t told me where we are going.

“Its all very exciting!”

Sister Muir moved to Royston 40 years ago after growing up in Yorkshire, and trained as a nurse at Addenbrooke’s Hospital until 1984, when she began work at the Health Centre.

She says her job and the workload has changed over that period.

“We have a lot more patients nowadays, compared to when I started,” she said.

“This is natural because of the expansion of the town.

“It had a population of about 8,000 when I joined, and is more than double that now.

“We also do a lot more work that used to be done at hospitals, as is the case for most primary care services.”

The highlight of Sister Muir’s career was winning the Herts and Beds Nurse of the Year Award in 2000, and she says she has been lucky with the low number of tragic cases she has had to deal with.

“We have had one or two cardiac arrests in the surgery and they have gone on to pass away at the hospital,” she said.

“They always leave us wondering whether we could have done more.

“Deaths of young children always get the place down for a while too, but luckily they are not too common.

“When there was an epidemic of mumps about we didn’t get too many, and we didn’t tend to get the measles they had in the London area either.”

Sister Muir is to retire to Lincolnshire with her husband Brian.