AN IT manager who started her career in the NHS as a nurse has retired after three decades.

Colleagues, children and grandchildren of Jill Leney gathered at the Great Western Hospital yesterday to mark her 34-year achievement with a celebration.

“It has been a journey, I have to say,” she told the crowded room. “It has been a challenge but it has been enjoyable.”

Paying tribute to her workmates, she said they had been fantastic. But it was the right time for her to try something new.

Described by her colleagues as a rock who always put patients first and would be sorely missed, she went into the health service working in the X Ray department at Cheltenham General Hospital in 1971 before deciding to become a nurse.

It was then that she moved over to the former Princess Margaret Hospital in Swindon to do her training on the wards, in the operating theatre and in the maternity wing.

She took a career break to have her own two children Helen, now a deputy head teacher and Ian, a paramedic in London. But when she went back to work it was in hospital administration.

“It fitted in better with the children,” explained Jill of West Swindon.

It wasn’t until about 10 years ago that she made the move over to dealing with the computer programmes that keep the hospital running.

One of her initial tasks was getting GPs in the area to use the hospital’s IT services. In more recent years she has been running a team handling the clinical computer programmes.

It was a long way from her work as a nurse, but it was still about making sure they were looked after.

“They are very much in the background but without that support the doctors and nurses could not do their jobs,” she explained. “It is very much part of basic care.”

The 61-year-old grandmother of four, who lost her husband Dave several years ago, said she had decided it was the right time to retire.

“I’m going to live life at a slower pace,” she said.

“I have got to go sometime and I’m now in a place where I can go for new challenges.”

Already on her list of things to do are a trip to see family members in Australia, followed by a cruise.