Meet Former NHS Nurse Tackling Burnout in Tech

Emma-Louise Fusari says NHS working practices make her “blood boil” as she looks to build her startup In-House Health.

A nurse who left the NHS after becoming frustrated by its “red tape, bureaucracy and politics” is tackling burnout in the tech sector with her startup.

Emma-Louise Fusari, a proud Scot who has been a registered nurse for two decades this year, worked in general practice with responsibility for running chronic disease management clinics and public health screening programmes.

However, she left the Health Service in 2016. “I felt like I wasn’t making a blind bit of difference to the health outcomes of my patients,” she tells TechBlast. “I hated having so much knowledge and experience but not being able to use it.

“I was seeing people when it was too late – they already had diseases and I didn’t have enough time to educate and empower them to look after themselves. I was literally sticking plasters on and asking people to come back when they fell off.

“It’s sad to say, but I’m so glad I’m out of the NHS. The stories I hear from friends, colleagues and patients really still frustrate me. They make my blood boil.”

Fusari became an OFSTED-registered childminder but it didn’t take long for her to miss nursing. Intrigued by the rise in awareness of workplace wellbeing, she researched the topic and found that the ‘sticking plaster approach’ was also being used in the tech industry.

“Wellbeing initiatives are reactive, fluffy and unmeasured – and are never going to fix the root cause of issues,” she explains. “I believed – and still do – that I had the qualifications, knowledge and skills to make a huge difference to people and businesses.”

Read more in Techblast’s Star of the Week full feature.