NHS Shetland health visitor Alice Jamieson was born in the islands, left to join the Royal Navy, where she served for 11 years as a military nurse before choosing to come home to Yell. Her time in the military armed Alice with a wealth of experience and a career path different from most healthcare workers.
Not many health workers have quite the backstory that Alice Jamieson carries with her. She was born in Shetland, left to join the Royal Navy and served as a military nurse for over a decade before returning home to Yell.
Today, as a health visitor based in Cullivoe, she brings that hard-won experience into play, supporting new parents and their babies across the islands. Sometimes that means arriving by ferry, occasionally by four-by-four through the snow, and always with everything she needs.
Alice grew up in Shetland and left as a young woman to join the Navy. Over 11 years, she worked as a military nurse, gaining skills and experience that would have been impossible to find closer to home. When she did return to the islands, she retrained as a health visitor, qualifying in 2021.
While in the Armed Forces, she travelled the world providing medical care in military bases. Today, her caseload takes her across Yell, Unst, Whalsay and beyond. She is one of the professionals serving Shetland’s patchwork of communities connected by single-track roads and ferry crossings.
No two days are the same. As an example, she describes her work schedule on the day she spoke to Promote Shetland.
"I've been on two ferries out to another island, around houses visiting families with really young babies, and then families with slightly older children, then two ferries back," she says.
Between visits, she catches up on paperwork at the health centre before heading home.
The autonomy suits her well, and she loves the variety.
And the fact that she's now watching the babies she first visited in 2021 head off to school?
"This is the year I'm seeing ‘my babies’ go to school," she says. "I'm a mum myself, so I understand how vulnerable it is having a baby. Being able to be that person who supports people is, honestly, an honour.
"I do love my job."
Ask Alice what a decade-and-more in the military taught her, and she doesn't hesitate.
Organisation.
Planning.
Discipline.
Those principles remain and help her ensure her car has fuel, her bag has everything she needs, and that she's thought through whatever the day might throw at her.
"Not being prepared wasn't an option [in the Navy]," she says, "because that means you're going to produce a poor performance."
But it's the leadership and teamwork lessons that have shaped her most. Towards the end of her time in the Navy, she watched the culture shift away from hierarchy, towards collaboration. "It became about: how do we best use the assets we have? Who is the subject matter specialist in that area?"
She carries that directly into her health visiting, working alongside education, social work and other professionals. "I've never been afraid to say: ‘I don't know the answer to this, but I can find out’.”
It's the kind of collaboration that helps ensure parents' and babies' needs are met.
There aren’t many NHS health visitor roles where the commute regularly involves ferry crossings and spectacular drives through some of the UK’s most dramatic landscapes. For Alice, it is routine.
Working across multiple islands means the ferry is as much a part of her working day as her car. She's philosophical about it.
"There are some good bits and some bad bits," she laughs. A half-hour crossing can be a chance to get her notes ready, or to sit and reflect on a difficult visit. But when sailings are disrupted, the waiting is frustrating.
"Sometimes I am sitting somewhere waiting for hours. There's only so much you can do from your car. And people are waiting on you coming to their house."
She's been stranded overnight before, though she's quick to point out she's never without a bed. And she wouldn’t change it.
"I seem to have friends dotted everywhere." NHS Shetland, she says, is good at contingency planning, and in extreme weather the community pulls together. "I've been picked up by four-by-fours to be taken to a baby. It's just a lovely community thing."
I seem to have friends dotted everywhere. I've been picked up by four-by-fours to be taken to a baby. It's just a lovely community thing.
Alice always knew she'd return to Shetland. Family drew her back, and then her son arrived, and that settled it. "Shetland is such a lovely place to bring up children. It was a no-brainer."
What she loves about raising him here is what she loved about the military: community.
"I live on a small island of maybe just about a thousand people. One day you might be hanging out with elderly people, and then the next day you're hanging out with teenagers, and we all get on."
For anyone who worries there might not be enough to do in a place like Yell, she has this to say.
"Some folk think, oh, you don't have a bowling alley, you don't have this and that, you must be so bored. And you're like: 'I don't have time to be bored. There's always things going on'."
She's deeply embedded in the community: the development council, the hall committee, and she was the Cullivoe Guizer Jarl in 2025.
And she's relaxed about the overlap between her professional and personal life. Running into families at community events isn't awkward; if anything, it's reassuring. "As long as you're not doing anything wrong, it shouldn't matter," she laughs.
"Knowing families on a personal level can help improve your relationship at times. You feel reassured when you've seen somebody at something, or you notice: oh, that baby's walking now."
Alice is clear-eyed about what Shetland isn't. It's not for people who can't stand the wind, or who need a Deliveroo on speed dial. "We all have a chest freezer for when the ferries stop," she says cheerfully.
But for the right person? "If you're thinking about it, just go for it. You'll only regret it later, thinking, I wish I'd done that. There's lots of folk that have moved up here and fallen in love right away.
"Come and see what we've got to offer. We'd be delighted to have you."
Discover the community spirit that keeps Yell thriving.
