Ms. Zoe Armitstead  is Rheumatology Clinical Nurse Specialist Team Manager for Adult patients at Chapel Allerton Hospital, part of the Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust, in Leeds, United Kingdom. Ms. Zoe started her NHS career as a Medical Secretary at Cookridge Hospital, Leeds.  After working in this role for 12 years, she decided she wanted to pursue her ambition to become a nurse.   She commenced her nursing training in 2004, qualifying in Adult General Nursing from Leeds University in September 2007.

For 11 and half years, Ms. Zoe worked on one of the Gastroenterology wards at St James’s University Hospital, firstly as a staff nurse and then progressing to Junior Sister. Ms. Zoe then moved to develop her career, working in the Intestinal Failure Team (Nutrition Team) as a Clinical Nurse Specialist, where she became Team Leader for the Clinical Nurse Specialist Team.

Ms. Zoe switched specialities in October 2022 and joined the Rheumatology Nursing Team at Chapel Allerton Hospital. She has a combined role working clinically and managing the team with her special interest in initiating biological therapies providing drug education, counselling and injection training to patients within the outpatient setting. She is also part of the team reviewing patients in the remission clinic along with working towards the development of a remission pathway at Leeds.

Ms. Zoe has a keen interest in the development of nurses within the clinical service unit at Leeds and has recently initiated sharing knowledge of rheumatology within the rheumatology outpatient departments and she is looking forward to this year focusing on the development of providing patients with more options of service care delivery when being initiated on a targeted therapy.