Flick Thorley was born in New Zealand, and trained there as a nurse in the mid-1980s.
She came to the UK in 1989, and began working as a psychiatric nurse at University College Hospital (UCH) in London. She then worked as a Charge Nurse on the Residential Unit at London Lighthouse until it closed in 1998. Following the closure of the ‘Res Unit’, she was the HIV Psychiatric Liaison Nurse at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, until she was medically retired in 2011.
Some notable achievements whilst she worked at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital were identifying the need for and being instrumental in setting up a club drugs clinic as a result of the Crystal Meth problem, and being seconded to Botswana in 2002 with her partner Professor Chloe Orkin to set up an HIV antiretroviral programme.
Since retiring, she volunteers with her dogs, offering pet therapy in hospices and hospitals.