Former Casualty star Vicky Hall is now a real-life nurse after falling in love with the role she played on our TVs

Vicky Hall, 42, starred starred as a medic in the hit BBC crime series Line of Duty and soaps Coronation Street and Doctors

An actress who played a nurse in Casualty and Holby City has swapped the studio for the A&E ward – by becoming a medic in real life.

Vicky Hall, 42, also starred as a medic in the hit BBC crime series Line of Duty and soaps Coronation Street and Doctors.

She decided on a career change after falling in love with being a nurse as she pretended to be one on TV.

Mum-of-two Vicky has now taken up a part-time role in A&E department at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, Worcs.

Her big acting break came in the 1980s when she appeared alongside Ant and Dec in Byker Grove.

Mum-of-two Vicky has now taken up a part-time role in the A&E department at Alexandra Hospital, Redditch (Image: WAH NHS Trust / SWNS)

The Newcastle-born actress later landed a lead role in Channel 4 comedy series Teachers, alongside James Corden.

She also played parts in Ricky Gervais’s hit comedy Derek, police series The Bill and Channel 4 drama Shameless.

But for most of her career she played nurses – something she is now qualified to do for real.

Vicky, of Bromsgrove, Worcs, said: “I frequently played nurses, perhaps the universe was trying to tell me something.”

She first decided on a career change after the birth of her two children and began studying in her spare-time.

“After my children were born I thought about what I would do next,” she said.

“I decided it had to have all the excitement of acting, the need to really use my brain, and that I would be in demand,” she said.

Emergency nursing fit the bill for newly-qualified Vicky (Image: WAH NHS Trust / SWNS)

Vicky Hall as she appeared in BBC show Casualty (Image: BBC)

“Emergency nursing just fit the bill. So I went back to school and did my GCSE science again, and when my children started school I started my degree.

“I would recommend working in an Emergency Department to anyone.

“You gain so much knowledge and confidence if you take the plunge and throw yourself in the deep end.

“The Alexandra is a really busy and interesting hospital, but small enough that you get to know people easily.”

Vicky still finds time for acting and recently she starred as an A&E nurse in Ken Loach’s latest film “Sorry We Missed You”.

Speaking about her attraction to acting, she said: “It just sounded fascinating.

Vicky would recommend working in an Emergency Department to anyone (Image: WAH NHS Trust / SWNS)