Today, we’re celebrating the vital contribution nursing support workers make in caring for the health of our nation on our first Nursing Support Workers’ Day.
Nursing support workers are the bedrock of our wards, clinics and community teams working with everyone from children to adults in all aspects of physical and mental health.
The term ’nursing support worker’ encompasses hundreds of different job titles and roles, including health care support workers, assistant practitioners, nursing associates and health care assistants.
Nurses are often the greatest advocates of our nursing support workforce, recognising the vital, skilled and compassionate work they undertake.
Nursing support workers can work independently, alongside nurses and as part of wider multidisciplinary teams in all health and social care settings. They have a critical role to play in delivering high quality care and excellent outcomes for patients.
Ali Tindall and Helen Balmer from Maple BDC at CIC said: “We would like to give a massive thank you to all the Healthcare Assistants, Ward Clerks, Discharge Navigator and House Keeper on Maple Orthopaedics.
“They go above and beyond every shift to ensure our patients are well cared for.
“We appreciate everything they do to ensure the smooth running of our ward area and we want to let them know how valued they are.
“It's been a challenging year so far and they have met these challenges with solutions, hard work, compassion and positive attitudes.
“We would also add in a thank you to all the allied health professional support workers on our area, pharmacy, ot, physio, dieticians, all very dedicated professionals and a credit to their teams and ours.”
Laura Huck from the West Cumberland Hospital works across maternity wards and delivery suites as an assistant practitioner.
She told us a bit about her role as an AP and what she does to support other nursing staff.
Laura said: “My role within the hospital, involves caring for women and their babies during the antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal period. This involves women and babies admitted to the ward, women being triaged through the day assessment unit and handling telephone calls from women in the community. Our care is provided from 16 weeks pregnancy until 28 days following delivery.
“I began as an Maternity Support Work on the bank almost seven years ago as a band 2. After receiving a contract for a band 3 after 12 months, I decided to undertake my NVQ level 3 to develop within my role, and progress in my work area. This included various courses, which the trust provided in house, such as phlebotomy, observation training, enhanced breastfeeding support, basic life support and first aid; adult and child. I really enjoyed learning new skills and being able to offer more support to the ward. The ward can be a very busy high pressured working environment and, we play a vital role in supporting the midwives and doctors in the patients care.
“I was lucky enough in 2017 to gain a place through the trust at University of Central Lancashire to undertake a degree to become an Assistant Practitioner in Maternity Services.
“This became the biggest challenge of my career so far, as we were the first in maternity, meaning I was part of a developing role. Although I was nervous I looked forward again to being able to develop not only my knowledge but my hands on practical skills, and knew that this could only be a positive to being able to offer more to the team.
“While training to be a band 4 I learned new skills such as catheterisation, cannulation, ECG training, medicines management, observation of the new born, and became much more involved in hands on patient care and documentation of both mothers and babies.
“I now have been in the job just over 12 months, and am really enjoying it. It is really rewarding to be able to follow the journey from the beginning when patients can often be very anxious to seeing the relief and smiles on their faces as you weigh there baby and help them with that first feed.
“As part of my role, I help and assist with the transitional care of babies and mums. This means we can offer the care of those babies who are requiring a little more support or assistance within the maternity ward, to prevent the mother and baby being separated which is brilliant.
“Working on the maternity department is very hands on and no day is ever the same, sometimes we have to handle stressful and upsetting situations.
“It’s good to be able to work somewhere where no two days are the same, we consider ourselves to be very fortunate to be involved in such a special time in a family’s life.
“A typical day on the Maternity Ward would involve taking observations of both mum and baby, assisting with infant feeding, postnatal education, taking venepuncture, assisting with the admissions of pregnant women supporting patient’s and midwives in labour and assisting with any women who may need support such as post-surgery.
“At this present time during the Coronavirus pandemic we have been met with new challenges, including the new PPE regulations, and understand that it is an even more stressful time now for our new parents, with ever changing guidelines, preventing visitors being in the hospital meaning women don’t always have the full support of their families.
“This has increased the need for us to provide not only vital clinical support but emotional support as well.”