That is the best thing about the course structure at the university I'm studying at, we have the opportunity so early in the year to be exposed to the work on the ward! We have completed the training and the induction in December before we broke up for Christmas, which meant we learned many important skills for working in the hospital as a HCA. This included how to make a bed, the importance of safeguarding, what is dementia and the correct communication skills required.
I have had two shifts at the hospital I am in, working as a HCA. I am on the Stroke/Neurology ward, where I helped care for patients who have had strokes or suffer from neurological diseases.
I'm trying to work out the best way of writing this post without writing a long chunky essay that's saturated with paragraphs. Therefore, I'm going to break it up into the typical cheesy questions you usually get on a feedback form that school gives you:
What was it like working as a HCA for the first time?
- Very different, it is nothing like volunteering at all!
- As a HCA, you are allowed to handle patients where you have completed manual handling training. This is different to volunteering, which means you are allowed to help move patients from beds to chairs, help move them into comfortable positions or help manoeuvre patients while they are being cleaned.
- It is true, as a HCA you do help clean patients who may have soiled themselves or need aid in their daily washing routine. I didn't actually realise this was the case until I was on the ward.
What did I enjoy?
- It was probably the most "doctor"y I've felt so far in the course ... and ever!
- I did enjoy helping the nurses take observations of patients and learning how information is collated, kept and stored in the hospital setting in more interesting.
- In a way, you did feel a sense of reward after you have cleaned up a patient as they were grateful and you could now see they were happier and more comfortable. This is what made the cleaning job.
What were the challenges I faced?
- I will make it clear for you, as a volunteer you are not expected to handle body fluids at all. I know in my training as a volunteer, I was told that if a bed was soiled I wasn't allowed to touch it. As a HCA, you are exposed to the different body fluids. In my shifts, I cleaned up vomit, faeces and urine - but in my opinion thinking about it is definitely worse than when you're actually doing it. And you'll realise that. It isn't that much of a great deal and you do adapt to it after a while.
- As a volunteer, I found myself speaking mostly with the nurses and the other volunteers as we made the teas and distributed the meals. After this, I was sterilising medical equipment or help cleaning the ward. As a HCA, you are more patient-facing, meaning you do see pain and discomfort on a greater level. You are in situations that do make you feel uncomfortable, I was saddened by the news on my later shift to how one patient I had became close to and exchanged great chat and laughs with had unfortunately died the morning of my next shift.
- You do feel quite nervous when you are allowed to carry out observations on patients. For example, one nurse let me carry out a pupil examination on a patient, where I would shine my torch into their eyes to hopefully see a change in pupil size as a response to the bright light. I will admit, my hand was shaking as I did it. You are nervous, but by the end of the week I was more confident and did it more 'naturally' if you like.
- The long hours?? In fairness, as I groaned about the seven hours I was enduring, the nurses laughed as they were doing the hardcore twelve hours! You do need to realise that the shifts are long, and that there isn't always something to do. But it gives a great opportunity to speak with other members of the team or learn from patients.
Working as a HCA, it was interesting to observe how the ward was structured. I found that the healthcare assistants and the nurses were the main members of the multi-disciplinary team on the ward who were responsible for the primary care of the patients (providing comfort, meds etc) and recording the observations. The doctors made brief appearances throughout the day, analysing the observations and speaking with nurses about the progress or reviewing medication. This was quite an eye-opening observation, as you learn how the 7 or 8 patients that the nurses and HCAs are allocated each means they have more time with the patients so more of a presence, whereas the doctors could have around 30-40 patients on this ward, the next ward and maybe another ward in the hospital so their encounters with these patients can be more confined and brief.
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| Working four hours, I was dying for this cup of tea! |
The nurses I was working with were absolutely amazing. When there was nothing to do, the nurse went through my handover sheet with me and explained the conditions to me. For example, she explained what a "thrombectomy" is and what "abx" means on the sheet. So I would recommend that as you complete your shift work (if you do it), do speak with your nurses and gain a better understanding of the patients you are dealing with and you can apply this knowledge to your studies!
The best thing about working as a HCA though is that when you're talking to a nurse about yourself, you're no longer saying "I hope to go to university and study medicine" as you did whilst volunteering, you're saying "I AM at university STUDYING medicine"! The dream has come true!
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