8.4 Adult nursing
Adult nursing, which used to be known as general nursing, is the field of nursing the public see portrayed in the media the most. Whether you are watching a hospital drama or a tv programme showing nurses in the community, adult nurses work in a wide variety of settings. Hospitals, clinics, community, prisons, cruise ships, and large businesses are all places where you will find nurses caring for people with a variety of health needs. These needs can vary from minor ailments to chronic and lifelong conditions, as well as palliative care when someone is dying. Like all fields of nursing, adult nurses also focus on maintaining health and wellbeing and promoting health and healthy lifestyles
Watch Video 10 which shows a newly qualified registered nurse working with asylum seekers.
Download this video clip.Video player: Video 10
Transcript: Video 10
CRAIG DAVIDSON:
My name's Craig, and I am a newly registered adult nurse.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It's currently 6:30 AM. Since becoming a nurse, I've become a bit of a morning person. I'm currently on coffee number one. I work for Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership as part of their Asylum Health Bridging Team. We arrange for asylum seekers to be linked with a local GP and any further services that they require. The reason I was so desperate to join this team is because it's undergoing some really exciting changes and because it is completely nurse led.
Now, there's 13 of us in our team. There are five adult nurses. There's our team leader, a charge nurse, and three Band 5 nurses. I'm one of those. We have four mental health nurses in the team. Then we have two nursing support workers and two administrative staff. But yeah, I just wanted to tell you a little bit about my day. And I'm now going to jump in the shower. I can't drive, so I do get public transport into work. So I better get a move on.
It's now 8:30. For anyone that might notice, I have had a slight costume change. We're now on coffee number two, for anyone that is doing caffeine count of the day. So I've come on early just to catch up with some stuff that I didn't manage to complete the day before. So what I've come in to do is to fill in an HC1 form for a couple of the patients that I saw. I've also come in to complete some risk assessments. We complete something called a CRAFT.
It's 9:50 now. So welcome to my lovely clinic room. I am one of the two adult nurses who are running the initial health assessments this morning. We have two appointment slots, and that allows us to have a full hour with the asylum seekers. And that's in order to go through a series of questions. We also carry out baseline observations. We measure their blood sugar. We take a venous blood sample in order to screen for any bloodborne viruses. And we also take in a urinalysis to see if they've got any type of urine infection.
So first, we're sent across a form called an IA. That basically gives us lots of information about the patients. So it's now 12:30. And I've seen both the patients that I was seeing this morning. Both of the gentlemen I saw this morning needed referred to mental health teams. And due to sexual health trauma, one of them needed referred to sexual health services. During COVID, the vast majority of asylum seekers have been placed in hotels. Later on this afternoon, I'm going out to the hotels to do some triaging.
It is now quarter to 2:00, a slight location change. I did that hotel triaging by telephone. So I used language line and are interpreting services to phone these patients to find out what their concerns were. We need to be really adaptable and flexible. No two days are ever the same. I'm off to do something a little bit exciting, so you'll find out about that later.
So it's now 5:45. I'm back at home, back in my civvies, and on my last coffee of the day, I promise. [CHUCKLES] So I was at the Sandyford today. And that's because our team leader has come up with this great idea to create four link nurses-- children and families, maternal health, sexual health, and blood-borne viruses. We're going to rotate this on a four-monthly basis. And this is in order to give all the adult nurses a real chance for continuing professional development, but also in order that we can better understand the services that we refer into.
I'm super excited. It's actually sunny in Scotland. So I'm going to go and have some mindfulness, and some time to myself, and take my little dog out into the garden. It's been the end of a very long day. I've just been out in the garden with my dog, who you can probably hear snoring in the background.
[SNORING]
So the most difficult part of my role, first, I would say, is listening and hearing the emotional trauma that people have been through. We're all humans. That's our commonality. And to hear that suffering and to hear what these people have gone through is truly moving because we, as nurses, we all want to make a difference. We all want life to be better. The most rewarding part is, without a doubt, being able to make that tangible difference.
When I joined the team, I suggested that we listed protected characteristics of sexuality and gender identity, purely because those are reasons that people flee persecution. The day after that was added to the FERO form, I met a lovely couple, a gay couple, who had arrived into the system. And by asking that question and asking their sexuality, they opened up for the first time about it. And I was able to connect them with third sector organizations that exist in Glasgow.
Nursing is such a rewarding career. And I would encourage anyone to get into nursing. I'm proud to be a nurse. Find your people. That's what we've tried to do with the RCN Newly Registered Nurses Network because it can be hard. It can be challenging at times. And we need that peer support network. Thank you, so much, for following my story and for following all my colleagues' stories have shared our day in the life. And thank you for being a nurse and for making a difference.
Video 10
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