1 Healthcare assistant skills and tasks

Figure 1 The intimacy of care work – whether responding to difficult emotions or washing – demands staff who can maintain trust, dignity and privacy.

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These two photographs show examples of intimate care work. The first image shows an elderly lady being comforted by a healthcare worker. The second demonstrates how healthcare assistants might wash patients’ feet.

Figure 1 The intimacy of care work – whether responding to difficult emotions or washing – demands staff who can maintain trust, dignity ...

Healthcare assistants play a vital role in the healthcare team, whether working in a hospital or a clinic, a nursing home, the community or in someone’s own home. It is highly likely that you are (or would like to become) a healthcare assistant because you enjoy working with people and have the warmth and compassion to care for and support those who are needy, vulnerable or ill. Getting care right is so important because a care relationship is a special kind of relationship that needs to be set up and maintained with compassion and skill. Respect, equal treatment and support to patients in making their own decisions are fundamental to good care work, as is the need to understand the care role and how a skilled healthcare assistant performs it. You will often deal with people in ways that cross the normal boundaries of privacy and intimacy, and which will make them feel vulnerable, so you need to support them by building trusting and respectful relationships (The Open University, 2015, p. 118).

Your role as a healthcare assistant will involve assisting in patient care and working as a member of a team under the supervision of a registered nurse or midwife who is responsible for delegating appropriate tasks to you. Your role gives enormous support to nurses who are then released to do other tasks that require more detailed knowledge, qualifications and skills.