Can anyone be a nurse? What qualities and skills do you need?

The short answer is no I don’t think just anyone can be a nurse. It takes a certain type of character and several essential personality traits to be successful in a nursing career.

I think if you are naturally calm under pressure, resourceful, able to multi-task accurately and empathise with people you will make a brilliant nurse. Of course there are a plethora of other skills required, but I think if you fit the above, you have a really good grounding for the industry.

In my opinion nursing isn’t just a career, it’s a calling and a way of life. It takes a great deal of effort, commitment and sheer perseverance to complete a nursing qualification to then go into an industry where (in all probability) you will work very long hours with very few breaks and quite often, in understaffed areas. To some people that would be their idea of hell, and if you’re reading this thinking I could never do that, then I would suggest that you give it a really good think about choosing a nursing career.

It’s a shock to the system for anyone, even the most committed, when they find their first shift as a staff nurse is 14 hours long and starts at 7am; but if you can pull just an ounce of confidence and determination from inside you then you can do it! I’m not saying it will get easier after that, but you can be sure that most people are in the same boat and finding it just a tough.

Give yourself the advantage in the job application game

We love helping everyone get the job they want, so we’ve come up with a few ways of making your CV and application as good as they can possibly be.

By following the few simple steps below, you can improve the way you present yourself to a recruiter so you get that all important interview to prove just why they need you!

Step 1: Give your profile a polish and shine

Your personal profile on Nurses.co.uk is one of the most powerful tools you have when applying to jobs. Recruiters see your profile before they view your CV, so use it to your advantage by providing an accurate, descriptive summary of who you are and what your experience is.

Login here, then click on the view/edit link next to your current CV and follow the instructions.

The ideal profile should include:
a short description of your current role
your current band if you are an NHS worker
how many years experience you have in the field you are applying for
a few brief details about your career so far

Step 2: Watch our CV writing video and make some changes

We’ve put together a step by step guide to the perfect nursing CV. Watch it here and follow the advice to update your CV so it really has the wow factor.

Step 3: A good cover letter is as important as your CV

Recruiters often have very little time to read a CV in full, so make sure they get a good overview of who you are and what your experience is in the cover letter. Keep it short, space it in paragraphs and spell check twice!

So that’s a brief summary of the basics, make sure you start at the top and login to your account to update your profile.

Best of luck applying for your next job!

RCN advises all frontline Nurses and HCAs to have the swine flu vaccine

The RCN is advising that all frontline Nurses and Healthcare Assistants should have the vaccine to protect themselves and their patients from catching the H1N1 Swine flu strain. Dr Peter Carter is quoted as saying,

I would urge all frontline staff to get vaccinated as soon as possible. While most cases of swine flu are mild, nurses should be mindful of the effects on more vulnerable patients. Vaccination is a simple way for nurses to protect themselves, their families and their patients, so employers must ensure that staff have the time and the opportunity to access the vaccine. (RCN website 22.10.09)

For me personally, I don’t understand how a vaccine that has been produced so quickly can possibly have been researched properly. How can anyone know what the long term effects of this vaccine are? However, it has been reported by the media that this new vaccine has been modelled on the H5N1 vaccine and Christine Beasley, Chief Nursing Officer at the DoH, is also advising that all frontline nursing staff should have the new vaccine.

Whilst I understand that the NMC code states that Nurses have a duty to act in the best interests of their patients and to cause them no harm, I don’t fully understand how Nurses can be seen to breaking this if they refuse the vaccine.

The Guardian website (22.10.09) reported that,

Professor David Salisbury, the Department of Health’s director of immunisation, said it was unfortunate that nurses could “knowingly leave themselves at risk”.

He added: “They have a duty to themselves, they are at risk. They have a duty to their patients not to infect their patients and they have a duty to their families. I think you solve those responsibilities by being vaccinated.

“The evidence that we’ve had is sufficient to persuade the regulators that these are vaccines that will be licensed.”

For me, I feel a little uncomfortable that the regulators have been ‘persuaded’ to license this new vaccine, and that’s enough to put doubt in my mind.

Been away for a bit, and Nursing Times this week!

I know I’ve not posted in a while, I’ve been away on a bit of a break to chill out and re-charge! Anyway, so now that I’m back I’ve just picked up the Nursing Times from last week (13-19 Oct) to find a flyer fall out of it advertising 60 giant fact sheets on the human body for only 99p! A bargain you might think, and it certainly appears that way as they clearly state there is no tie in to buy more.

Forgive me if I am a little synical, but one fact sheet shown in the flyer says ‘”The two lungs perform gaseous exchanges with blood pumped from the heart”. Doesn’t this sounds a little more like GCSE Biology than the highly regarded education level achieved by nurses? I realise these fact sheets have been pitched as an aide-memoir, but I think with that level of detail they aren’t even worth 99p!

The first paragraph inside the cover says “Now you can get to know your body inside our – how to recognise its messages so you can talk confidently to your doctor…”.

I’m positive that every nurse in this country who knows their stuff will have binned it (unless they have kids doing GCSE Science!)

Featured Nursing Event – Nurse Clinics 2009

SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE

The premier conference and exhibition for nurses running effective clinics and services

Friday 6th November 2009
Manchester Central Convention Complex, Manchester

With a keynote address from Peter Carter OBE Chief Executive and General Secretary The Royal College of Nursing, Member Prime Ministers Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery who will give an update on the national progress and developments of Nurse Clinics and developing nursing roles and challenging traditional boundaries.

The conference fee is £190 +VAT. To download a copy of the conference programme, please click here

http://www.healthcare-events.co.uk/ct/HP406/conf

For more information contact Hannah on 020 8541 1399 or
email hannah (at) healthcare-events.co.uk

Nurses get to add their suggestions to the NHS cost-cutting measures

It seems that a rather large cheer is required because it has been confirmed that Nurses will finally get to make their suggestions to the powers that be on how to save money rather than make the enormous cuts in NHS staffing levels.

The Nursing Times (22-28 Sept) has reported that Dame Christine Beasley, Chief Nursing Officer for England, is going to ask Nurses how to save millions pounds in order to avoid ’slash and burn’ cuts from managers. Nurses are going to get a chance to provide evidence of systems or changes that are already in place and could be rolled out accross the country to save £20bn by 2014.

There is a three week windows starting this Thursday for proposals to be submitted via the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement’s website. Make sure you you contribute – this is chance to everyone to have a voice and hopefully save some jobs

The student nurse bursary debate rumbles on

Ok so here’s the latest update as I understand it. The whole point of the system shake-up is to make nursing more accessible to a wider range of potential candidates in order to avert the impending recruitment crisis. I think this a brilliant idea – the more people that have an opportunity to pursue their dream of a nursing career the better.

The review is expected to make nursing an all gradute entry profession by 2015 and to provide appropriate student funding to accomodate this. The consultation period is nearly upon us and it will continue until 11th December this year. There are two events planned as well, one in London on 27th Oct and one in Leeds on 4th Nov.

Let’s grab this opportunity to make our voices heard and make sure we get a better system of funding student nurses! You can take part in the consultation by:

• downloading a response form from www.dh.gov.uk,
• emailing bursaryconsultation@dh.gsi.gov.uk or
• writing to DH, Room 2N22, Quarry House, Quarry Hill, Leeds LS2 7UE

RCN says School Nurses are Overburdened and Unsupported

The RCN recently commissioned a survey of 1,600 school nurses and found that the majority feel overburdened and unsupported with an ever increasing workload. The study found that, on average, a school nurse looks after 2,500 children and the most time consuming duty for the majority of nurses was attending child protection case conferences. A third of the nurses surveyed also highlighted that administering vaccines was taking up a large chunk of their time.

RCN Executive Director of Nursing and Service Delivery Janet Davies says:

“The fact that there is a shortage of nurses to meet the rising demand is simply unacceptable. Overburdened school nurses are looking after too many pupils and it is children who are being disadvantaged.

There is the serious risk of a ‘lost generation’ of adults being blighted by long-term health problems in the future if they don’t get the help and support they need as children. If the shortage of school nurses is not addressed now it will end up costing the NHS substantially more in the long-term.” (Source: RCN)

In May this year, Gordon Brown committed to providing one school nurse for each secondary school and cluster of primary schools. The RCN now estimates that in order to to fulfill this goal, as much progress will have to made in one year as seen in the last four.

However a Department of Health spokesman said:

“The 2008 census showed there were 3,643 qualified nurses in the school nursing area of work with an increase of 1,234 or 51.22% since 2004. Of these, there were 1,447 school nurses with a post-registration school nurse qualification. This is an increase of 591 or 69.04% since 2004.” (Source: BBC News)

With every study that is released,it’s clear that the burden on Nurses is increasing, particularly if the recently proposed job cuts in the NHS go ahead (see my recent post for the full implications of these cuts). It goes back to my thoughts that rather than commissiong reports from consultants, perhaps the better idea is to ask the frontline nursing staff directly for their opinions!

The new first year student nurses

So it’s that time of year again, another cohort of student nurses start the long and no doubt arduous journey to becoming a registered nurse. All that paperwork, applications, interviews and sorting out childcare, finances, travel, accommodation has all been worth it. Or at least that’s what most of the 1st year student nurses I talk to think. I’m sure it’s akin to an exciting but slightly scary rollercoaster, the sort where if you don’t hang on you feel like you’re going to fall. However I’m happy to say the majority are thrilled that their dreams are within their grasp!

It must be a real feeling of pure ecstasy to know that you are on your way to your dream job. So, while I was considering how best to to give some advice, I came accross the booklet sent out with this week’s Nursing Times (8-14Sept) “The Student Guide”. I’m never quite sure how well those sorts of guides are put together, but I can honestly recommend this one. I can’t find any link to it online, but if you can get hold of the mag for this week it should be with that.

The section that intruiged me the most is “How to.. balance academic and placement work”. There is so much useful stuff in there that will seem obvious once you read it, but it makes so much sense when put together! For example:

• Be clear about your learning needs for each placement
• Try to discuss your needs with your mentor before a placement begins
• Have another meeting midway throguh to highlight any problems and review your progress
• Don’t avoid ‘basic care’ – use this opportunity to learn from the HCAs
• Ask to take on a caseload of patients to learn about holistic care
• Be prepare to flexible with your shifts to work with your mentor

It seems so simple, but I bet there will be so many for whom this sort of advice will prove invalubale. So I highly recommned getting your hands on a copy if you can. You can also check out the student section of the NT website for some of the info.

Yet more NHS nursing job losses expected

This feels like deja vu! Recession = job losses and what a surprise, the NHS is in the firing line again!

The Nursing Times article (1-7 Sept issue)  reckons that 6,500 nurses will lose their jobs in the next three years as a results of spending cuts proposed by McKinsey & Co Management Consultants. The RCN is reportedly calling these proposals “deeply worrying”, and rightly so. The resulting impact on the quality of care could be devastating.

I don’t really understand the value of employing management consultants, particularly in this instance when surely the obvious way forward is to ask the people who actually work in the frontline NHS day in day out?? By asking and listening , key areas could be preserved and areas of waste and excess expense could be minimised. It seems such a simple way of gathering the correct information needed, why would whoever hired these consultants waste their money like that?

Anyway, rant over, cutting back nursing staff is only going to create a world of pain now and in the future. The already over-stretched nurses that keep their jobs will be stretched even thinner, care standards will inevitably slide despite the best efforts of everyone involved, the recruitment freeze that accompanies these measures will ensure that very few qualifying nurses get nursing jobs after their graduate – which WILL lead to a shortage of nurses to recruit in 3 -5 years time when they realise the huge mistake they made cutting nurses in the first place!

You don’t have to be Einstein to figure out that this is a poorly conceived proposal, and I hope for the sake of 6,500 that the RCN stands firm and does whatever it can to prevent those jobs from being lost.