I tend to get up between 6.30am and 7am at the same time as my wife Erica, a cardiac specialist respiratory physiotherapist. We married in August 2013, and now I’m suddently 41 years old, working as a Nutricia nurse in Wales. Erica is a massive support and generally sends me off with a packed lunch which I have during my strategic admin stops, which are also a good opportunity to absorb the breathtaking views along the arterial routes of central Wales.
I start the day just south of Chester and work through north Powys. My first call is to support an older gentleman and his wife. He has been recently diagnosed with motor neurone disease and has been fitted with a feeding tube. Previously, he was struggling with swallowing food and medicines, meaning he had repeated chest infections and was losing weight rapidly.
Within Powys patient visits are challenging, as clients often live long distances from each other in beautiful but hostile environments – 4x4 cars are a necessity, not a luxury. Given the rural geography it’s important to plan stops to remotely document clinical visits. Answering phone and email messages is also high on the agenda, as it is important to balance the administrative workload and provide clear and timely patient notes which are immediately uploaded to support NHS dieticians.
My second call of the day, some 30 miles from the first, is to attend a school where a child with enteral feeding needs is to be supported by teaching assistants and teaching staff. A bespoke education package around care of enteral feeding tubes and the feeding pump is needed to allow the child to enter mainstream education.
Providing qualified nursing care services and continuing education to patients, families and other care teams allows the patients to be cared for at home and not need to visit hospitals for clinic appointments. This also reduces the burden on NHS teams.
My next call is to undertake a gastrostomy tube change, I meet with the district nursing team who are keen to learn the skills required to safely undertake this procedure in the community.
Outside of work, we’ve bought a new house so we (Erica) are busy deciding how we (myself) are going to decorate. This weekend we chose tiles for the kitchen, and I called on my tiling skills to try and fit them.
It’s a cliché, but no two days are alike at work. Similarly, no two cases or sets of needs are the same, which leads to individual care – and more importantly, care of the individual.
On reflection, I feel that my role supports mainstream NHS needs, going above and beyond the capacity of core community nursing teams while supporting ongoing education and providing the best care to patients and carers.
Some weekends, I also work for the Nutricia out-of-hours telephone support advice line, and have been a GP out of hours triage nurse for the last 10 years. I work closely with GPs and either provide telephone advice, sort out home visits and GP appointments, and if needed I arrange ambulances to deal with life-threatening emergencies.
In my spare time, I like going to the gym – the spin room is my favourite place to be. My closest friend has a two-year-old girl who I adore spending time with, I can probably recite the script of Frozen as I watch it with her so often! My best friend and I also own a yacht moored in Penarth Marina, which is a long-term restoration project. And I’m a bit of a tech geek, so like reading up on new technology and how it supports modern life.
When I get home in the evening around 6pm, I check and send emails and do any last-minute calls. Bed time is usually about 10pm, dare I say – and we like watching Criminal Minds, and other whodunnits.
