Reception and admin duties for nurses

RE: Reception and admin duties for nurses

Keely Young — Sat, 18 Mar 2017 18:29:29 GMT

I think I'm lucky in that our head vet is very hot on separating reception and nursing, even though we are a small practice....we actually have more receptionists than nurses currently! (busy, busy) However, I know a lot of the ladies I studied with do a lot of reception duties in with their nursing. As far as admin goes, it kind of gets split between everyone but again, receptionists and our practice manager mostly

RE: Reception and admin duties for nurses

Sal the 1st — Sat, 18 Mar 2017 17:38:56 GMT

[quote user="Alison Clare Hickman"]

Joking aside, you are a one woman blooming marvel, you are.

[/quote]

nope not at all, the other full timer with me was just as busy but in a different part of the building doing other stuff. Ok Cleaning and reception might lack some of the excitement but I still say a clients lasting impression of a place comes from reception and front of house long before they ever get to see a vet - and I just want that first impression to be a good one.

I even got to stroke Mr Angry before he went home

RE: Reception and admin duties for nurses

a c — Sat, 18 Mar 2017 03:38:28 GMT

You just described every day of my life to me :D Don't get me wrong, I willingly do all this, just it would make sense as it is so busy, to hire some receptionists too! Rather than have the nursing staff do all this and then we are ridiculously under pressure with so much going on and when do we have time to do any nursing?

RE: Reception and admin duties for nurses

Alison Clare Hickman — Sat, 18 Mar 2017 01:56:19 GMT

aw bless ya, Sal. #busybee ... But didn't you forget to mention that broom handle, ahem, somewhere south of the equator, that was sweeping the floor behind you as you sped around?!!

Joking aside, you are a one woman blooming marvel, you are.

RE: Reception and admin duties for nurses

Sal the 1st — Fri, 17 Mar 2017 21:05:33 GMT

my day today was reception and dispensing, cleaning cons rooms after morning surgery, filing, I allowed myself a little treat (sarcasm) of 2 or 3 insurance forms, cleaned the loos, cleaned the microwave in the staff room, washed the pots up in the sink, went along the dispensary shelves and started an order, spent a little time with Mr Angry the pissed off Bengalx whose sole aim in life was to destroy or at the very least maim any human he came into contact with, answered the phone (a lot), dispensed meds, printed off the lab results and put them onto relevant files, requested a few histories from other practices, did a bit more cleaning when ops were over and theatre and prep were being shut down for the weekend, brought the washing in when it started raining,did a bit of poo picking, chased a few debtors. Evening surgery - discharged a few animals did reception/dispensing, cleaned the cons rooms, mopped floors, put the rubbish out, put the lab samples out, put the washer on, shut all the doors and went home, wasnt that much different from the day before or even several days before come to think of it.

Wow what an exciting life I lead!

I suppose what I am trying to say is - yes its very common to spend time on reception.

RE: Reception and admin duties for nurses

WelshyNurse — Fri, 17 Mar 2017 20:31:19 GMT

With smaller practices I've worked in, I've done a mixture of nursing and reception.

My current practice has a dedicated reception team and our nurses and ANAs share all the nursing duties and only step in to help on reception if short staffed.

RE: Reception and admin duties for nurses

steph fursland — Fri, 17 Mar 2017 20:07:03 GMT

I think it depends on the size of the practice but unless you are very quiet/small generally it makes sense to use your nurses to nurse, and this is the case in most practices I have been in except the sort of one vet/one nurse clinics. RVNs are hard to find and a valuable resource so you want to use them to their full potential!

We have separate receptionists and a dedicated stock/pharmacy manager. Nurses do anaesthetics, nurse appointments, dentals, bloods, catheters, look after inpatients, cleaning theatre and prep. We have a couple of nurse assistants and they don't do reception either, they walk the dogs, feed and clean the patients etc.

RE: Reception and admin duties for nurses

Heather Bacon — Fri, 17 Mar 2017 19:49:48 GMT

I think it can be quite common particularly for smaller practices or quiet branches Where it may not be worth it to hire receptionists. My current and past job have been in hospitals where the workload is such that the nurses are utilised more and there are receptionists and admin staff.

My training practice did not have any receptionists and front of house duties, insurance forms, ordering etc were a large part of the job.