RE: ADVISE! NEW LOCUM JOB START

Heather Bacon — Fri, 20 Oct 2017 18:03:20 GMT

Hi, I started working at the PDSA last year and am loving it so far. I have only worked in 1 hospital so not sure what other hospitals are like. In terms of answering your questions:

Utilisation of skills: The nurses are very hands on. We do all the bloods, catheters, x-rays, nurse consults, dental scaling etc. Not ever on reception or dispensary unless it's the weekend then we deal with OOH phone calls, dispensing medications etc etc. We spend 1 day a week each on consults where we do emergency triages, 2nd vaccs, post op checks, bloods, bandages etc.

Schedule three duties: As above the nurses do all bloods, catheters, dental scaling. We also have a couple of nurses who are learning how to do minor ops such as stitch ups and lump removals.

Progression: Not sure about this one. We have nurses, a nurse team leader and a head nurse. So I think there is scope to progress. They are happy for you to take on extra tasks like one nurse is the petwise health counselor (we run petwise consults in order to educate owners), we have a forum member who consults with other staff from other hospitals about certain things re: how the use of certain new drugs is going etc.

Support & management: the support is ok, my head nurse and nursing team leader are always helpful with any issues you may have. I can't say anything about HR though as never had to deal with them.

standards: The standards are much higher than I was expecting of a charity hospital to be honest. Every animal gets worked up as best as they can within the hospitals limits ie: we do't have certain medications or diagnostics. But most animals will get a catheter and fluids if required, the pain relief protocols are better than some I have seen in private practice. We only have animal care assistants overnight with vets on call, so a lot of animals can't get injectable meds overnight. Some hospitals have vets now run from their hospital overnight though so this is different. We have to manage certain things a bit differently due to costs, but still trying to maintain a good standard of care.

special interest nurtured: As above we have a couple of nurses interested in minor ops, so they have been sent on cpd for this and the vets are helping them out when they have time. I am interested in ECC and feline nursing. So am now on the vets now ECC certificate and given the task of making the hospital more feline friendly.

value and recognition of nurses: The vets will always refer a client to the nurses for certain things like to educate the client on pet care, diet, bloods, BP etc after/before they have seen the vet. The clients are happy to speak to us and appreciate our advice as well as the vets. The reception team are great with the clients at advocating what the nurses can do for their pet.

It's not all great though, our hospital is very fast paced, emergency after emergency, but I know not all of them are like this. Depends on the area I suppose? Some of the cases we see are heartbreaking, they just come to us a bit too late and in a bad state, some of the clients can be difficult but most are lovely and very grateful. I was really unhappy in my previous practice and also lost a lot of confidence. I have been able to rebuild it where I am now, and am more confident in my own abilities. I don't get that horrible sick and anxious feeling going in to work in the morning!

Happy for you to message me if you want to know more! Am happy to chat to you about my experience there.