Splitting teams, how are you doing it?

RE: Splitting teams, how are you doing it?

Sal the 1st — Tue, 16 Jun 2020 07:41:29 GMT

all staff are now back from furlough (thankfully). We are back to normal hours (thankfully) and we are busier than ever. When we had staff on furlough was just 2 nursing staff - so 50% nursing staff and no receptionist, was doable with 1 nursing staff front of house and 1 on ops but was knackering as we still had 3 vets in. 8 weeks of that just about finished me.

The thing is the longer you keep restrictions running the bigger the backlash, All those vaccinations turned away right at the beginning now need to be done - along with all the cases that have now become more urgent and somewhere along the line new illnesses need to be seen as well. We were not as restrictive as many were, we are a small, independent, single site practice.

We had (and still have) lots of people ringing up every day wanting to register because they cannot get seen at usual practices. We are not taking new registrations, and this was pre lockdown, because we have all we can cope with, so that means there are huge amounts of clients out there not being seen and some of these sound like they should be from an animal welfare pov

RE: Splitting teams, how are you doing it?

Selena Carnell — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 16:30:59 GMT

we dont have enough staff to split and have been too busy.

RE: Splitting teams, how are you doing it?

Nick Shackleton — Sat, 06 Jun 2020 20:16:35 GMT

We are currently working in two teams. One vet per team and 3 nurses with each vet. In referral practice so bit different. We are wearing masks pretty much the whole time. No clients allowed in practice. Examining dog away from clients and then phoning client with diagnosis and proposed investigations and procedures. Over the phone payments only. We are currently working around 10-12 hr days. Personally not sure how long I can sustain this for. Only up side is we’re doing 3 days on 4 off. Just tiring

RE: Splitting teams, how are you doing it?

Olivia Coulton — Sat, 06 Jun 2020 18:52:13 GMT

I am in an IVC practice and we are doing 3 days on 3 days off between the two teams. We wear masks where we can when having contact with clients.

RE: Splitting teams, how are you doing it?

Vanessa Busby — Sat, 06 Jun 2020 13:14:25 GMT

Hi. I think this has been tough in smaller practices where team rotation hasn't always been possible. We are a small practice and for the first nine weeks we had all 3 vets working but only 2 per day, 2 receptionists working 2 1/2 days each, and 2 nurses working week on week off from 8am-7pm - one of them being me, so we only had 4 people in the building at a time. We only wore face masks if speaking to members of the public directly or if we were working in very close proximity. This week we have had some staff come off furlough & we have tried to get back to normal working hours so we know have 8 people in the building on most days. We are now wearing face masks the majority of the time as we have not seen our colleagues for 9 weeks!!! We wear gloves when handling patients & discard immediately as well as hand washing frequently.

Hope that helps a bit!