The March of the Nurses: Overwhelming support of RCN members for Strike Action

[Beskar]

Pretty small pool to fish from if you set the bar that high, what's the bar for what I assume are assistants.

Healthcare Assistants/Support Workers? The bar is actually very low. Salary: £15,944
https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/exp...care-assistant

How most wards work is that the Nurse directs and leads the support staff into more manual tasks, whilst the Nurses do the tasks with accountability and challenges. So lets say when it came to bathing, it would be the support staff, but if there are complications due to wounds or challenging behaviours, then the Nurse does it.

So on a MH Unit I have worked on, the staffing ratio was 2 Nurse and 6 Support Workers (or should be) for 16. There are times more often than not (especially on Night Shift) it is more like 1 Nurse, 3-4 Support Workers and Beds at over capacity (for 18-20).

The operation would be the two nurses with one having to dispense medication, pills, liquid and injection (at 4 intervals throughout the day and PRN) whilst the other is Shift Coordinator who delegates tasks, sits in on treatment meetings, liaisons with community staff and families, does referrals, care plans, handles the telephone calls, 1:1 chats, responding to challenging situations, etc.

the support staff usually have roles like SAS (Safety and Security) who regularly monitor people every hour, records and controls who comes in and out the ward and does checks on objects like cutlery. You have people assigned as response, who are available for going off the ward to response to a crisis/emergency situation. You have observation levels ranging from 10 minute checks to constantly within arms reach. Serving of the food, serving of drinks, helping with ward activities.

This ratio does change according the environment and setting. More acute care has significant higher ratios of nurses.

There is the new Nursing Associates, but I am unfamiliar with them myself. But here RCN description: https://www.rcn.org.uk/news-and-even...u-need-to-know


Also, this is a very general example of Nursing. There are General Practice Nurses, District Nurses, School Nurses, Community Nurses, Clinical Specialist Nurses, Deputy Sisters/Deputy Ward Managers, Ward Managers/Sisters, Modern Matrons.

There is a lot of variety in job roles. For example, there are clinic nurses who have the job of delivering 20+ depot injections per day, write up what was done, and have a brief health conversation with the patient. Vastly different to what happens on wards.