Healthcare Support Worker
Like all of our healthcare support roles, the main focus of your role will always be our patients. You will not perform complicated procedures, or administer medications. You will however have plenty of contact with patients, their families and visitors. It will be your job, for instance to:
- Make sure that patients are clean and comfortable
- Listen to and talk with patients, and let the nursing staff know about any concerns
- Serve food and help people who need assistance to eat
- Help people who have difficulty moving to change position in bed and move around the ward or clinic eg to the toilet
- Record observations, like temperature, pulse rate and blood pressure
- Document how much patients eat and drink
- Weighing people and calculating and recording BMI
- Uphold our Trust values – Together–Sage, Kind, Excellent in everything you do
We will also train you to deal with emergencies, like heart attacks. You will also be taught how to look after someone in the last days or hours of their life.
Theatre Support Workers
Theatre support workers (TSWs) are an essential part of the operating department team.
As a TSW you will support other members of the theatre team, such as scrub practitioners, operating department practitioners (ODP), surgeons, anaesthetists and administrative staff.
Many of the patients you meet will be anxious and / or very ill and you will play an important part in reassuring them and keeping them as safe and comfortable as possible.
Your tasks could include:
- collecting patients from the wards and taking them to the operating theatres
- talking with and reassuring patients during this transfer
- making sure that the ODP / surgeon / anaesthetist is aware of problems and concerns that you cannot answer yourself
- sitting and talking with patients who are undergoing procedures under local anaesthetic as a way of supporting and reassuring them
- taking part in all the required checks in theatre, eg counting, checking and documenting instruments used during an operation
- understanding the equipment used and being able to place it in the correct position
- helping with the collection of specimens
- cleaning the operating theatre before, between and after operations
- helping ensure that patient safety is at the heart of all we do in theatre
Maternity Care Assistant
Maternity care assistants (MCA) work in the Rosie Maternity Hospital. You will help the midwives and other members of the team responsible for looking after women who are pregnant, as well as during and after the birth of their babies.
This includes:
- Monitoring the condition of women in labour and reporting changes and concerns
- Accompanying women to other clinical departments under the direction of a midwife / nurse
- Helping midwives care for women in labour
In addition, your job will be to make sure that people are kept as comfortable as possible and helping out wherever needed. This includes preventing the spread of infection by:
- washing your own hands effectively, according to the agreed Trust technique
- washing your hands after every patient contact and any process that needs you to do so
- promoting effective handwashing among patients, visitors and other staff
- ensuring that patient and staff areas are kept clean as required