A day in the life of a Health Care Assistant

A Health Care Assistants job is to support both Nurses & GP’s. 
A typical day starts between 7-8am & finishes between 6-6:30pm.

In the morning session we will see a mixture of patients with appointments ranging from routine blood tests, ECG’s, dressings or seeing people with long term health conditions. Making sure patients are well looked after and checking on their welfare and how they are coping.  Often patients will wait until this appointment before voicing or confiding their problems. The nursing team are often the point of clinical contact. 

Time for a break for a cuppa – if the surgery has not run over. Then it’s time to sort the samples and get them ready for the hospital. This includes testing the samples and printing labels, making sure the correct department receives the right sample. 

After that, another session begins this can be the same as before or assisting GP’s in coil clinics & minor surgery. During flu/ Covid season we play an active role supporting the nursing team

Lunch is 30 mins then the afternoon session begins with more people to see. This can be either at the surgery or in their own homes / care home. 

Stock needs to be taken care of ensuring there is enough & that rooms are well stocked. Equipment must be maintained and checked on a regular basis

Time for samples again.

During the day we also deal with any urgent requests from the GP’s for patients who are too ill to wait for routine appointments and may need bloods or ECG. Test results are chased, and tasks received are completed. During the pandemic time constraints have become harder due to having to clean all equipment and surfaces that have come in to contact with patient’s. This is done after each & every patient.

Finally prepare for the next day ahead. By then PJ’s & slippers are calling with a glass of something nice if we are lucky to relax. Sleep then ready to do it all again!