Nursing Support Workers' Day
Published: Monday 23 November
Join us to celebrate Nursing Support Workers on the Royal College of Nursing’s first Nursing Support Worker Day.
23 November 2020 marks the first Nursing Support Workers’ Day, celebrating the vital contribution nursing support workers make in caring for the health of our nation.
The term ’nursing support worker’ encompasses hundreds of different job titles and roles, including health care support workers, assistant practitioners, nursing associates and health care assistants.
Nursing support workers and Health Care Support workers are the backbone of hospital wards, clinics and community teams working with everyone from children to adults in all aspects of physical and mental health
Rhiannon Beaumont-Wood, Executive Director Quality, Nursing & Allied Health Professionals, said:
“We’re extremely pleased and proud to be celebrating all these amazing staff and their fantastic contribution to our health services.
“2020 is the year of the nurse and it’s important that Nurse and Health Care Support Workers get this additional recognition too - thank you to all those working across the organisation for everything you do.”
Nursing and Health Care support workers can work independently, alongside nurses and as part of wider multidisciplinary teams in all health and social care settings. They have a critical role to play in delivering high quality care and excellent outcomes for patients and service users.
Deborah Harries, Head of Nursing, Screening Programme Lead said:
“Our support worker staff members within screening have really stepped up to the mark during the Covid response, they have supported their colleagues with the Covid response, assisted on the helpline and supported the delivery of other screening programmes when their own were paused.”
Simone Chappell, AAA Screener, gives an account of working throughout the pandemic.
During the outbreak of Covid-19, the situation was rapidly changing. I initially trained to take calls in the call centre in CQ2, however I then went to work in Cardiff City Stadium in the Covid-19 testing centre. I was apprehensive about being in possible direct contact with Covid positive patients, but I was excited to have the diversity in my role.
The environment was extremely safe and well organised. It was great to work with colleagues from other services and we explained our roles to one another and shared stories of our working days.
In July, a few of my AAA colleagues and I undertook training for Newborn Hearing Screening Wales. We spent time in University Hospital Wales and Ysbyty Cwm Cynon, shadowing Audiologists and observing how to conduct a newborn hearing test. There was a lot of information to relay to the parents of the babies, and the responsibility of getting the test done correctly felt enormous. The audiology staff were amazing, and in a few weeks, we were off on our own screening all by ourselves.
In August, our AAA screening programme restarted, with all of the AAA working extremely hard to get us back up and running. The first few clinic sessions were challenging, the patients were very understanding and we managed to navigate our way around the new ways of working and a new ultrasound machine
My AAA colleagues have all had differing roles, some have worked in the call centres, some have worked for the Public Health Wales communications team, and others have worked from home on completing the Diploma in health screening. I feel I have better perspective of all the wonderful services provided by Public Health Wales and the lovely people who work within it.