Hello It's the District Nurse!

 

Hello! It’s the District Nurse!

 

‘Hello, it’s the district nurse!’

 

What does it mean to be a district nurse?

It means seeing people at home

Empowering them

Being able to provide the best care

It’s anything and everything

That you can do for people

It’s never boring (laugh)

It’s not just a nursing role

We work quite independently

Doing what needs to be done

A district nurse also has to be 

A counsellor

A therapist

A mother

All those different kinds of roles

Are part of that job.

 

Palliative care

Multitasking

Wound care

Teamwork

Medications

Physical

Feeding tubes

Emotional

Taking bloods

Caring

 

‘Oh my beautiful nurses!’

 

There was a little lady, lived on her own, had no family, really really nice little lady, and as you get talking, and as the girls said, you get to be part of the family. It was Easter and she used to say how much as a kid she used to love going to the shop and getting an Easter egg, and she’s not been able to do it for fifteen years because she hasn’t left the house so we saw her everyday. So the next day I went to like Tesco’s and picked up a £1 Easter egg and I took it in, I’ve never seen someone get so upset with excitement, and it was just this tiniest, tiniest little Easter egg but it made her day. £1 can make a big difference.

 

I think a lot of the public don’t really know

What district nurses are

The misconception

That we sit there enjoying tea and

Stroking cats

And the biscuits

We eat them as well

And that we ride a bike

And we have all the time in the world

That we’re not as clinical

That we’re not as skilled

They think we just drive around like Miss Daisy

Doing karaoke in me car

‘Would anyone like a brew?’

 

We go where the patients are

You may only do two miles a day but

The caseload can change day by day

Week by week

I’ve seen eight people today

You can have one patient who takes you fifteen minutes

And you can have one patient who takes three hours

There’s no ‘no’

There is no someone else.

 

There was a lady who died and her daughter rang and asked to speak to me and said that before she died her mother said, had mentioned that I used to sing to her every visit, and she rang and thanked me because her mother loved musicals so I used to sing to her, she used to get quite stressed, she was quite a vulnerable lady, so to keep her nice and calm I used to sing to her – Don’t Cry For Me Argentina

 

A simple thank you

 

If I could pick one superpower to do my job

It would be Clairvoyance

Stop time (several voices) (laughs)

Bernard’s watch (several voices) (laughs)

Being able to fly

Get that pain relief to them as quick as you can

Multiple hands

Read minds

Duplicate yourself

Healing everybody

I think we’re mainly the superpower

Such a good team.

 

The hardship and deprivation

Sometimes it’s heartbreaking

People haven’t got

Bedding on the bed

Or haven’t even got a bed

Or haven’t got furniture

Their environments can be quite distressing

What people perceive as everybody’s standard

Isn’t everybody’s standard

Or people on their own

No one’s got any family on Christmas Day

A lot of the people we see

We are the only people they see

So they are desperate for conversation

For time

I would love to sit and chat

But that is not the way of the world

And there isn’t that time.

 

I got locked into a house once, by nobody’s fault, it was the – I had gone to see the woman and her husband had taken the dog out for a walk and then locked me in the house and her daughter was there, I can’t remember, but we had no extra keys to get out so I had to jump out of the kitchen window but it was like quite a distance up I hadn’t realised how much of a distance it was. So, I’d got onto the ledge, it was a tiny little ledge, I was balanced on it and then I was like hanging and then I realised when I dropped down, oh my god, my feet aren’t anywhere near the floor, so I sort of slid down this wall. 

 

Whatever goes into hospital

Comes home to us

There’s no ‘no’

We never say no

We can do the majority of things for people

At home

Which is where they’re most comfortable

It’s a privilege to nurse people in their homes

Every day is different

I feel like I’m actually making a difference

It’s the best job ever