So I happen to have been MIA for most of December, this is due in part to my long hours at work and not wanting to do anything on my days off, being ill or procrastinating on uni essays then freaking out when they are due.

Anyways today I thought I’d give you an insight into where I actually work. My title is Healthcare Assistant (I know not too glam, one day I WILL be a nurse) on the emergency floor of my local hospital.

The emergency floor isn’t ER, it’s what used to be the Acute Medical Unit. A short stay unit after the ER. We took over outpatients (they got a new building) and expanded to include 67 beds! There are 4 zones: A;B;C;D. A is ACA which is where people are brought in via ambulance who don’t need the ER but need a bed. Zone D is the elderly unit, which used to be a ward somewhere else in the hospital and we don’t work in that zone. It reality we have xx beds over 8 bays and 4 side rooms but each HCA & nurse only looks after 6 patients or we should do.

The above image is basically the layout, the colours are different though and we can ignore the far right as that’s zone D.

The floor has been in the local press and 2 weeks ago the national news did a piece on it

There are currently only plans for 4 such floors in the country. I know of Leicester and Guy & St Thomas but am unsure of the 4th one. We are the first to be open.

There are issues though. We hardly have enough staff and it just isn’t safe, so much so that we had the directors of nursing down helping us on Thursday as well as representatives from the Royal College of Nursing due to our concerns.

It is extremely busy and on a 12.5hr shift we get little breaks. I would rather be busy then have nothing to do though.