My Two nights

Bank holiday Monday and Tuesday were two night duties for yours truly. The compliment of nurses in the night is reduced to two staff nurses and two Health Care Assistants (HCA). This results in there being 16 patients to each Nurse/HCA pairing. One takes the top end, the other the back. I was assigned to the top end of the bay to where I had been for the three day shifts.

I began on Monday by being talked through the routine for the ward in the evening-this is different for the night then the day. After having the hand over, I was back with a slightly larger caseload of 6 patients. The side rooms were with my preceptorship mentor. I began with a medication round. There are a lot of nebulizers used on the rounds as well as tablet medications. In addition, some of my patients request a lot of PRN medication so it is usually worthwhile noting of they mention anything while I am doing my preliminary check of the the bay at the start of the shift. The round was done, and there was then the IV antibiotics and the controlled drugs to be done near 10pm. Rather then people doing these separately, usually there are the two nurses in at the same time to check the controlled medication and the IV antibiotics to save waiting.

This was the way for the two nights which for me were tied up dealing with a patient who has predominantly mental health problems associated with advancing years. This was to be the bigges factor the the shift last night (see above).