Day In The Life Of A General Practice Nurse

GP Nurse, Claire Carmichael, gives a video diary of her day to day as a GP Nurse with a run down of daily duties, as well as insights into the protocols and procedures of a practice.

Topics covered in this article

Going Through My List For The Day

Getting Ready For My First Patient

Little Glass Bottles Are The Devil

A Semi-Urgent Referral

My Final Patient Of The Day

Going Through My List For The Day

So that is it I am ready for work.

I've had my breakfast and off I go.

So now that I'm settled, I'm just going through my list for the day.

Obviously I can't show you my screen, confidentiality reasons, but looks like I've got a mixed range of blood pressures smear tests, a few B12 injections, a Denosumab which I can never say, injection, ECG and some dressings.

So it looks like I'm gonna have a very busy morning.

I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, just for this morning so yeah but I finish at one today, so it's not too bad.

Getting Ready For My First Patient

So now I know what my list is like, I know that I've got blood pressure first I'm gonna get the blood pressure stuff ready.

And then I know I've got a smear test and I'll get the couch ready and all my smear tests set up.

Let's go.

So now I'm gonna get all of my blood pressure things ready for my first patient as well.

This is the mercury, the old mercury style, blood pressure machine.

I have my own stethoscope, from my second year of Nursing.

This is mine has my name on it somewhere.

Tadaa! I'm just gonna wash it looking down for my patient.

Clinell wipes, other wipes are available, New clean Clinell wipe for each piece of equipment, just so you know, it's more clean.

For my smear test, you need different size speculums, potholder, a cervical brush.

It looks a lot worse than it is guys don't worry.

So yeah, pop, make sure the date is in date.

Make sure clear fluid to the line, put it in there, put the brush in there.

Job done. Then, your sample bag, and lastly, some preferred information for your patients if they don't know the information you can give them these.

And lastly, sign for the door.

Time to put the mask on. Tadaa! Let's do this. Click here to learn more about GP nuses.

Little Glass Bottles Are The Devil

Next up we have, B12 little glass bottles are the devil.

So a little tip for you, take your syringe out with the pack, use the pack to open your bottle.

So I have drawn it up and ready to give it to my patient.

I overran a little bit this morning, I missed my tea break.

However, I did have a gap between patients.

So I've grabbed my tea, and yeah, gonna have quick tea and then I'm on 20CG next

Next up we have our ECG, I've got the bed ready.

ECG machine. 12 lead ECG which is actually only 10 leads, but it's called a 12 lead ECG because of the 12 points of the heart or something that it captures, something like that.

But yeah, this is our machine.

We just put in our patient ID and things which I'm gonna do now before setting it all up.

And then I'm gonna get my patient in. Here we go.

A Semi-Urgent Referral

This is a sort of semi-urgent referral.

This person doesn't have chest pain or anything like that.

But their blood pressure is very, very high, and they're suffering from headaches and things like that.

So the first thing we need to do is an ECG.

Make sure they haven't got any cardiac issues and a blood test to make sure that everything in the blood is good.

So things like thyroid, things like glucose levels, things like a full blood count, cholesterol, all the little things that you can think of, kidneys oh, how can I forgot kidneys, blood pressure yeah.

All of those little things although have a full MOT, and just make sure that there's nothing underlying, causing this really high blood pressure and these headaches, which is never a good sign, but yeah fingers crossed.

So that his ECG done, it was all clear, good to know it was all normal.

So yeah, happy with that.

Didn't have to get doctors involved or anything, so pretty simple, you notice just anything on an ECG you always get the doctor in to check the patient over and make sure that there's nothing acute happening.

My Final Patient Of The Day

Now I have my final patient of the day which is a wound dressing.

I've had a couple of leg ulcers today to do so yeah.

I'm gonna get settled for that.

So this is our dressing cupboard. It's got this measuring guide.

If you're going to be measuring legs for hosiery.

We have this guide, wound types, what to put on it and leg ulcer pathway.

And then this is all of our different types of dressings.

So today I will need, patient pack, which has your gloves goggles and everything in it.

This patient has, Iodoflex which is an iodine dressing that's quite a squidgy one, so you sort of mold it and then put it into the ulcer.

And then, this person will always have these absorbent dressings over the top to sort of absorb any fluid that might be leaking out.

And I'm also gonna be using Prontosan, which is a really, really good solution if they have a biofilm over the top of the wound, and you'll know it's a biofilm because it will be like a shiny coating over the wound.

And you wanna get rid of that and break down the layer so that your patient's wound can heal.

And lastly, some of this, which is like a bandaging that's gonna hold everything on.

This sort of bandaging.

And that's just gonna hold everything on nicely.

It's like a tubey group type of thing. And so this is it.

Oh, I've got my patient pack which is my sterile field, Iodoflex.

Firstly, I'm gonna put this on a better approach than absorbent dress in and then that to hold it all on, Bob's your uncle.

And I do have a small confession to make, I'm actually doing this video after my patient has left because I obviously have not got time between patients to do these videos.

So this time I've done the patient first but this is literally all of the setup that I used for my patient and yeah, they are done and they are gone.

And finally, last drop of the day, final clear up, here we go.

Don't forget your phones.

I've got an issue guys, my ECG machine won't turn off.

Off you go!

It normally turns black when you do that.

That my lovely friends is a day in the life of a GP Nurse, but for now, Au revoir.