What Inspired Me To Become A Healthcare Support Worker

Laura talks about what inspired her to become a Healthcare Support Worker, explaining how the role has allowed her to gain experience in different areas, and develop personally and professionally.

Topics covered in this article

How I Became A Healthcare Support Worker

My First Role As A Healthcare Support Worker

Gaining Experience In Different Areas

What Inspired Me To Become A Healthcare Support Worker

I Am Proud To Work In This Sector

My Patients Inspire Me

My Biggest Challenge As A Healthcare Support Worker

How I Became A Healthcare Support Worker

Hi, everyone. My name's Laura.

And today, I'm gonna be talking to you about what inspired me to become a Healthcare Support Worker.

I've been a Healthcare Support Worker now for almost 16 years.

I work in a local hospital, and I absolutely love my job.

When I first started looking for a job, when I was 17, I started working as a Care Assistant in a residential home.

I love this type of work. I loved communicating with the elderly people.

I loved helping them with their day-to-day things like personal care, feeding them, just sitting with them, making them feel comfortable.

I love that aspect of the job.

So I did that for roughly a year.

And then, one of the colleagues I worked with at the time had found a job in the local hospital.

So she was leaving to go and work as a Healthcare Support Worker.

At the time I was happy in my job as a Care Assistant, but the thought of working in a hospital had always interested me.

But at the time I thought you had to have a load of qualifications before you'd even get considered for a job in a hospital.

So I was completely unaware at the time that I would even be in with the chance of getting a job.

So as I got speaking to my colleague about the job role she had applied for and got that gave me the confidence then to think, well, I've got enough qualifications to be able to apply.

There was nothing specifically I needed.

And my experience in the care home I was working in would give me the chance and the opportunity to get the job.

My First Role As A Healthcare Support Worker

I applied to my local health board.

They had a number of roles as a Healthcare Support Worker, but on the job application, it didn't tell me where I'd be working.

It just said various specialties.

I wasn't sure where I would be based.

Anyway, I applied for the job, got the job, and I wanted more of a challenge.

I wanted to be somewhere different from the care home, in a different environment, more a clinical environment.

So what my first role I got offered in the hospital was working in a mental health hospital as a Healthcare Support Worker.

I found working in a mental health hospital, very challenging as I was only 18 at the time, dealing with people who were very unwell mentally, I found it quite difficult, but also I was in a position where I could learn so much and it was upping my skills from where I had previously worked, I was dealing with more unwell patients, they needed more help with things.

So I really enjoyed that aspect of the work.

I started off doing that and wanted to build experience in the hospital.

Gaining Experience In Different Areas

So when I got that job then, when you work as a Healthcare Support Worker in the hospital, you can be put onto the bank system, which basically means you can pick up shifts in different areas and like pick up overtime basically.

So you ring the bank office and you'll ask them if they've got any shifts available and they'll tell you where they've got.

What I did then initially, as I was working on the mental health ward, I would pick up shifts elsewhere, so I could gather experience of different specialties then.

I managed to cover quite a lot of areas.

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I covered, well, so far I've covered children's wards, mental health wards, general surgery wards, A&E.

People who were terminally ill, I've worked in that area.

And most currently now I'm working in the pain service as a Healthcare Support Worker.

So being a bank health care support worker gives you the opportunity to work in loads of different areas.

So you're constantly learning new things.

And I think this makes me enjoy the job more because you learn so much on a day-to-day basis and every area you'll pick up new skills along the way.

What Inspired Me To Become A Healthcare Support Worker

Looking at what inspired me to become a Healthcare Support Worker.

Growing up there was me and my dad.

It was just me and my dad growing up.

And unfortunately, when I was about 12, he had lung cancer.

So he went into hospital, had an operation.

He fully recovered, amazing.

And I was just inspired by the care he received from the staff in the hospital and not just nurses, doctors, everyone in the hospital setting.

It's like one big team.

Everyone pulls together to provide the care for that patient and to make sure everything is going to be run smoothly in the treatment for the patient.

So that was one reason I wanted to work somewhere and do some thing that would help people like my dad had being helped.

And also then about eight years, unfortunately I was with my dad and he did have a cardiac arrest as I was with him.

Unfortunately he sadly passed away, later on that day in hospital, as I was there with him in the hospital to watch somebody in the hospital, work with someone and work with the family of somebody who is going through such a difficult time in their life.

I just found that I just felt at that point in time that... it's just... like you're privileged to be with people when they're at their most vulnerable.

So that was the main reason why even more so now, I am continually being inspired to keep working as a Healthcare Support Worker and also furthering my skills to become a qualified nurse.

I Am Proud To Work In This Sector

I feel that also throughout the pandemic, how the NHS has come together and worked and pulled together to work throughout this COVID time.

It's is just been, I've been in awe of everyone.

And watching all the teams and it's been stressful.

It's been hard work.

People have gone to different areas.

Sadly, very sadly people have lost their lives.

And I do feel proud to work in this sector and work along people who I look up to and who I value.

My Patients Inspire Me

So a number of things have inspired me really.

Seeing other people work as Healthcare Support Workers.

Seeing my dad when I was a young girl, when he had the cancer.

And then more recently when he sadly became unwell and passed away.

I think all these different aspects throughout my life has inspired me to keep going and keep working in this role.

I love the fact that I can work with the patients and also the patient's family members.

So, quite often you have patients who come to hospital and they're very unwell and it's not just the patients who are suffering.

It's the family members, the children, it's a wide variety of people who suffer.

It's not just the patient.

And it's just being there as a support for them and helping them to deal with the situation the best they can until that patient makes a recovery.

My Biggest Challenge As A Healthcare Support Worker

The most difficult thing, I've encountered being a Healthcare Support Worker, even though I've worked as a Healthcare Support Worker for almost 16 years, only once have I ever had to deal with someone who had passed away.

So I was working a night shift and it was a bank night shift.

It wasn't a regular place where I worked.

So I went to this ward and sadly the patient had already passed away.

And it was my job along with the nurse to get the patient all cleaned and laid out.

And that was the most difficult thing I have ever done.

And I found it very hard, especially, two people passed away on that night shift.

And that's the only two times I've had to deal with that situation.

I did really struggle at the time.

The nurse who I was with was absolutely amazing in guiding me through what they do.

And when I came home after the night shift, I felt privileged that I was able to carry out that last, that last act for that patient, and do that for them, and to go to work, knowing that I can work with a patient or work with a patient's family or work and do something for the patient after sadly they've passed away.

I just find that to be the most privileged thing ever.

So yeah, that's a bit of my story about what inspires me and what continues to inspire me to work as a Healthcare Support Worker.

If you've got any questions, please feel free to comment below.

I'll be happy to answer them.

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