09.26.08
It’s about time I wrote something
This blog has lasted much longer than any diary I ever wrote, but it would be true to say that I am struggling. The enthusiasm I had over the last few years seems to have elapsed, but actually I don’t feel inclined to give up just yet. I can’t blame the summer, since we haven’t exactly had one. I can’t blame lack of material, but I suppose that I could blame laziness, a lack of motivation and just really a lack of desire. All through this lean period I have continued to read the blogs of my fellow nurse bloggers and they put me to shame. How is it then that I have plenty of topics I could write about on here, but when it comes down to it I just can’t be bothered?
Or actually should I really worry about the why and just relaunch myself and get back down to business?
Yes………….. that is what I shall do……
The next post follows in ………… 5 minutes
07.16.08
Its official - I can’t count
On the first of this month, I said (no actually rather I claimed) that to make up for my lack of blog posts during June I would write something every day. Here we are 15 days later and this is the first time I have written anything. I can’t quite work out what is wrong with me. I don’t entirely have bloggers block, because most days I come up with ideas about the kinds of stuff to post here (as I always have) but by the time I get a spare half an hour to actually do so, I either decide that there isn’t enough to say or else I get waylaid doing something else.
One of the issues I have is that often my stories, thoughts and opinions are driven by annoyance at the health related issues that appear on TV and in the newspapers, rather than by something that has actually happened or affects me. This is all well and good, but if it doesn’t directly impact on me I have to try and find out more about the story to form an opinion which doesn’t look as if I am ranting at the negativity of what is reported rather than anything else.
In the almost 3 years I have been writing this blog, I have studied for a Masters Degree and have gone through a torrid health service reorganisation. I have moved office several times and job probably twice. It is not the NHS itself that is causing me problems right now, it is not my actual job that is of much worry (since I like the day to day business of maternity and children’s commissioning), my pay will apparently be resolved next week (but then I am not holding my breath for either it to be resolved in my favour or for it actually to happen next week). No it is my own PCT and the way in which it just is that gets me wound up right now. The trouble is, having seen what has happened to fellow bloggers who have got too personal with their actual employer and characters within work, I don’t think I can go there. I have applied for a new job, outside of this employer but still in the NHS so that (if I were to get the job) might give me more material.
I would like to make my blog content more general, to move away from just about work and health with the odd post about other things that happen to me in my life or that I have strong feelings about. Therefore, and I have spoken about this before, I think I am heading for a re name and a re focus. Till then, please bear with the erratic nature of my posts.
06.18.08
Fame?
I seriously doubt it, but the Guardian online has used part of my post on compassion in a round up of blogs as we approach the 60th Anniversary of the NHS. It is interesting, and this happens when I read papers I have written at work in the past as well as some of the academic essays I wrote for my masters, that sometimes you re-read a passage and feel pretty pleased with yourself.
My own organisation is celebrating the great diamond jubilee (I think 60 is diamond) by holding a family fun day. I hope it is successful, though have a good excuse for not going (really I do), because next weekend I will be in Spain. Those who work in the NHS, and my own trust in particular still struggle to feel valued, but I guess events like this one may help. The problem I have with the NHS right now, is wondering how much longer it will be fit for purpose and affordable. The trouble is that we are far more discerning than we were in 1948, we expect more from those who provide services for us, we know more about what we should be able to expect and it is much more expensive. We are often told through the media that there needs to be a public debate on a particular topic, but if there was ever an important subject to be informed about and to get talking to others about this is it. Meanwhile I and my colleagues, clinical people now working in management will continue to try to challenge services to prove to us that what they do is the best value and most appropriate for the needs of the patient. Free this treatment might be but quality and value are what are important. What is more, going back to the compassion debate, we need to value each other and be caring of everyone who comes into contact with us.
06.14.08
Catching up
I ought to be much better at blogging by now, and what is more, if I can blog regularly even when completing a demanding masters course then I am not sure anything I do now is much of an excuse. Having said that, I do still have things to say, and amazingly more people have been reading particular posts even though I haven’t had much to add lately.
So onwards and upwards. I’ll try to be a better blogger (honestly I will). So what is new in the world of the NHS and also what is new in the world of Julie whose life is spent working in the NHS? This week at work has been particularly interesting on the work front. On Tuesday I attended the launch of a new strategy for midwifery supervision. This has led me to think about the difference in the accountability process for midwives against that of those of us who are nurses in the UK. Supervision of midwives is statutory and is considered pivotal in safeguarding and enhancing the quality of midwifery care provided to women and babies. In nursing, supervision is more of a desirable thing, it also adds to the practice of nursing, but there is no statutory duty for supervision. What is more, a supervisor of midwives is required to sign off the annual notification to practise of individual midwives. Nurses require only to sign off their own notification and to say that they themselves are fit to practice. A supervisor of midwives is an experienced practicing midwife who has undertaken a post graduate course, she (not being sexist but most will be women) will have self selected or been nominated but have gone thorough a process of selection by the local supervisory authority who in turn are accountable to the Strategic Health Authority and then the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
Some of the roles of the supervisor include:
- Providing supervision to approximately 15 midwives
- Signing off notification of intention to practise
- Providing guidance on maintaining registration and updating opportunities
- Investigate incidents
- Report to local Supervisory Authority where there is a professional conduct issues
- Be available to support midwives in discussing practice issues
- Provide 24 hour supervisory cover
- Arrange annual review meetings with midwives
- Engage and communicate with stakeholders
- Provide midwifery leadership
- Participate in audit
- Maintain records of supervisory activities
I understand why supervision of midwives is important, and I also understand the increased risks associated with their practice over those of many nurses, but what I don’t understand fully is why there is nothing like it for any nurses at all in the UK. I’d welcome comments from other nurses on this one.
06.02.08
Here we go again
The NHS is a tricky place. Not only do we have to put up with targets, policies, protocols and people who make it their business to stop people getting on with their ordinary jobs of work but we also have people who apparently think nurse bloggers are a bad idea and who decide it is a good idea to out them. The great Mousie or Mouse Thinks has apparently been outted. There are few enough ordinary clinical people blogging and now it looks like there is to be another less. Mousie blogs about life as an Emergency Department sister, she tells us just how meeting the 4 hour target affects her and others like her, she tells us life at the sharp end as it is. She has little time for some of those jobs worth managers we all know and love to hate. I guess this might be what people don’t like, the idea that someone somewhere will tell the truth.
I have posted little lately. As I have mentioned before, when you have a job that few others do, when you could be easily identified by your bosses and by their bosses it makes you cagey. I started this blog to tell people what it was like working for the NHS in post millennium Britain and to be honest it gets increasingly difficult to do just that. The question for me now is should I continue as I am and mainly write about my life in terms of work, with a little bit of general opinion on healthcare policy thrown in with comment about family life or should I get on and change my focus? Should I wait until I am the next mousie? Or should I be proactive and take a new direction. The jury is out for me, but mean while I offer you this.
20 Ways To Keep A Healthy Level Of Insanity
1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car with Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.
2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don’t Disguise Your Voice.
3. Every Time Someone Asks You to do something, ask If They Want Fries with that.
5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks. Once everyone has gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.
6. In the Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write ‘For Marijuana’.
7. Finish All Your sentences with ‘In Accordance With the Prophecy’.
9. Skip down the hall Rather than Walk and se e how many looks you get.
10. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is ‘To Go’.
12. Sing Along At The Opera.
14. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area and Play tropical Sounds All Day.
15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can’t Attend Their Party Because You have a headache.
17. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream ‘I Won! I Won!’
18. When Leaving the Zoo, Start Running towards the Parking lot, Yelling ‘Run For Your Lives! They’re Loose!’
19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner, ‘Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.’
20 And The Final Way To Keep A Healthy Level Of Insanity .
E-mail this to Someone To Make Them Smile.
It’s Called … THERAPY
05.09.08
Rounding up the week
For a short working week (4 days one of which has only just started) I am feeling incredibly weary. Summer seems to have arrived early, which is no bad thing since we have suffered a miserable end to winter and most of spring; rain, hail, wind often all in one day. What is more my week has felt a little odd. From the person who found my blog through searching to purchase the ability to inseminate their chihuahua (you know that kind of small dog) which, while I know a variety of things, that is not one of them. Then there was a very strange dream which involved me flying off somewhere not too far away (it was a short flight) and then finding myself in the kitchen of Kim from Emergiblog where she was holding fort to a number of men eating breakfast (sorry kim, but that is the only bit I remember!)
Work is incredibly busy, as a number of projects I have been working on come to fruition. I have discovered the power of the director - I might email and phone someone till I am blue in the face but I will still get no where, while the director sends one email and gets a response so immediate it makes me want to cry! I know lots of responsibility comes with that kind of job, but oh to have that kind of power! My other observation is that a blackberry is incredibly useful if you are out and about a lot as I have been and will be today, but it causes your inbox to be a complete mess when you actually do get to the office. I definitely need to spend some time sorting it out since I can no longer find anything and I like to pride myself with keeping it spick, span and pretty lean.
So there we are as another weekend approaches, the questions to be posed are: will I be able to get my hubby into the garden to do some work there? Plus, will we go to the Apple shop to buy that new ipod touch I covert? Work is important, but I am happy to leave it at the office when it comes to 5pm ish this evening!
03.23.08
The world of the cat at Easter
Found this great cartoon, which if you have a cat or know cats you will relate to. Cartoon by Simon Tofied. Link found here
03.14.08
I’ve been very lax on the blogging front
I seem to have been experiencing one of those periods of time when other things have got in the way of blogging. It is not that I am short of ideas, just that I have either been too tired and weary of an evening or else had no time to get the ideas down onto this blog. Over the weekend though I intend to catch up with news, and to write about a few things that seem (in my opinion and the opinion of others) to be wrong in the NHS. So, watch this space and as they say; patience is a virtue.
03.06.08
As usual these have me to a tee!
How You Life Your Life |
 You are honest and direct. You tell it like it is. You’re laid back and chill, but sometimes you care too much about what others think. Your friends tend to be a as quirky as you are - which is saying a lot! You tend to always dream of things within reach - and you usually get them. |
02.29.08
look before you Leap!
Today is a once in four year event, so it seems only right that I post a quick blog about it. I’d spend longer and write more, but the busy week continues; I have been away for two days facilitating a course and now I am off with the girls from work.
Three things about today:
My husbands uncle is 17 today (work that out for yourself)
Apparently we technically work for free today if monthly paid. Except that there are less working days this year than last anyway due to the dates on which the weekdays fall (maths so obviously I don’t understand it)
A woman can ask a man to marry her today. I of course am already married so best not do that, plus if a woman wants to ask a man to marry him on any other day then, why not!
So thats it, not much of a post, but why let your blog get in the way of life. More tomorrow when it will be March!
02.27.08
Driving over nails and other stuff
Since my last post on Friday I have been far too busy with real life to write any blog posts and when I haven’t been quite so busy I’ve been asleep or just plain knackered! When you have no social life, which most of the time I don’t then you forget that it is tiring, fattening but enjoyable. Maybe it might be true that if you are in your mid forties you are less able to as they say ‘burn the candle at both ends’ plus drink alcohol and dance without getting exhausted than you were in say your twenties. But maybe I just have no stamina. Here follows a bit of a diary like resume of the last few days:Saturday - Teen son, who at 17 seems unable to use a bus persuaded me to take him to town so that he could bank his birthday loot and have his birthday watch adjusted to fit his skinny wrists. Being the kind mother, who needed to buy a couple of things I of course did my duty, getting back just before we were due to leave for our weekend away. Hubby and I managed to get away shortly before 2pm and reached Rochester shortly after 3pm. A nice hotel actually, closely situated to Asda in case you might need any shopping (I didn’t). We unpacked, then headed to the bar for a couple of drinks before heading off to the shower and getting into the glad rags. Hubby scrubbed up well and looked pretty good in his dinner suit. In to the bar at 6.15 (early, yes I know) we met up with the cousins and aunt and uncle, had another drink then headed into the function room. My mistake here was not to appreciate that the food portions would be bordering on tiny and therefore not to adjust the amount of red wine already going down my throat. Still at the time this did not seem to be much of an issue. After dinner there was dancing, a raffle at which I won a smoothie maker (and a good one at that). Hubby who had worked in the morning only made it to around 11.30, but I didn’t get to bed until almost 1am.
Sunday - It was immediately clear that I had a hangover. Sadly I had no analgesia with me and Asda does not open till about 10am on a Sunday or I’d have gone shopping. Breakfast in the hotel was a bit of an anticlimax, it looked good and certainly the sausages tasted good but the rest of it was cold. Plus my body could only really cope with coffee (4 cups of it helped) and toast. If only I ever followed my own advice about the evils of drink, because then I’d never be hung over again!
We left the hotel just after 10 and headed west and then south until we reached Shaftesbury. We passed Stonehenge along the way, but hubby refused to stop on account of it being just a ‘load of stones’. What can you say to that. There followed a great family afternoon (mine this time), with my god mother who is now 70 and many of my aunts, uncles and cousins. We all met in a pub (diet coke for me), had sunday lunch in my cousin’s cafe and then chatted, ate birthday cake and chatted more. Just after 7pm we set off home, hubby in the back of the car as he apparently needed sleep (beer, his football team losing plus general tiredness) and teen son (who had arrived with my parents) in the front. An hour later and travelling down a dark road I don’t know we apparently ran over a nail or some other sharp object and got ourselves a puncture. What followed was a bit of a saga; fed up slightly enibriated hubby who wanted to sleep but instead found himself in the middle of a dark cold place changing a tire, a spare wheel that Reuault seems to want to keep located under the car rather than where it needed to be, me who managed to park up on a grass verge and who apparently drove over a nail on purpose and a calm and helpful teenager who now knows how to change a tyre.
Monday - Rather than remain in bed as I would have liked, I set off bright and early to be reminded how to facilitate a course (this takes place tomorrow and Friday). Learning stuff, having to pay attention and having to drive an hour each way doesn’t make you any less tired than you already are. Hubby was just as happy as ever when I got home since he needed 3 tyres for various reasons and is now £200 lighter.
Tuesday - We both took a day’s annual leave to go out with my brother and sister in law to see the Al Murray pub landlord TV programme being made in London. Today’s sagas included delayed and cancelled trains (apparently a fatality up the line), 2 hours spent queuing in the freezing cold close to the thames, and my sister in laws constant complaints about everything (ranging from my brother to the distance between the train lines on the underground and train delays being caused by this Labour government!). Al Murray though was good and perhaps I might be seen on TV on Friday!
So there you have it. Life has been fun, I have experienced a little drama and stood in the cold too many times. I ache right now, and could do with more sleep - roll on the weekend!
02.17.08
When you don’t know what to post about
Then it is meme time:
Your Brain is 67% Female, 33% Male |
 Your brain leans female You think with your heart, not your head Sweet and considerate, you are a giver But you’re tough enough not to let anyone take advantage of you! |
02.16.08
How did you find your way here?
Statistics can sometimes be fun. WordPress is great at providing a few of those - numbers of visitors, referrals and out clicks and of course search terms used to get to the site. The top 10 all time search terms for Lifeinthenhs are:
All Time
| Search | Views |
|---|---|
| what does a nurse do | 588 |
| what does a nurse do? | 355 |
| ka | 337 |
| pink | 262 |
| daffodils | 176 |
| things to write about | 163 |
| celtic knot | 122 |
| life in the nhs | 121 |
| madeleine mccann | 72 |
| professional boundaries | 65 |
Which go to show you that what you call a post is important as are some of the pictures you place on your blog posts because in the main they seem to be the two main ways people chance upon you (or else return without necessarily knowing the name of your blog).
In early 2006 I wrote a post called - What does a nurse do in 2006, and this essentially has been my most read post. Partly because a university that teaches nurses appeared at one time to advise their students to read the post. Second most attractive was a picture of a Pink Ford Ka, which I wrote about having seen one in my local high street and being amazed not just by the sight of the car itself, but also by the pink fluffy seats and other girlie decorations within it.
Recently lots of people have been using the term ‘things to write about’ which suggests a search for inspiration, so you can only hope that those people find whatever they are looking for and that I provide that for them!
Madeleine McCann who I have written about twice on this blog, is sadly still missing. The way in which she disappeared, the way in which the press picked up the story and her parents desire to keep the story in the spot light have contributed to this.
So there you have it. a pointless, but interesting post for a Saturday. But then we can’t always think of what to write about and have to look somewhere for inspiration. Sometimes that comes from other blogs and sometimes that comes from within!
02.09.08
Well what do you know?
Your Lucky Underwear is Orange |
 You have an intense personality and crave extreme emotional experiences. And your lucky orange underwear will help you take it to a whole new level. Adventure and danger don’t phase you - in fact you enjoy dicey situations. You’re the first to take a risk, and the first to get the payoff. And while your risks sometimes result in great rewards, they also sometimes result in devastating failures.If you want to have intense moments without always risking all you have, put on your orange underpants. They’ll help you experience life with rich emotions, no matter what you’re doing. |
