There's no I in team...

There’s always that one carer in every nursing home isn’t there? Or in my case there’s a whole bunch of them!

I’m back at the Sunshine Retirement Village (Charisma called it my quarterly bonus) and I was quite excited to see all the residents and the staff again. Well in the case of the staff that lasted all of five minutes after handover.

For reasons known only to them, they had decided to punish me for my absence for the past few weeks. How did I know this? The long silences, sideways glances and no break allocated for me of course!

I had a think about how to approach it while I did the morning meds. Thankfully the residents hadn’t been informed of the punishment conspiracy and they all seemed pleased to see me. It took a while longer to do the medication round as most people wanted to chat and I seemed to get caught up in adjusting stockings and untangling rollers from hair, but it didn’t matter, I would just start the dinner time meds a little later. By the end of the morning a cunning plan had taken up residence in my head….

I decided to play the carers at their own game. I know, not very mature but I needed to let them know that I was onto them.

Rita Ringleader (the one) was kind enough to inform me that they were short staffed today, so I would of course be expected to help the other carers do some of the doubles and they had to give two baths today, so I could help with that too.

They are so kind and generous like that.

I softly informed Rita that as the nurse in charge I would be busy doing the meds, the clinical tasks and dealing with the GP's all morning. It wasn’t exactly a lie, I had half a dozen messages from the surgery to ring them back about already. So I told her that their breaks would now be split up and staggered, gave an order for them to prioritise the doubles first and switch ends, so that each of them could all help each other. I also informed them I expected all the routine weights and fluid balance charts to be filled in correctly. Without giving them a chance to give any back chat, I told them all to get on with it and picked up the phone to emphasise my point.

My God they were not happy! They looked at me as if I was the Antichrist. But they did it regardless. I didn’t give them a choice.

After the morning medications I usually go in to the lounge to review care plans. Today's resident of the day was Mrs G. I was looking forward to reviewing her care because some of the plans were slightly out of date, her daily needs having changed. Being in the lounge I can catch up with the residents at the same time as observing whilst doing my paperwork, which frees the staff up to do some activities.

But not today! I went into the office and settled into the comfy chair. I kicked my shoes off and lined the contents of my lunch bag up in front of me like little soldiers; the compulsory egg mayo butty, the gratuitous piece of furry fruit and a family bag of Butterkist Popcorn (a girl’s got to keep her blood sugar up).

I got stuck into the care review and, lo and behold, not five minutes passed when Rita Ringleader barged in and asked me what I thought I was up to, as there was a lot to do. I slowly turned my head towards her, gave her ‘the look’ and then returned my attention to the care plan. Not a word spoken but oh how she got the message!

My teeth shook a bit when she slammed the door but a few strategically placed pieces of popcorn stabilised them. Round 1 to me!

Then at lunch time, I made an appearance in the dining room, really just to make sure that the staff were still there and hadn’t formed a picket line somewhere. I spoke to each resident and then I left, but not before clocking the look of absolute disbelief in Rita and her cronies’ eyes.

At lunch I normally like to support the carers with feeding etc before I start the dinnertime med round. It helps the carers and is nicer for the residents because they get more time to sit and eat, rather than being rushed. Again, not today!

It was time to remind the carers who the qualified nurse is and that it's their job to help me, not the other way around.

So I spent my afternoon catching up with other care plans and paperwork. Not the most exciting of activities, I would obviously have rather spent time with the residents, but none the less necessary.

After the tea time round the lounge felt like I’d walked into a morgue. The residents were all either asleep or sitting with their eyes glazed over, and to be honest the carers didn’t look much better.

Rita herself looked positively tearful and I just couldn’t help myself – I broke my sponsored silence.

When I whispered to her (it didn’t feel right talking given the sombre atmosphere) and asked what was wrong, she told me it had been an awful day and they had really struggled to help the residents in the way they normally would. It was in that moment that I realised that my day of mutiny had affected everyone.

I felt bad about the way I had dealt with things, the last thing I wanted was for any of that to happen, I certainly didn’t want patient care to suffer as a result; and there was no way that I could turn time back and give everyone, including myself, a better day.

So we talked it through. I told Rita I would love to help out where I can but I don’t appreciate being treated like a student on her first day. I have full responsibility for everything that is or isn’t done when I am on duty, so I expect to be the one saying what does and doesn’t

happen. But when we work together to help each other, it is just a better working environment for everyone and the residents get much better care as a result.

We hugged it out and both took responsibility for being idiots. It's pretty clear that from now on we will work much better together.

So as I sit here on the number 31 I make a vow to myself. Never will I play games again with people’s lives and never will I not face conflict with maturity. Furthermore, I’ve come to realise that the team is stronger than the individual, after all, there’s no I in team (but there’s two in idiot).

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