Acronyms and Mnemonics


Been back online doing yet more Fire Safety, Manual Handling, Medicines Management, Deteriorating Patients (recognising and preventing rather than aiding and abetting) and a few others. Still a few to get through though. Soon I’ll have spent the best part of a week online applying, documenting, monitoring, recording and training. One day it will lead to some real face to face work – hopefully.

One thing I have been reminded of is that the NHS does like an acronym and a mnemonic. So far I have come across or been reacquainted with TRAK, NEWS2, GCS, AVPU, SBAR-D and the Sepsis 6 (good game for a boy band I know…). All useful, important and helpful once you know what they mean or how they work.

I communicated with a nursing colleague who has also offered to return to clinical practice after many years elsewhere. They felt that the service really had no idea what to do with them or where to put them. It seems that some NHS regions are throwing new returnees quite inappropriately into Intensive Care settings. Not sure that is good practice for the organisations or the professionals agreeing to this. If such an offer were made to me I know I would refuse. Any such post would be harmful to me, to patients and to colleagues, and not necessarily in that order. It would also be contrary to NMC guidance on professional practice and working within competencies.

Hopefully any offer that is made will be more realistic and include the opportunity to shadow, to learn and to develop.

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