Extras · 1 of 4

A typical shift

Report at 7am and take handover on ten residents. Then it is washing, dressing, toileting and breakfast, moving fast because ten people all need you at eight o'clock. Mid morning you take vital signs and chart them. Someone falls and you are the first there. Lunch, more changing, more lifting, a family who wants to know why their mother seems quieter today. You are the person who notices that, and you tell the nurse. By 3pm your feet hurt and somebody has thanked you and somebody else has shouted at you.