Nurses can work in different environments and settings, including hospitals, care homes, clinics, and schools. Their responsibilities also vary depending on where they work. Another factor that can affect nurses’ responsibilities is their qualifications. As different nurses hold different certifications, they also have different responsibilities. However, there are a few primary duties that every nurse has to perform regardless of where they work or the certification they hold.
Here are the seven essential responsibilities of a nurse:
1. Maintain Records
A nurse’s primary duty is to record a patient’s medical history and keep track of their treatment plan. In order to compile comprehensive records, nurses ask patients about their medical history to learn about previous surgeries and diagnoses. Nurses must also record every patient’s current medications and allergies.
If a patient’s treatment plan changes, the nurses are responsible for updating their medical charts accordingly. Compiling accurate medical records is a must-have skill for a nurse. Whether you wish to apply to a healthcare recruitment agency or directly to a hospital, you can’t get into the field without the proper skillset, so make sure to work on them.
2. Collaborate with Teams
Patient care is handled by a team of medical professionals assisted by nurses. By collecting information from patients, nurses provide support to the medical team. However, in order to collect information from patients, nurses must have excellent communication skills.
A nurse recruiter looks for an applicant’s excellent written and verbal communication skills. If you are still in nursing school, you can start improving your communication skills today. Excellent communication skills are important in almost every profession. However, you can’t survive a day without good communication skills in nursing. Only through these communication skills can you help medical teams administer the best patient care.
3. Conduct Physical Exams
When healthcare recruitment agencies advertise for nursing jobs, physical examinations are included in the list of duties. Regardless of your certification type, you must conduct physical examinations of patients at the beginning of their visits.
Physical examinations can include taking the patient’s temperature, checking their blood pressure, and monitoring their heartbeat. Sometimes, nurses may also have to test a patient’s reflexes. A physical exam conducted by a nurse helps the medical team determine a patient’s current condition.
4. Operate Medical Equipment
A healthcare agency may not mention in its job advertisement that it requires you to operate medical equipment, but that’s only because it’s a given. Every nurse learns how to use basic medical equipment in nursing school. These equipment can include thermometers, pulse oximeters, and blood pressure machines.
However, without proper practice, you wouldn’t be able to figure out your way around medical equipment. Since medical science is improving with time, healthcare agencies regularly arrange training sessions to help their nurses and care workers stay up-to-date.
5. Offer Support to Patients
A nurse’s most important responsibility is making patients feel heard and understood. The ability to provide support to patients will particularly come in handy when delivering challenging medical news.
Care homes in the UK often recruit nurses through nursing recruitment agencies, and one of their primary requirements is excellent listening skills. As a nurse, you will be the primary caregiver of numerous patients. If you make yourself available to them, they will feel comfortable during their stay at the hospital or care home.
6. Educate Patients
Although patients get treatment from medical professionals, there are certain basic tasks related to their illnesses that they will have to perform themselves. Nurses can educate patients on how to manage their symptoms and live their daily lives with an illness.
Nurses also explain the post-surgery home care routine to a patient’s family. In some cases, nurses also act as caregivers for patients in care homes. If you wish to work in a care home instead of a hospital, don’t forget to let the nurse recruitment agency know when you apply for a job.
7. Provide Bedside Care
In certain hospitals and all care homes, nurses are also responsible for providing primary bedside care. Bedside care often involves hygiene-related activities like helping the patients take a bath.
If you want to choose a nursing job according to its associated responsibilities, you can contact ESGO Healthcare Solutions and check out the available positions. This will help you avoid choosing jobs that don’t match your skill set.
