60 seconds with Petra Francis
Our Ward Manager on Stratford at Newham Hospital on her golden rules to get our patients home for Christmas
How long have you been at Newham Hospital?
I joined in 2003 and, after a few years being seconded to the other hospitals, I returned to Newham in 2015.
What does your role involve?
I’m a Ward Manager on Stratford, which is an acute medical ward mainly for our patients with respiratory problems.
Making sure we are safe, that we are fully staffed, that our processes are in place and we are planning our patients’ journey through the hospital by attending board rounds and safety huddles are the main things I do each day.
It’s a really busy ward so I don’t stop most of the time
What are your three golden rules for getting our patients home for Christmas?
The whole team gets together for our board round at 10:30am every day. But before then we will have let the nurse in charge know what patients are ready to go home so by the time of the board round those patients who can leave are either in the discharge lounge or on their way to it.
We also have nurse-led discharges, and these are logged in the communications book the day before and prioritised.
Our pharmacist also attends the board rounds so they can plan TTAs for the next day. This means we don’t have to keep going back and forth to pharmacy.
What’s the best thing about working in a hospital at Christmas time?
In Newham we have a nice family feeling. Everyone knows each other so even though you’re away from your own family at Christmas you’re with your Newham family
And the most challenging?
Supporting our patients; it’s a distressing time for them being away from their family at Christmas so we make sure we’re there for them emotionally.
What one piece of advice will you follow for getting our patients home for Christmas?
You must work with your patient because they need to plan for going home too. So you must be transparent with them so they can arrange for child care and so on and escalate any issues early.
I’m lucky that I have a really supportive senior nurse who’s there for me when I need him to help me solve any problems.