What nursing work involves

Studying at university is all about taking responsibility: you are no longer at school or college, where someone is keeping you motivated and nagging you to keep to deadlines. Similarly, studying to become a nurse is like no other university course, as you are expected to work shifts as well as attend lectures, seminars and tutorials. Coupled with this, nurses are required to submit assignments and case studies, have competencies signed off in the workplace, produce refl ective pieces and attend ‘bedside’ teaching sessions! There is also the nursing portfolio in which a student keeps all certifi cates and other paperwork, ready for attending interviews for nursing jobs, and for the Nursing and Midwifery Council requirements beyond.

Keep with it: nursing is a wonderful, rewarding job, with so many branches in whichever area takes your fancy, such as adult nursing, maternity, paediatric nursing, mental health nursing, learning disabilities, district nursing, working in clinics and GP surgeries, specialising in cardiology, high dependency, orthopaedics, neurosurgery…

Branch of nursing What’s involved?

Adult nursing

• Adult nursing Being part of a busy multidisciplinary team
• The use of initiative and observation
• Working in a demanding and fast‐changing environment 
• Assessing
• A willingness to take responsibility for people’s well‐being
• Continued learning throughout your career

Mental health nursing 

• Autonomy in planning and delivering care in a healthcare team
• Opportunities to specialise in areas such as drug or alcohol misuse
• The ability to empathise with people
• The use of excellent communication skills
• Liaising with the patient’s family or carers
• Dealing with occasional aggression in a sensitive and effective way

Children’s nursing

• The ability to work with those who may be too young to express what’s wrong
• An awareness that a child’s health can rapidly take a turn for the worse and manage the situation
• Using communication skills other than words
• Working in partnership with the patient’s parents, carers and/or siblings
• Parent, carers and/or sibling education

Learning disability nursing

• The use of patience, sensitivity and excellent interpersonal skills
• The willingness to be adaptable, fl exible and act as advocate for those you are supporting
• The ability to work in a demanding and stressful environment
• Great satisfaction when someone has learned a new skill

District nursing

• Working with a variety of people as part of a team, such as GPs and social services as well as working alone
• Good organisational skills
• Helping patients with personal hygiene
• Carrying out health checks and delivering health promotion programmes
• Patient education
• Monitoring health

Neonatal nursing

• Being a source of support to the baby’s family
• Taking an active role as part of the multidisciplinary
  

  team in looking after the child 
• Empathy
• The competence to work in a busy, technical environment

Health visiting

• Working with people who have disabilities or chronic health problems
• Supporting new mothers in the care and development in their babies
• Health promotion
• Good organisational skills
• The ability to work independently for much of the time
• Working in occasional challenging situations

Practice nursing

• Health screening
• Family planning
• Treating small wounds
• Assisting with minor operations and procedures
• Running vaccination clinics
• Managing well‐woman clinics
• Supporting the healthcare team in monitoring health conditions, e.g. diabetes

Prison nursing

• Delivering health care in a custodial setting
• The use of excellent interpersonal skills
• Developing position and professional relationships with prisoners
• Dealing with substance abuse and/or mental health problems

School nursing

• Carrying out screening programmes
• Providing health‐related information
• Administering immunisations
• Providing health and sex education
• A non‐judgemental approach
• Running health promotion or drop in surgeries

Midwifery

• Being a source of support in preparing women for 
  delivery of new life
• Working in partnership with clients throughout all stages 
  of pregnancy, labour and the early post‐natal period
• The ability to work independently: in the community, 
  clinics, children’s centres, GP surgeries
• Working as part of a multidisciplinary team
• Good organisation skills
• Good interpersonal skills
• Working in occasional challenging situations