Healthcare assistants (HCAs) work in hospital or community settings, such as GP surgeries, Nursing Homes, under the guidance and supervision of a qualified healthcare professional, usually, a Nurse. Sometimes staff working in HCA roles are known as nursing assistants, nursing auxiliaries or auxiliary nurses.
Duties vary depending on where they are based.
Hospitals and Nursing Homes:
- washing and dressing patients
- serving meals and helping to feed
- patients
- helping people to move around
- toileting
- making beds
- talking to patients and making them
- comfortable
- monitoring patients’ conditions by
- taking temperatures, pulse, respiration and weight
Health centres and GP surgery:
- sterilise equipment
- do health checks
- restock consulting rooms
- process lab samples
- take blood samples
- do health promotion or health education work
Skills and personal characteristics needed
To be a healthcare assistant, one need to be:- caring and kind
- cheerful and friendly
- willing to be hands-on with patients
- willing to do personal care tasks (washing, toileting, etc)
- able to follow instructions and procedures
- able to work in a team but use their own initiative
- good communication skills, including listening,organisational skills,observational skills