 Hi everyone and welcome back to another vlog. My name is Claire Carmichael and I'm a newly qualified general practice nurse. And I'm also a GPN ambassador. And my role as an ambassador for the GPN SNN is to spread the message and share information and support student nurses and newly qualified nurses to think about becoming a general practice nurse basically, but for them to have a think about that being their first choice career stop when they're qualified because not many people think about it and it's something that we're really passionate about as a whole team of us. There's loads of us and we're so passionate about doing this and helping other people. So today's vlog is talking about the things you need as a general practice nurse. What are my go-to things to have? And to help me go through this, I've literally got my backpack ready. This is my backpack. I advise, get a bag, a really good bag to fit everything in especially if you're a newly qualified nurse or newly going into general practice as well. You're going to need a big bag for all of your notes, all of your extra materials and books and pens and everything. This is my choice of backpack. That's the minute. So let's have a look. So the first thing I've pulled out scissors. I collected a whole load of these scissors as a student nurse and these I think are my last pair I have because I do take them to work and use them for like cutting up this paper for appointment cards and things like that. Like just random little things. I will always have a pair of scissors. I have a pen. This is one of my newest pens. General practice nursing across Wessex. That is where I'm working. The next thing I'm going to show you is my folder. This is my folder. I know it's a mess, guys. Please don't judge me on this. But on the front of my folder when I take my paper out that I've thrown in there, I have got some quotes and this is a must have for any nurse just to remind yourselves that you're doing amazing and to sort of be kind to yourself because we can be very, very critical of ourselves. So I wanted something to remind me, you know what? I've got this. I'm going to do okay. So that's something I look at every single day and it just keeps me on track. So find something that motivates you and take that. The next thing I advise you to get is this because you're going to be doing some gloves and this is the order of draw. So they're coloured bottles, what they're for and stuff like that. Get to know your bottles and what you're doing in general practice. This is my go-to thing every single day for bloods. It's amazing. You just, if you Google this, this will come up and you can download your own version and print it off. The next thing I have is this, the routine childhood immunization. So there's two lists from January 2020 and there's pre-January 2020. So before that, there's two different vaccine schedules. So download both of those that all on NHS. Look it up. Know your baby immunizations, when they're scheduled for. And yeah, it's just that go-to thing again that I always have. I'm not doing baby immunizations at the minute, but I'm getting my head around it. And not just baby immunizations, but you're going to need to know a lot about vaccines. On the government website, if you Google the Green Book government, then it will come up a whole vaccine list. And there's sort of guidelines around vaccines and when people should be having vaccines and all of that sort of stuff. So have a look at that Green Book on the government website. And whilst we're here, of course, the nice guidelines. The nice guidelines are there for everything. Make sure you use and abuse this for wound management, for leg ulcers, things like your long-term health conditions and what's your first-line treatment for hypertension. There's a really good thing on the nice guidelines on that for asthma, for diabetes, all the long-term health conditions. You need to know about them and the first-line treatments and what the evidence says as well behind it. So have a look at the nice guidelines. Next, we have my general practice nursing induction template. Excuse that. I don't know what that is. But this is, if you have a look on the QNI or put the links below, QNI have created this amazing template and it's full of resources and all sort of general practice nursing related. So things like, let me just skip, there's a competency checklist there for you. There is some little diagrams. So here you go. Like so. It's just full of amazing, amazing things that you can sign off or get signed off and check that you're doing everything that you should be doing as a nurse going into general practice if you haven't done that before. It's amazing. Next, we have the most exciting one of all, of course, a wound formulary handbook. So this one is specific to my local area. I'm not 100% sure if you can get this online. This is something that was sort of given to me and I've had a Google and I can't find this online anywhere. If you find it though, let me know. But this is really, really good. It's just like a little handbook to show you what types of dressings should be going on, what types of wounds. Let me just get one to just show you quickly, like this. So it's really, really good for that sort of thing. So that is my go-to thing. However, I have found something online from somewhere called Active Heal Academy. This free book is amazing. It's so, so, so good. It's got types of wounds and then it'll go through all the explanations. It's got different types of dressings. It's got explanations of different categories of pressure ulcers. It's so good and there's different products as well at the back. There's different products and what product for what type of wound as well. It's just really, really good. If you go on ActiveHeal.com, I think it is, or Google ActiveHeal Academy, you can get your free guide online. And last but not least, you will have patients who are young that you'll be seeing babies, you'll be seeing children. So it's a really good idea to have some fun things like stickers and certificates that you can print off for them for being a good girl or boy or person, a little tiny person. I have got recently some unicorn scrubs. I know unicorn scrubs. Currently, they are being used for my home visits just because I wanted an extra uniform for that extra level of protection for our shield patients during COVID. But once all this is done and over with, I'm going to, and when I'm trained to do my baby immunizations, I'm going to use these. I'm going to use these for my baby immunizations. And I hope, or if I know I've got children coming in and just hope that they cheer them up, distract them a little bit and yeah, make them love nurses because they don't like nurses when you're giving them injections. It's not nice. But yes, just get some fun things for your patients. Oh, two extra things. Last things. I promise guys, and that is it from me. Water bottle. Make sure you stay hydrated. It can be very easy to forget to drink. Very fortunate where I work. As long as you have a closed water bottle or a travel cup that's got a lid on it, we can have drinks in our rooms as long as they're away from the computer. So very, very fortunate. I've got a water bottle and a flask that I keep on me and I sip it in between patients. So stay hydrated guys. Don't go dehydrated on me. And the last thing, comfy shoes. Like people think that GP nurses spend their life sat down and actually you are busy. You're on your feet. You're up and down all of the time. You are very, very busy. So you're going to need some comfy shoes. So get yourself some comfy shoes. And my shoes at the minute I've changed from the clarks to these. Toffelin. If you have a Google of that, they do amazing nurses. These are specifically designed for nurses. They come in a range of different insoles to protect your feet and your legs. They are incredible. And they are the comfiest things I've ever worn. And I've had these for a couple of months now and they're just brilliant. So that's it from me guys. Thank you so, so much for joining in as always. I hope I've given you some little tips or hints to what you might need if you're going into general practice, what sort of things to take with you and fill your bag up with. Those are just my go to things, but everyone is completely individual and different people have different things and different ways of keeping themselves organised. So just do whatever makes you happy, basically, and it's going to keep you going as a general practice nurse. And every single practice as well is completely different. So everyone will have different stuff that they can and can't do. So it's really important to look up your own practice as well and see if you can do these things like the scrubs, for example, can you wear scrubs? My practice is really supportive of stuff like this. It's amazing. So yeah, so find out what they do and be the best nurse you can be regardless of what's in your bag.