 Hi everyone and welcome back to the sexual health series so in today's vlog I just wanted to go over actually what a sexual health nurse does what a HCA does what the doctors do the consultants do and the different roles that are in sexual health and I think you'll be surprised. So let's start with the healthcare assistance. I've been a healthcare assistant within sexual health for almost five years now it's gonna be five years in March it is my longest role my longest job and I've loved it I love it so much it's such a great job I've had so much fun I love the team and it's just a fantastic place to work. So as a healthcare assistant I am a chaperone for the patient which is basically you are that's third person in the room or if a patient's been examined and you're there to not only protect the patient but to protect the staff as well because if there's any form of allegations towards the patient or from the patient towards the doctor or the nurse that you're with you're that third witness for both sides of them so it's really important to be there for that person and just make sure that everything is legit everything's okay and also you are that person that's going to reassure the patient that's going to calm the person down if they're nervous if they're feeling worried anxious you know you're going to grab the tissues if the patient's crying because sometimes they can be upset when they come into clinic so you are that third person if needed in whichever way emotionally or physically if possible. Also when I'm doing my chaperoning I'm in during examinations quite intimate examinations is a sexual health clinic so if anyone's got any symptoms then we have to well not me but the nurse or the doctor that's qualified has to examine the patient make sure there's nothing on towards happening sometimes they need to take an extra swab if there's extra discharge or anything like that or if there's a sore they'll have to swab that and so I'm that person that sort of hands them the swabs to take or there's like these cultures that we take as well for gonorrhea and thrush so we will be that person that sort of stands there holding it while they do the swabs and then they wipe it onto the culture and then we also label the swabs we have to make sure the date of birth is correct on everything and all of the numbers correspond on everything because when patients come into us we don't use their names on anything it's completely confidential so we just go by date of birth and their specific number that they have been given and they have been registered with they're the only two numbers this isn't an NHS number this is a completely separate system so we need to make sure they've got the right number they've got the right date of birth that matches the sample to the form that's printed off to send to the lab to make sure all corresponds and the records are updated and there's no problems when they receive the results of that I packed the samples as well I clean all of the bed and the area down I set it up for the next patient I stock up the trolley I check the dates on things to make sure nothing's out of date as a health care assistant I am trained to do vena puncture blood switches from here so I've been trained to do bloods I did this training within I think the first month maybe even the second month of starting as a HCA there and we went through sort of all of the theory part so we watched a video about taking vena puncture bloods what the risks are involved and things like that and then we had this fake arm which was completely black so you couldn't actually see so that we had to feel for the vein and practice that way because when taking bloods it can be difficult to see veins or feel for veins so they sort of make that fake arm as difficult as they can for you and we sort of practice by feeling for the vein and you have to feel for that spongy area that sort of bounces back and you think oh yeah okay that could be a vein and then you're going in so we got to practice on the arm until we were confident and then we got to practice on real people I warned the patient before I said okay this is my first time I have had a lot of practice I'm feeling confident are you happy for me to have it go and luckily I've had no problems and at the start they're all like yeah why not you've got to start somewhere so I was quite lucky in that way and I've been doing bloods all day every day when I'm at work for the past five years and to be fair I think I'm quite good at taking bloods it's one of the things one of the skills that I am actually good with is bloods but I love taking bloods I love reassuring patients I love getting the nervous patients the needle phobic patients because I'm quite a calm person I think so I like to just be that person that just calms them down reassures them take the blood done hopefully give them faith in having their bloods taken sometimes I've had to jump on reception as well because sometimes if there's a receptionist off sick or if something's happened and for whatever reason there's no reception I've had to jump on and be actual receptionist as well to help the team out and that's just what we do as a team in sexual health we all help each other out so I just wanted to start with start to finish so basically my shift usually starts at 9 a.m. sometimes I'll finish at 5 p.m. sometimes I'll finish at 7 p.m. it just depends what clinic come out what day it's at and if they need me basically because I just do bank shifts at the minute so I'm just doing extra as and where I'm needed and so when I go in I will check all of my trolley make sure it's all stocked up I will put out everything that the rooms need for the day so any swabs that they need any cultures any like stock up on paper and labels all of the paper side of things make sure the bed's ready make sure there's enough couch roll for the bed make sure enough gloves aprons all of that jazz so that we're ready we're set for the day and we're ready for our first patient to come in okay so the nurse will be the person that speaks to the patient and they will when the patient comes through that door they have to do the initial assessment why the patients hear what their needs are and sometimes it's not just sexual health sometimes there's a lot more going on at home there might be safeguarding issues if it's a young person or even if it's a vulnerable adult there could be something that's happened like a rape there could be an unwanted pregnancy there could be a wanted pregnancy that's a surprise and they're really happy about it which is always nice there could be that there could be abuse at home there could be abusive husbands partners family members there's so much that can go on and you literally do not know what's going to happen when that person sits down in your chair because you don't know the person you don't know the background you need to get all of this information at the start and sometimes they just just they just blurt out all of this information you know like okay we really need to take a step back and actually help this patient so we have to refer them on to put the safeguard in team sometimes mental health services sometimes the police have to get range sometimes we have to call an ambulance we've had that we've had a few people come in with actually ectopic pregnancies and they didn't know about it they just come in with all of this tummy pain and stuff and then when we've examined them and then the pregnant and then we've just been like oh my god so there's actually a lot to think about when you think about sexual health it's not just about testing STI's it's actually a whole holistic picture that we're assessing and it's quite some days can be challenging and when I say challenging I mean it challenges you emotionally because the sort of things that some people have to go through and you don't really think about that so they come in and they tell you all the problems and what's going on at home and what's happened or if there's a safeguarding or if there's a rape or something and you just your heart just breaks it's so it's so emotional and you do get those days luckily nine times out of ten the days are good but you know luckily they've come to see us and they can get the help that they need and we put them in the right direction we never let someone leave without getting them help and making sure they're okay because that's what we have to do as nurses so once you've done the initial assessment what the patient's here for then you just explain to them about the risks involved you explain to them about infections how to prevent infections you're going to be talking about the window periods like I talked about in the last video so just going through those and making them more aware about things making them think about their own sexual health just making sure they're safe basically so once you've gone through all of the details with them explain to the nurse or explain to them what's going to happen what tests we're going to be doing today get consent of course to do all of the tests and then they will hand them over to me so the nurse will hand over to me and then I will hand them the swabs if it's a self swab if they've got no symptoms or anything they take their self swab and then I will do the blood test and so I will give them the swabs I'll show them how to take the swabs from oral rectal vagina or anywhere I will then once they've done all of the swabs I will then take their blood so then the nurse will be in charge of doing things like examinations given out treatment for health promotion referring on to places they'll be in charge of doing all of the risk assessments making those phone calls if they need to phone anybody for the referrals for the safeguarding teams anything like that they'll do the follow-ups if there's any follow-ups needed sometimes as a nurse you might be sitting on the phone to speak to patients answer any questions and go through maybe some telephone consultations for any contraception that they might want so our nurses and doctors not only just deal with sexual health but we deal with contraception as well so the nurses and doctors will advise anyone to if they don't want to get pregnant what contraception they can be taking they'll do a whole assessment and the risks of taking contraception because with certain contraception you have more risks of things like certain cancers and strokes and things so they have to make sure that you're safe for that particular type of contraception and they'll do a whole assessment based on your family history your history and everything like that to put you on the right form of contraception for you that meets your needs and miminises the risk as much as possible so to go alongside that once you've decided your method of contraception depending on what you want so if you want an implant or a coil they are actually procedures so they'll be fitted into a procedure clinic which is again I help with those so in the room you'll have the nurse or the doctor that fits the implant or the coil and then you'll have me who's the assistant I'll set up the trolley I'll get everything ready everything's completely aseptic non-touch technique is completely sterile so I will be sort of making sure everything is clean everything is sterile and then I will just hand over the sterile trolley completely so I don't touch it nothing on the trolleys touched I just open it and let it drop onto the trolley and then the doctor will scrub up they'll put on the sterile gloves and then they will be able to touch the trolley and get what they need for that particular implant or coil and then I'm there to support the patient make sure they're okay because a lot of people are nervous with these sort of procedures so I'll be there to support and reassure and talk to the patient take their mind are completely off what's going on they do everything the nurse does so they see the patient assess the patient go through everything examine the patient so the doctors have a lot more God what we're trying to say like the prescribing I want to say prescribing rights but it's not prescribing rights but they can prescribe a lot more medications than a nurse can so there'll be certain medications that a nurse can't prescribe but a doctor can so the doctors will have to authorize and prescribe all of the medications for the nurse if they need it and then the nurse will give it or administer but the doctors mainly do pretty much what the nurses do they just have a lot more they do have that just a little bit more knowledge with some things they can do by manual examinations which is a physical examination that checks for pelvic inflammatory disease I'll put some links below to all of this information as well so if you're interested in reading up on pelvic inflammatory disease give it a go have a look but the doctors are very good with their examinations the symptom management's prescriptions all of that the doctors are fantastic at that place and they're really really nice to talk to we all get along and we all have a laugh they're just they're all great the consultants are more they have their own set clinics so a couple of the consultants will have like their own clinics for thrush because a lot of women have a lot of problems with thrush and bacteria vaginosis so they will have the special clinic for those people that constantly get reoccurring it because they're trying to manage it and they're trying to help the patient so they'll have their own clinics that just purely run for that there's a dermatology clinic as well that deals with all of the skin problems that goes on down below believe it or not you do get skin problems you can get anything anywhere you can get on your body you can get down there so there's a special clinic for that as well we have special clinics for syphilis follow-ups for PrEP because we're undertaking the PrEP trial at the minute so there has to be a clinic for that to manage those patients and make sure that they're okay and the consultants also do they sort of lead research as well so they'll do like all the syphilis stuff HIV gonorrhea they're really really fantastic consultants they're really good I've worked with a couple of them in these special clinics and it's just amazing it's really nice to see it's so interesting to sit with them and listen to how they are with patients and how knowledgeable they are it's fantastic the psychosexual counsellors deal with people that have those intimacy problems some people have problems with erection they can't last for long there'll be females as well that have a lot of pain during sex when they shouldn't be sometimes there is a more psychological underlying reason for these things so we have the psychosexual counsellors who sort of assess patients and manage that and give them help and advice on how they can improve and just have a healthier sex life I suppose and to be honest I've never sat in on any of these consultations so I'm not a hundred percent certain on the ins and outs of it I just know roughly what they do so I can't really say much on that I'm really sorry we also have a team of young persons counsellors so the young people counsellors they are fantastic they're so lovely the ladies that we've got they're amazing and they just work specifically with young people and any problems or anything or safeguarding issues they deal with the council inside of it for that and they're just amazing we also have our regular psychologists we have regular counsellors we have a team of health advisors as well that deal with everything they deal a lot with the results they do a lot of sort of motivational interviews as well because people that haven't quite a lot of risky sexual behaviors they sort of need that little bit of motivational interview to sort of make them see that actually what you're doing is a little bit unsafe there's better ways of doing these things have you thought about this if you thought about this and just also trying to find the reasons to why they're taking such risks with the personal life like that so I mean again I've never sat in on one of those consultations but I imagine they do an amazing job and it must be quite tough to have those conversations with people but they're all fantastic I love it we have their own office in our Whittle Street clinic and they are amazing they do a lot of research studies at the minute they're doing the prep trial like I said and it's they're just fantastic the amount of research they do and the job that they do is incredible and research is a massive importance across the whole of health care so it's really good that they do this and they do all these studies and trials in our clinics and it's nice the patients take part as well they usually get like I think a 10 pound voucher or something like that if they take part in the trial so it's really good a nice little an incentive I think to get them interested into doing research so yeah they're a great team we also have a whole team of secretaries and admin staff reception we have our own housekeeping it's we've just got an amazing team here is sexual health so that is it I think I've told you everything about the roles hope I haven't missed anything I'm hope I'm doing these videos justice just amazing that you don't realise what goes on in sexual health and family planning because it's just there's so much information to give and there's so much variety that we do every single day no two days are the same it's just fantastic and the different roles and how we all come together as a team and support each other is just amazing I absolutely love sexual health and where I work so as always thank you so much for watching if you haven't subscribed give me a subscribe and see you next week