 Hi everyone and welcome back to the vlog. My name is Claire Carmichael and I am a newly qualified general practice nurse. So how are clinics going in GP land in the middle of this COVID pandemic? To be honest it's getting busier so we went really really quiet at the start of COVID and the pandemic and lockdown we went quiet. I think people were avoiding us which FYI everybody if you've got health problems you still need to see your GP you still need to go and see your nurse. So yeah so we were dead we were seeing like one or two patients per day each obviously but because of COVID and everything we did reduce our appointments however we were still seeing those urgent cases or anyone that really needed to be seeing we would see and last two weeks it has gone a little bit busier. It's putting it politely. People are demanding things again people are banging on the window people aren't happy because we're not opening our doors yet properly so they can sit in a waiting room which is unfortunate but COVID is still out there and as much as we want people to come in and sort out their health and things like that people need to be sensible and people need to realise that we're still in a pandemic really and COVID is still very much out there the numbers are still increasing the numbers are still there but you only have to look on the news to see that Spain's going into other lockdowns and it is you can see the second wave coming again and I think we're a few weeks behind the other countries so by the autumn time we could possibly potentially be in another lockdown so just be sensible guys okay it's safety first all of that jazz be sensible be safe but still see your GP something like that. So yes it's getting busier so I'm seeing quite a few patients now it can vary from day to day but it's gone up to 10 plus patients a day now we're spacing in between each one so that I can deeply in the room still and have enough time to do that we've got a one-way system now in clinic so patients will come in through the front door which is still locked so they're waiting in the car park still they check in through the window reception and then we go out and call them and they come through the main door and then they go out the back door so it's more completely one way we've got sticks on the floors with arrows to show people which direction to go still got the posters and things up about PPE and social distancing people are having to wear masks now coming into clinic but a lot of people were doing this anyway before it was made mandatory by the government this was already put in place sort of people were sort of coming in with their masks anyway even though they hadn't been told to do this I think they felt that using a mask was a far safer than not to and I completely agree nothing that you do that you can't be too over cautious with these things no one is going to sack you or have a go at you for being too cautious and being safer and that's something that's baffled me throughout this this whole chaos of a pandemic is people have been waiting for guidelines oh god we need to wait for the guidelines to come out we need to wait for Boris to tell us what to do you know infection control you are nurses and doctors and healthcare professionals this is to you guys anyone that's watching this that isn't in that then they might not know I'm not talking to you guys I'm talking about healthcare professionals here um people have sort of said oh I don't know whether to wear a mask or not and this was at the very start because we haven't had any guidelines but you know what we know infection control we know about viruses just because it's a pandemic doesn't change infection control and that's really really baffled me throughout the start of this pandemic to be honest but now everyone's wearing masks everyone's wearing full PPE it's safe it's lovely it's that extra level of protection so anyway sorry I keep going on around about other things anyway in clinic as a nurse we are seeing more patients now I've got a lot more blood tests coming in we're starting to see more routine stuff now and smear tests are back we're sort of slowly bringing in smear tests we have opened up our other clinic which was closed because that was closed at the start of lockdown um so we've opened that back up and we're seeing patients in there now so yeah so there's a few minor changes however we're still keeping safe if that makes sense so even though we're bringing a few more extra patients in we're still being safe we've still got the PPE we're still deep cleaning we're still doing as much as we can to protect people because COVID is still out there and most of our doctors and some of the advanced nurse practitioners are sort of remote working from home and doing a lot of telephone triages and doing a lot of things online they've got to set up online to do that from home and they find that works well I think and even in clinics um there's some doctors that can't see patients face to face at the minute so they're doing the phone calls from clinics as well and sort of managing things over the phone or doing video consultations for example and they I think they found it actually works quite well to be honest I think from what I've heard from patients as well patients are enjoying it a little bit more because they don't have to leave their house to speak to their doctor now so I think a lot of people are enjoying that type of change and however we do have doctors on that do see patients face to face still and just like us they're managing their time effectively and making sure they've got enough time to clean down in between patients but again they're only seeing the more urgent ones that really need to be seen so other exciting news other than work life is um I have been invited to be part of this is an informal kind of thing but I've been invited as part of the new gpn council slash board but there's loads of people from different regions there's so there's a mixture of people so I'm the newly qualified nurse of the group and then they'll have advanced nurse practitioners they'll have practice nurses people of different age ranges people of different ethnicities different genders like to get an overall view and this is a council where we will have regular meetings just to talk about general practice and what's going on and things that we can change for the better improvements that we can make I can't really go much into it or details like that because of confidentiality and all of that and I really really am passionate about maintaining confidentiality so even though I share things on youtube and things like that there will always be an element that I keep to myself and I keep private and there's a lot of things out that I do or I don't do or I think about or anything about my life that I don't put out there there's quite a lot out there that I don't put out there as much as I share a lot as well if that makes sense but yes I'm really excited to be part of this amazing team and hopefully we can work together and be absolutely amazing be the A team for general practice nursing yeah so as much as I can't share anything I can tell you that I'm part of it and it's going to be amazing and there's an absolutely amazing people on this team so yeah I'm really really excited about it but I can't go into too much detail so yeah but that's it on the other news I'm wearing my cavill nurses t-shirt not because it's my day off and I'm chilling this is why I look like this um but as you know every year I raise money for the cavill or cavill nurses charity they if you don't know who they are go back check my videos out I've done whole vlogs on this they raise money for to help out nurses when they're in financial hardship they also help out healthcare assistants and midwives they don't do students for some reason I'm not 100 sure but they need to get on this but yes every year I well the past couple of years I've climbed snowden to raise money for charity and I've raised money on bake sales as well we've done really really well actually the past couple of years has been amazing and this year obviously with the pandemic and everything and things being social distance and stuff we are looking at ways new ways to raise money for the cavill or cavill trust so yes we we've got a few ideas in mind um teaming up with amary as some of you know from my videos or if you go to bermic city university amary dodson is amazing um yes so we are going to be putting our heads together and thinking of some things to do differently so so my ideas so far is canoeing or kayaking 10k up sailing zip wiring all these really random different things but yes we are looking for some new challenges some exciting things so I hope you're all okay I hope you're all getting on amazing and I shall all see you next week for the graduation I might even make myself a little hot never know let's go