 Hi everyone and welcome back to the vlog. My name is Claire Carmichael and I am a general practice nurse. So just wanted to do this vlog because with the announcement of the lockdown, the cases of Covid are going up, the death rate is going up, it's going to be tough right now so I wanted to do this vlog to make sure that you as student nurses mainly get the right support and help and advice and everything that you need whilst out there and protecting yourself and your families. So as a student nurse if you're going onto your placement and they are testing their staff regularly for Covid then you should be included in those numbers. You should be getting regular testing as well as long as the staff. This has been made very publicly clear, there is letters and all sorts online publicly for you to see and take into your placement if you are struggling with this. Next PPE make sure you have got the right PPE for your placement and your patients. If you're dealing with Covid positive patients you're going to need some top PPE. I'm going to put all the links below which PPE you should have, which patients and when and hopefully that'll just help you out. There's a lot of guidance out there about PPE, what type of patients you should be using, what for. So just make sure that you've got the right PPE before stepping foot on a placement, make sure you are protected, stay safe guys and protect your family as well. Because as nurses we don't often think about ourselves and protecting ourselves, we automatically think about other people. I do it as well, I still do it today. I will only speak up if a patient is going to be affected, if patient safety is infected, anything like that, patient abuse. I will stand up and stick up for my patient, I will also stick up for my friends and my colleagues that I work with and student nurses which is why I'm here. But when it comes to myself I'm just like yeah whatever but anybody else I will fight for and I think that's just a normal thing that we do as nurses it's something we do but it's really really important, Covid is out there, we can die from this so it's really important that you get the right level of protection to keep yourself safe, protect yourself from Covid and also protect your family that you might be going back home to. So just some little tips about keeping yourself safe and what is out on placement. So the first thing you want to do before you go on to your placement, ring them, make contact with them like I've said before and find out what PPE is there, what type of patients they've got just to give you a bit more awareness of what you're walking into on your first day and just make sure that that PPE and all of the safety measures are put in place before you step foot on that ward, that's the number one thing to do. Maintaining that two meter rule is another one, I know it's very very hard as healthcare professionals we can't physically keep two meters away from patients and things like that because we have to do observations and injections and all sorts of personal care and so this is more about where you can try and keep two meters so if you're in the staff room for example try and keep that space between you all, staggering breaks out throughout the day maybe so that people are going at different times so that not everyone's sort of communing in the staff room, make sure that you're staying safe in that staff room and around the nurse's station and things like that just keeping the space, wearing your full PPE unless you're going out to eat your lunch or anything like that just make sure you're just following that guidelines and that will hopefully help a little bit. Hand washing, hand washing, hand washing, everyone is sick to death of hearing what hand washing but I've got to add in this, make sure you're hand washing all of the time properly with hot soapy water, get it done using alcohol gel in between where you can't and then as soon as you see a sink wash your hands, don't just rely on build-up alcohol gel because eventually it's going to get really sticky, your hands are going to feel awful, you need to be washing that those hands as soon as you see some hot soap and water as much as possible even if you think that you don't need to do your hands because they're clean do it, it doesn't matter just do it because these type of viruses sit on the surface, there's not something you see with your eyes so you don't know it's there until you've got it in the body so it's really important you wash your hands constantly and if you've got a ward full of non-covid patients or you think they're non-covid because they haven't got any symptoms or anything but they still could be carrying the virus so it's really important to maintain that infection control between every single patient so make sure you're hand washing, changing aprons, changing clubs, doing everything you can to avoid cross-contamination between patients and yourself and your colleagues as well but to be honest I don't work on the wards at the minute so I have no idea what people are doing out there on the wards with COVID positive patients, with COVID negative patients, the routine and things like that so I can't really give much advice on that other than just if you think it's wrong then it's probably going to be wrong so just avoid it or ask for some support on something or ask for some guidance on something, have a google at some guidelines and things like that, look these things up, if you think feel that something's not right or something's wrong then you have to look into it a bit more and make it right. I have heard recently so many worrying stories from student nurses that haven't been given the right PPE, they're not getting tested with the rest of the staff because they're just a student, this is the words from these people and that's not okay to me, if you are a student and you'll be treated like this please speak up about it, take it further because this is not okay, you should be getting tested along with the staff, you should be treated the same as the staff, you should be getting full PPE but anyone that's COVID positive especially if they're coughing and spluttering you need that proper aerosol generated mask thing whatever it's called, NP36PO something but don't let them fob you off because you're a student, no sorry you're a human being just like the rest of their staff so please make sure you've got the proper PPE for what you're doing, you're being treated like a human being, getting tested along with the rest of the team but then if your uni's already doing testing and stuff then don't worry about that part but if you're not getting any testing at all and then you're going to a placement that are testing their staff regularly you should be included in those numbers as well because you're part 13 for the next however many weeks but obviously NMC code of conduct and all that jazz we must be professional about these things so don't go in organs blazing go rah rah rah that's not okay do it in a professional manner get your evidence get your backup present it done and lastly I just wanted to say thank you, thank you so much to all of you student nurses out there who are fighting in this pandemic right now this is going to be some of the toughest year months whatever of your lives during this whole nursing career and if you and if you can get through this you can get through absolutely anything think how resilient and strong you'll be at the end of all of this and I know it's a pretty crap time right now you're going to be feeling really deflated really tired exhausted even fatigued really demotivated you must be feeling really really down there right now but you have to keep the faith you have to keep going you have to keep smiling you have to stay motivated you have to remind yourself why we're doing this why we're in this and if you leave the course or anything who's going to nurse in the future if everybody leaves so just remind yourself why you came into nursing get that motivation back in your heart think about qualifying and getting your pin number and being a qualified nurse on the wards or the community or primary care wherever you want to go it's it's just you need to keep that motivation in there because it is tough and there are going to be many days many probably most days that you want to quit and give up but you know what you are amazing you can do this and at the end of it you'll be so so proud of everything that you've just come through and fought through to save our world save our planet basically I mean look at those numbers like I talked about at the start of the video those numbers are rising the more we can do and the more things that we can put into place to save other people the better and there's no other reward there's there's nothing more rewarding than saying that I saved lives during a pandemic it's amazing it's still the best career to me in my life but yes just please take some time out get the support you need if you really are struggling never suffer in silence because you don't need to everyone is probably feeling like this right now so just make sure you get the support get some help make sure you're okay take some time out if you need to you know the course is still going to be here at the end of the day there's no rush to finish by such and such a day you've got your whole lives ahead of you so look after yourself first before anything else guys just take care of each other take care of yourself and keep going you're doing amazing you're doing fantastic and a massive loves hugs to every single one of you for being amazing thank you and lastly my inbox is always open as always if you need anything if you need advice anything about anything then please inbox me I'm not going to give you medical advice because we can't do that we're not allowed but if you're struggling mentally if you need some help with PPE or COVID guidelines or anything like that please send me a message because I can try my best if you can't find it obviously look yourself first don't bring it all on me come on guys I've got a job to do I've got three jobs actually that I'm doing at the minute so yeah but my inbox is open I will reply and respond and help and if I cannot help or for something weigh out my expertise I can sign post you to the right people so yeah so my inbox is always open so give me a message if you need to and if you just want to say hello or send me a fun gift to cheer me up Claire I will do that no problem at all so have a great day everyone and I shall see you next time