Roles & responsibilities Flashcards
Work in every sort of health setting from accident and emergency to patients’ homes, with people of all ages and backgrounds.
They juggle numerous priorities and use caring, counselling, managing. They undertake assessment and re-assessment, development of a care plan, patient and family teaching, medication teaching, dressing changes, catheter management, and all aspects of interpersonal skills to improve the quality of patients’ lives, sometimes in difficult situations.
Nurse
Visit people of all ages, often in their own homes, GP surgeries or a residential home. Many patients are elderly, others may have disabilities, be recovering after a hospital stay, or have a terminal illness. Work one-to-one with patients on an ongoing basis to improve their quality of life.
District Nurse
Registered nurses or midwives who have done further training to work as vital members of the primary healthcare team, covering a specific geographical area. Their aim is to improve the health of families and children in the crucial first few years of life. Working in the community, they prevent illness and promote health and wellbeing.
Health Visitor
Work with nurses, midwives and other healthcare professionals, helping with care and looking after patients’ comfort and well-being.
Healthcare Assistant
Use range of different imaging modalities e.g. ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, nuclear medicine and, X-rays to look at injuries or disease, or monitor changes inside the body.
Diagnostic Radiographer
They deliver doses of X-rays and other ionising radiation to patients, most of whom are suffering from various forms of cancer. The aim of the treatment is to deliver an accurate dose of radiation to the tumour/cancer whilst minimising the dose received by the surrounding tissues. They establish where the area to be treated is located and work out the exact dosage required with doctors and medical physicists.
May be involved in the care of the cancer patient from the initial referral clinic stage, where pre-treatment information is given, through the planning process, treatment and eventually post-treatment review (follow-up) stages.
Therapeutic Radiographer
Help and treat people with physical problems caused by illness, accident or ageing. See human movement as central to the health and well-being of individuals and identify and maximise movement through health promotion, preventive healthcare, treatment and rehabilitation.
Core skills include manual therapy, therapeutic exercise and the application of electro-physical modalities. They also have an appreciation of psychological, cultural and social factors influencing their clients.
Physiotherapist
Work with people of all ages to help them overcome the effects of disability caused by physical or psychological illness, ageing or accident. Work closely with people to enable them to lead full and satisfying lives as independently as possible.
Occupational Therapist
Assess and treat speech, language and communication problems in people of all ages to help them better communicate. Also work with people who have eating and swallowing problems.
Speech & Language Therapist
Make use of role play, voice work, myth, ritual and storytelling. Movement and objects can also be used expressively without words. It can help increase clients’ self awareness and offer a creative way for an individual or group to explore and solve personal and social problems.
Encourages self-awareness, exploration and reflection of feelings and relationships with themselves and others. This offers the opportunity to change by experimenting in different ways of thinking, feeling and behaving.
By encouraging creative expression, individuals and group members can feel involved in relationships with others and in the course of having some fun, clients can build self confidence and self awareness. Through role play and experimenting with alternative behaviours and strategies, clients can learn to deal with social situations with increased understanding and assertiveness.
Offer a safe environment to reflect upon existing beliefs, attitudes and feelings and the opportunity to try alternative ways of acting in the world.
Drama Therapist
Aim to facilitate positive changes in behaviour and emotional well-being and is essentially a social activity involving communication, listening and sharing.
Each usually play an active role in each session with clients being encouraged to use a range of instruments including their own voice. This allows them to explore the world of sound and to create a musical language of their own.
Aim to enhance the client’s quality of life by developing an increase sense of self awareness.
Music Therapist
Senior healthcare professional at an accident or a medical emergency. They assess the patient’s condition and give essential treatment.
As part of their role, they’ll administer oxygen and drugs and use high-tech equipment, such as defibrillators, spinal and traction splints, and intravenous drips. often one of the first healthcare professionals on the scene of a accident or emergency. When they arrive at the scene, they will assess the patient’s condition and take potentially life-saving decisions about the treatment needed. If appropriate, they’ll then administer the treatment.
They are trained to drive what is in effect a mobile emergency clinic and to resuscitate/stabilise patients using sophisticated techniques, equipment and drugs.
Paramedic
Provide the best possible artificial replacement for patients who have lost or were born without a limb. Work with patients of all ages, usually in a large hospital. Patients’ disability may be the result of an accident or amputation, perhaps following a disease, such as diabetes, or they may have been born without a limb.
Involved in design of artificial limb – will make a model of the area where the replacement is to be fitted by making a plaster cast or digital image which would be modelled to produce a safe and comfortable fit. They then supervise the assembly of the replacement limb by the technicians.
Offer patients advice on how to use the replacement limb and make adjustments to maximise its performance during the fitting. Main aim is to enable the patient to lead a normal life at work and leisure.
Prosthetist
Provide a range of splints, braces and special footwear to aid movement, correct deformity and relieve discomfort.
Any part of the human skeleton may need some support if damaged or needs repositioning. Also use supports to provide relief from discomfort.
Involved in the taking of careful and precise measurements of the patient and supervise the making, fitting and adjustment of the support, as well as educating them in fitting and using their support.
Orthothist
An expert in medicines and their use working to ensure that patients get the maximum benefit from their medicines. They advise medical and nursing staff on the selection and appropriate use of medicines. They provide information to patients on how to manage their medicines to ensure optimal treatment. They are able to undertake additional training in order to allow them to prescribe medicines for specific conditions.
Pharmacist
