Who inspires you?

When the year of the nurse blogging challenge started in 2020 we had no idea of what was ahead of us. Goodness how the world has changed. In January if I’m honest I’d never heard of Wuhan and ‘Coronavirus’ was just the small print on the back of a Dettol spray that I’d never taken more than a passing glance at, this summary from the BBC is a helpful overview of recent weeks https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-52066956

Now with everything focused on COVID 19, caring for those who need it most and vitally keeping staff safe who are providing that care, EVERYTHING has been reprioritised, not only personally but globally.

So the challenge at the beginning of the year was to identify who inspired us, well in recent weeks I’ve been blown away by staff who’ve asked ‘what can I do’ ‘how do I learn the skills that are going to be needed’, along with comments including ‘we can do this’. Team NHS with other essential services, those who make sure we have water, electricity, gas supplies, along with food and the provision of other household essentials (loo rolls!), people who continue to ‘do the doing’ that’s required whilst recognising that for the vast majority of people, the action #Stayathome to reduce the spread of the virus 🦠 is mission critical.

Those of us in Children’s Health care, thankfully have not been overwhelmed in the same way as our adult colleagues. Yet there have been significant issues that have evolved during this pandemic including delayed presentations to hospital of sick children, Tessa, Giles and local GPs of East London compiled helpful information for families to help guide them in decision making.

Challenges have also included training staff to care for older patients, working with reduced staffing ratios, moving to virtual clinics across primary, secondary and tertiary care, pausing elective surgery, whilst making sure that the vital stuff in child health continues, immunisations, safeguarding, emergency care and excellent care for those that need inpatient care such as our neonates and those with complex medical conditions.

Many of the things we’re learning as we progress on this ultra marathon journey will stay with us forever, we’ll change how we do things, make processes slicker, more efficient and effective, but it has been and will continue to be at a phenomenal cost to individuals, families, communities and society.

In amongst all of this are the memories we create for and with children, what will they tell their children and their grandchildren about this time? Certainly the rainbows on windows have inspired me each morning from children offering hope through looking to the future and encouraging that ‘we’ll get through this’.

The poster resources @MonkeyWellbeing has created have ensured we’re providing child friendly information in challenging times, they can be downloaded here https://www.monkeywellbeing.com/resources/posters-leaflets/, wonderful @beciward has a range of colouring challenges too http://beciward.com/category/news/ and @DrKathrynHolden of Sheffield Children’s has developed a great children’s wellbeing resource https://www.sheffieldchildrens.nhs.uk/download/766/coronavirus-resources/9747/self-care-kit-covid-19.pdf

So to return to who inspires me, whilst there are amazing leaders who are doing a brilliant job in the most challenging of times. It’s our health care support workers, our students and junior staff nurses, our newly appointed ward leaders who inspire me most. They’ve been the ones who’ve completed the online learning, done shadowing shifts in unfamiliar environments with new colleagues, who’ve wobbled openly and then got on and done the doing….

Thank you all….