"I enjoy new learning and the opportunities it brings me."

I joined the GP practice as a phlebotomist when I was 18 years old. With the support of my wider team, I’ve achieved new qualifications which have allowed me a wider scope of practice, and have since progressed to the role of healthcare assistant.  

I spend my day seeing patients for blood pressure checks, phlebotomy, ECG’s, ear syringing, wound care, suture removal and vaccinations. 

I support senior nurses on the long-term condition clinics, looking after patients with heart and lung diseases, diabetes and follow ups after they’ve been discharged from hospital.

I’m also responsible for maintaining equipment, making sure its calibrated and ensuring emergency drugs are available and in date. 

Plus, I help train junior colleagues.

I like the day-to-day variety of my role, the fact that there are opportunities for ongoing learning and development of new skills. Through my hard work I have learnt many new skills that I was not originally confident to achieve. 

I see a large number of patients and enjoy building up clinical relationships with them. Whilst a lot of the work is routine, emergency patients often present to the surgery allowing me to help with their acute care. 

In order to provide great care to our patients we need to work as a close-knit team. Although we all have different skills and responsibilities, we rely on each other to ensure everything runs smoothly. I enjoy being part of that team.

There are many opportunities within the practice to develop skills both clinical and non-clinical. I can see there are still a wide range of new skills and qualifications that I can work towards and help progress in my career.