ABSTRACT
We have a handover for all patients in the hospice which we all sit in on – that usually lasts about half an hour. We then come up and allocate the patients to the staff for the washes, so that we know who’s going to wash whom. Then I would give out the medications. While I’m doing that, I’m also assessing patients. Maybe I’ve never met them before, maybe I left at 10.00 pm last night and I’ll see a deterioration. If it’s someone who’s dying, the relatives will be there and I’ll talk to them about how they felt the patient was in the night. If there’s things that need organising, we talk to the doctors, noting which patients have deteriorated or what might need to be changed.
