Example Essay on service quality in placement

The placement has provided me practical learning of real mental health problems, nursing care, team working, medication management, communication skills , privacy and confidentiality, record keeping, meeting attendance, time management and importance of customer’s satisfaction , national and international demand for nurses competency. I also learnt that Data should be managed by considering DATA protection act. DATA should be collected, processed, stored carefully to keep its integrity and it should be available to only those who are legally able to get it. My mentor was very experienced and intelligent professional. I was surprised to unlock some facts. For example, I was found weak in some fields in which I was considering myself perfect. The current essay is an analysis of my learning from my first placement. It reflects my self analysis, mentor’s feedback, and development of essential skills recommended by NMC. In addition to development of essential skills, I learnt report writing, information formation, dealing with client, communication strategies and various mental health issues. The placement provided me an opportunity to enhance knowledge and information of mental health issues and understanding of medication used in treatment of mental illnesses.

TABLE OF CONTENT

I.INTRODUCTION 3

II.Personal identification 5

III.Understanding of diversity 5

IV.Team working 6

V.Working Time Directive 7

VI.Problem addressing 7

VII.Improvement in care of Service User 7

VIII.Motivation 8

IX.TASK Planning 8

X.Health and safety 9

XI.PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN 9

XII.Handling information appropriately 10

XIII.Placement outcome 11

XIV.CONCLUSION 12

XV. REFERENCE 13

XVI.BIBLIOGRAPHY 14

14

INTRODUCTION

A nursing portfolio is developed to document skills learnt through experience during placements at pre-registration stages or through job experience at post- registration stages. Skills learnt may include communication, critical thinking, medication management, self evaluation and other professional development. The learnt skills are compared and mapped against essential skills clusters required by NMC for nurse’s professional development.

This was my first placement. Therefore, I evaluated my level of professional knowledge in first week so that I can plan for my further learning. In a real sense, I didn’t possess much skills and qualities related to nursing profession in the beginning of my placement. However I have good medical knowledge as a result of studying Msc Pathology at Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield. I have developed personal qualities and skills like time management, team working, learning attitude, working on my own initiative, working under pressure and taking responsibility from my work experience. I have also developed some practical skills and approaches like fire safety procedure, acting according to site policy and procedures and using protective equipment in laboratory. Report writing and diary maintenance were other important skills I learnt through this placement.

I developed action plans to develop new skills and enhance my existing skills to the required level of NMC recommendation. I looked at what I need to develop to become a professional nurse. I have to develop a lot of practical skills to be a good professional. Some of these essential skills and qualities, I should develop includes practical experience of working with client, (practice makes a man perfect), I need to develop communication and record keeping skills, I need to develop and experience team working skill to learn from my senior professionals. I need to learn communication and interaction to high professional level. In a real sense, I have to learn a lot but I would say that practice makes a man perfect. Therefore I learnt more when I progressed through my placement.

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I learnt essential skills and professional skills from my placement. I learnt time keeping and punctuality as the visits were organized on fixed timing. I learnt to organise and self schedule. I learnt to manage time as the visits were well organized and provide me ideas of how to manage the tasks. I learnt to take notes of any visit and meetings. Notes were required for final submission of assignment and for record purpose. I learnt to work in a team work as we (I and my mentor) visited to various clients. I learn to obey and accept information as I visited clients under the supervision of my mentor.

Now I will describe individually and briefly on certain skills which I learnt through my placement.

Personal identification

One of the important learning from my 1st placement is my personal identification. A detailed introduction of all of team members was done by my mentor at the first day of my placement. We all behaved differently representing our nature and behaviour. I have concerns on individual basis like; how I was going to meet client? How I will use experience and knowledge of others members when they are working in different teams? How I will trust and depend on other team members. We don’t know each other and how we will plan to work together in addition to our personal commitments. All these concerns reflected variety of my behaviour, psychology, levels of my intelligence to handle challenges and difference of my personality and individuality.

Understanding of diversity

Experience of group work convinced me that human system is really complex. For example, my group proved complex due to diversity of skills, levels of thinking, educational levels and variety, diversity of thinking, intelligence variation, different behaviours and individual responses and interactions. From outcome of my placement complexity, I can easily guess that how much complex is a community team working?

Team working

It became an excellent chance to understand human system strategy when I started working in my team. We all belong to various professions and have experience and knowledge of diversity. My team consisted on three members in addition to me. Theoretical knowledge was very beneficial in understanding actual meaning of a human system and cultural diversity. We have got chance to look at group dynamics and human interaction while working in team. Our team consists on individuals of various behaviour, knowledge, skills and experience. We successfully observed impact of individual’s diversity in the group and on group dynamics. Human systems have thinking strategies and therefore human systems are cognitive.

In group work I found that each member of our team was thinking differently. Human systems are aware of their existence and relationship with other systems and the environment. It was definitely true when we worked in our group to prepare our visits and meetings. On one hand we were struggling to understand the interaction in our group and on other hand we have concerns about interaction with client. Team spirit, sharing of ideas and working together with mutual understanding is learning from my 1st placement. I shared my understanding of the complex human systems while working together in group where members have background experience of different organisations at various levels. We actually worked on the complex interrelation between organisational structure, cultures, complex issues and challenging behaviours.

Working Time Directive

Time management is planning of time utilization to get best output. In simple words it is the art of doing things on their fixed timing. Past experience like failure to complete urgent jobs in time has revealed that I was week in this skill.

An important learning outcome in my 1st placement includes understanding of time frame. A mental health nurse should complete visits, meetings and assessments within time frame to avoid any negligence and error in health care system. Feedback as a result of meetings and visits revealed that I have improved my time management by keeping appointment records, fixing time frame for every task and therefore complete tasks in time. I also developed punctuality in time as it was revealed by my own assessment.

Problem addressing

Members of a human system can experience difficulties, problems, despaired feelings and troubling situations but they resolve all these factors by mutual interactions. Similarly I learnt to address problems while working in our group. Working toward a shared understanding expands individual’s tolerance for different opinions. It came true when I preferred to attend team meetings.

Improvement in care of Service User

When I started placement, it looked impossible for me to look into NHS insight as I have no training. But later on, when I learnt to assess information and add notes after taking IT training at Fulwood House, I was quite confident. Later on an advanced training known as acute care pathway was arranged for me. I learnt to negotiate with my timing, adapted various skills and responded to various activities to complete my task easily. Adaptation is human system quality to adapt changes. The same happened to me during my 1st placement. I learnt to absorb new skills. I actually used two significant theories; Belbin team role theory and Myer Briggs behaviour theory. By using theories I observed variety of roles and behaviours in my team and also realized my own behavior.

Motivation

I passed through all stages of human system like forming, storming and transforming. I learnt to make negotiations, adjustments in my existing skills and absorb new skills while progressing from storming to norming stage. I learnt to support client in order to provide good nursing service. The client’s conditions which determine effectiveness of treatment can be less motivation, anxieties, fears and various concerns. For example, an environment of fear , fear of failure to treatment, less motivation to survive , less interaction with other groups and desire to stay alone results in further complications in mental health diseases. I also learnt about recovery model and practically experience its validity while visiting various community organisations helping client with mental health issues. Learning from my mentor at supervision was theory of stress vulnerability model. A practical reflection of vulnerability model was obvious during assessment and risk analysis of various clients. I learnt that mental health nurses should support client in all fields of life as it may help to relieve their stress. I already know that stress may worsen their condition and treatment may relapse.

TASK Planning

There should be a time plan for each task. It is nurse’s responsibility to make sure that client is safe by completing tasks in time. I learnt measures like consideration of health and safety issues, use of protective clothing like apron and gloves during injections, seeking guidance from mentor and seniors before visiting client, fixing priorities for task and taking information of potential hazards before making community visits.

Health and safety

Health and safety issues should be addressed due to legislation, insurance costs and good practice. Health and safety issues are a priority to minimize litigation in healthcare environment. I learned various steps to manage health and safety issues in nursing environment.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN

By analysing feedback from my mentor and colleagues in addition to my own assessment, I found many key areas for my personal development plan. But now, I have a challenging job to construct my developmental plan. How a developmental plan can help me? How can I develop an effective plan? How I can consider time utilization in my developmental plan? These were all challenging questions which originated in my head about my developmental plan. Developmental plan should organize my improvement efforts within appropriate time limits and available resources. But what are the resources for development of these areas and what should be the time limits? I thought, searched and sorted out all aspects of my developmental plan. Then I sketched my developmental plan which was possible and potential.

The placement elaborates that how I can make an analysis of an organization, how internal, near and far environments of an organization co-relate with service. The placement provides me assessment tools for my skill mapping. I learnt from placement that I can make assessment of my skills not only by self assessment but with the help of feedback from other staff and experienced people like my mentor. Self assessment could be wrong or weak. Therefore self assessment should be counter checked by feedback from experienced people. I found some deficient skills in my performance which were managing time, handling information appropriately and selecting assessment tools. Placement guides me that how a professionally trained nurse can improve the quality of service. It is necessary to improve essential skills of a nurse to provide good quality service. I enhanced my knowledge of self assessment, self evaluation, interpretation, getting and utilizing feedback from experienced people, conclusion making and decision taking by working on my placement. I learnt to construct a developmental plan within time limits and available resources.

Handling information appropriately

It is another important and vital skill which a nurse should possess. I got feedback that I was not good in handling of information at the beginning of my placement. However, in the beginning, I was disagreed with people’s opinion. I decided to evaluate my skill in my self assessment. The process of my self assessment elaborated the areas where I was weak in managing information. Then I was convinced that I am not good in handling information. I couldn’t provide vital information due to my habit of not recording messages. I was convinced that I need further development in information handling. I therefore decided to improve my weakness and I practically proved by recording vital information during my placement that I have progressed into information management.

Placement outcome

Data collection, information formulation, evaluation, interpretation, personal development planning for skills, time utilization, maximum output and successful assessment, visiting plan are learning from my placement. In general, placement was a good exercise to evaluate and develop my essential skills. It provided me a practical approach to develop personal plan. Resultantly I learnt to assess my deficient skill level and to plan for further develop by constructing a further plan.

CONCLUSION

The placement has provided me clear idea and good understanding of the service quality. I learnt about information system used by mental health community teams delivering service to community. It developed new skills as guided in NMC guidance notes. I learnt knowledge about different kinds of data base systems , collecting information, recording and storing data, basic knowledge to evaluate information, preference in adapting information system, flow of information, adopting approaches to remove gaps in information system, respecting service user’s choices, privacy and confidentiality, communication to clients, organizational communication, participating in meetings, managing time, developing plans, arranging visits, administering medication, participating in infection control. I also learnt that how a better information system can improve the quality of service. Development of self confidence, knowledge, reliance and information are essential for safety of client. Service quality can be improved if mental health workers including mental health nurses have enough knowledge and skills to provide best nursing care to clients with mental health issues. I learnt to schedule tasks according to time table to get desirable results. In mental health services clients are provided everything according to their choice and requirements to gain maximum level of satisfaction. I also learnt that personal data should be handled carefully, fairly, lawfully. Personal data should be collected, processed, stored and used according to DATA protection act. Personal DATA should be collected after proper consent and should not be used for purpose other than mentioned in consent.

REFERENCE