Describe your job role
- Visiting patients who are housebound due to illness, frailty or are at the end of their life on a rotational basis.
How would you describe a typical day?
- Phone calls and e-consults initially.
- Home visits to treat patients who are housebound and unwell or nearing the end of their life.
- Arranging admissions to hospital or to the rapid response service who offer additional medical support to patients in their own home.
- We wear full PPE to keep us and patients safe.
- Helping the duty team with prescriptions.
- Dealing with test results and hospital letters.
What do you enjoy about your job?
- Supporting the sickest and most vulnerable group patients and their families in their own home.
What challenges do you face in your role?
- It is hot working in PPE!
- Sometimes if the rapid response team who can support patients at home are full we have to decide if a hospital admission is needed instead.
- Aspen Medical Practice cover a wide area and can see us travelling from Tuffley to Norton. Visits come in as patients call in so often we do a lot of driving all over the city.
What advice would you give to patients?
- Please wear a face covering if you can and ask anyone with you to wear one too.
- Please put pets in another room as they can get distressed when we visit.
- Please let us know if you or someone will be able to open the door. If not please make sure we know the keysafe code.
- Please understand this service is strictly for those who are truly housebound.
- Please don’t abuse us. We have gone to visit patients to find they have gone out to the hairdressers!