Patient Care and Patient Services Assistants
Provide general assistance and personal care services to patients in hospitals and health care facilities.
A shift as a patient services assistant
You are a patient services assistant on a hospital ward, moving patients and supplies, helping with meals and keeping the ward clean and ready. It is 7:30am. Breakfast trays are going out, two patients need transporting for tests and a bed is waiting to be cleaned for an admission. Everyone wants you first.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
Can you take Mr Brennan down to imaging in a wheelchair right now? He has a slot and they will bump him if he is late. The bed 5 clean can wait.
Take Mr Brennan now, tell the nurse a bed is waiting, and check his paperwork
You get Mr Brennan to imaging on time, with his folder and his blanket. When you return you clean bed 5 quickly. Telling the nurse what is waiting stops the admission from being forgotten.
Finish the bed first so the admission is not delayed, and send Mr Brennan when you can
Mr Brennan misses his slot and has to wait another hour, hungry and anxious. A patient's appointment is usually the more fixed of the two tasks.
Take Mr Brennan, but skip the bag check because you are in a hurry
He arrives on time, but his medical record was left behind and you have to go back for it. Imaging cannot start until it is there. Quick does not help if something is missing.
I just want to get outside. I have been in this room for days. Could you wheel me to the garden for ten minutes? I will not tell anyone.
Wheel her out now, since it would do her the world of good and nobody will know
You are caught on the way back by the nurse in charge, who had not cleared it. Mrs Okonkwo is on a monitor and should not have left the ward without checking. Kindness needs a check first.
Tell her you would love to, but you will ask the nurse whether she is allowed
The nurse agrees, with a portable monitor and a time limit. The garden does her more good than anything else that day. Asking first made it possible to say yes.
Tell her it is against the rules and move on
Mrs Okonkwo goes quiet and turns to the wall. It may have been the right answer, but you never found out. Asking the nurse takes a minute and might have led to a yes.
Why is my wife's room still dirty? There are tissues on the floor and nobody has emptied the bin. Is this what a hospital looks like? I want to speak to someone.
Say you are only an assistant and that it is not your department
He storms off to find someone else. You were technically right, but he got no help from you. Everyone on a ward helps with how it feels to be there.
Listen, apologise that the room is not at its best, and clean it up straight away
The room is quickly clean and Mr Santos relaxes. He tells his wife he was just worried. Small acts of care often settle a worry that was not really about the bin.
Tell him that cleaners are on strict timetables and he will need to be patient
He is not patient. He makes a formal complaint about the response, and the nurse in charge has to deal with it. Explaining the schedule did not help the room or the man.
How it went
The shift ends with everyone moved, fed and warm. Nobody will remember each little job you did, but they would notice if you had not done them. Would you enjoy being the person who keeps a hospital quietly running around the patients?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The tray that went to the wrong bed
A fictional case set in a general ward and the corridors of a fictional city hospital.
The situation
At Harbour City Hospital, Tuan was a patient services assistant delivering lunch trays on the surgical ward. A tray was labelled for bed 14, Mrs Ferraro, but a sign above her bed said she was fasting before a procedure that afternoon. The kitchen order had not been updated. Mrs Ferraro was hungry and cheerful and said she was sure she could have a sandwich, and the ward was very busy.
What they did
Tuan did not leave the tray. He told Mrs Ferraro kindly that he needed to check, took the tray back to the trolley and found the nurse looking after her. The nurse confirmed that she was fasting and thanked him. Tuan then went back and sat with Mrs Ferraro for a minute to explain, and he asked the kitchen to update the list so the tray would not appear again.
How it turned out
Mrs Ferraro's procedure went ahead on time. She told the nurse later that she had been cross at the time but understood. The ward changed its handover so assistants see the fasting list at the start of each shift, rather than relying on the kitchen order.
What would you do?
- Why did Tuan check even though Mrs Ferraro said she could eat?
- How would you stay kind to a hungry patient while saying no?
- What could a hospital do so that mistakes like this are caught earlier?