Department of Health

Enrolled Nurses - More than you imagine

  • Duration: Length 2.31

  • Transcript

    Kristoffer – Nurse educator

    Having enrolled nurses in the haemodialysis unit, is such an exciting thing. It's something that is new to us, but, you know, the energy that they actually bring to the unit is just something that we've never seen before.

    Bronwyn – Enrolled nurse

    When I first started training here, we weren't allowed to give medications or do anything with IVs or anything sort of complex, but over the years the roles changed so we ended up going back to university to complete the medication endorsement and then a couple of years later the IV endorsement.

    Lexi – Enrolled nurse

    Medication first, then complex care and then IV medication to diploma.

    Janet – Enrolled nurse

    It's my duty to care for the patient holistically.

    Claire– Enrolled nurse

    We also work as part of a team. We work with registered nurses, we work with clinical nurse specialists, we work with health assistants.

    Female speaker

    We have a mixture of a registered nurse, an enrolled nurse and our health assistant nurses. We all try and work together, help each other out wherever we can. It's a real team environment.

    Female speaker

    We have a lot of RNs. We've got quite a few ENs now, myself and another EN are fairly new to the ward, and basically every shift we’re buddied with an RN.

    Lexi – Enrolled nurse

    I love coming to work because I love working with the team that we have here.

    Patrick – Enrolled nurse

    The first two hours or three hours, depending on your day, it can be very busy, but as long as there’s team work involved in that whole, that whole time, it goes through like there's no tomorrow.

    Claire – Enrolled nurse

    Every day we have to assess our patients. We usually assess them by doing their vital signs, checking their blood pressure, their pulse, their oxygen levels. We can also assess them by just looking at them. If we have got to know them after several days you can often tell if things aren’t right.

    Kellie – Enrolled nurse

    We do medications, we do general ADLs, like walking patients to the toilets, showers, pressure area care, blood pressures, monitoring urine output.

    Jo – Project manager, nursing and midwifery workforce

    The enrolled nurses offer a really valuable contribution to our team and particularly now in the pilot wards where we've got the health assistants on board.

    Kate – Chief of clinical and site operations

    All of the professionals and team are working together for that that one patient or for all of the patients actually on the ward, and each of them brings their own personalities, their own skills, their own profession and experience and then, you know, ultimately there's that, the good outcomes for the patients on there.

Find out more about how Enrolled Nurses play a important role in the nursing team in a range of settings.

Reviewed 16 November 2016

Health.vic

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