For those of you into acronyms, here’s a new one – RAID.  It stands for Rapid Assessment Interface and Discharge, or in old-school speak, psychiatric-liaison.  I am doing my penultimate placement with the RAID team over at the Royal London Hospital, based with the older adult sub-team.  If you read your Metro, Evening Standard, or watch the news, you will see similar stories on the ‘winter crisis” in A&E – I’m seeing how this translates on the ground!  The big thing in the elderly are the 3Ds, Depression, Delirium and Dementia and the wards are full at this time of year with older adults who may have fallen over and now are at risk of the 3Ds or may have been admitted with symptoms of any of them.  Its a lot of hard work for all the different clinical disciplines and others such as social workers and a wonder to see when all the moving parts ‘click’ together!  My current placement is proving to be one of my most enjoyable which in a way has seriously surprised me – I am still trying to understand why! Could it be the great staff I work with; the environment; the outcomes?  Still trying to piece this together and will share at a later date.

For those of you going through the application process, you have hopefully met the UCAS deadline.  When I did mine, I remember there was a bit of a pause before the Universities kicked the ball into action.  This is probably most applicable for those who are going through the Access Course/non-traditional routes.  Bear in mind that often, no news is good news!  So a few tips for you – get as much maths prep as possible – look up the SNAP site, especially if you think you have a problem in this area and just keep doing questions.  One of my observations when I went through the process was many of my class mates falling at this hurdle.  So what next?  Be yourself!  If you get to the interview stage, seriously, just be you?  Don’t try to second guess the interviewers and portray an image of who you think they want.  If you can’t answer why you want to do nursing, seriously, should you really be engaging in this process!  So be honest, if it’s because of an experience or your beliefs, just say so!  It might make sense practicing on your friends or relatives.  Also be honest about your experience, don’t exaggerate, the interviewers have been on the shop floor so have an idea of what really happens out there.

If you get multiple offers what do you do?  One of the things I tell potential students at City Open Days is that they need to weigh up a lot of different factors before they make a final decision about what Uni to attend.  The NMC specifies what is taught on nursing programmes so there is not to much difference in the course no matter where you study.  More importantly, in nursing we spend over 2000 hours working on placements and what we gain here is an opportunity to learn best practice from actual practitioners.  Thus look at what NHS Trusts your potential universities are associated with – for mental health at City it is the East London Foundation Trust (ELFT).  Next look at how it has been rated by the NMC – in ELFT’s case it has achieved an outstanding rating in 2016.  Look at patient forums and how they view the Trust or, in most cases how they were treated at specific hospitals or wards.  After you have done all of this, than you have a better idea of how whether you will get the best out of specific institutions.

On a separate issue, this weekend marks the Chinese New Year, thus if you haven’t kept any of those New Year’s resolutions, here’s another opportunity to reboot!  For those who are wondering, it’s the year of the Rooster – if you can divide your age by 12 this year, its likely that this is your sign.