It is not just important to aim at becoming a healthcare assistant. You need to possess the right qualities that would help you stand out and also aid efficiency.
In this article, I have been able to collate all the qualities you need to become a health care assistant. I will show you everything you need to know about becoming a healthcare assistant including the right skills you need to have.
Who is a Healthcare Assistant
Healthcare assistants are persons whose duty is to support trained medical staff and also help patients in any other activity that is to be carried out in hospitals and clinics. The skills healthcare assistants possess enable them to keep patients relaxed and comfortable. They generally make life comfortable to the best of their ability for the patients.
A healthcare assistant should not be mistaken for a care assistant. The latter term is usually used to describe those who work in care homes and in-home care.
In the same vein, a healthcare assistant differs from an assistant practitioner (AP), who is supposed to handle more responsibilities due to their training.
In recent times, healthcare assistants are usually referred to as nursing assistants or nursing auxiliaries, though these terms are not popular. Health care assistants can study or be trained to become assistant practitioners, nursing associates, and registered nurses or occupational therapists.
Qualifications of a Healthcare Assistant
The NHS stipulates that there is no entry requirement to become a healthcare assistant. Generally, you will be expected to have good literacy and GCSEs, such as in English and Mathematics (or its equivalent), and most importantly, basic computer skills.
In addition, employers may ask for some vocational qualifications, be it BTEC (Business and Technology Education Council) or NVQ (National Vocational Qualifications). The latter is provided by the NHS foundation trust.
While training to become a healthcare assistant, it is essential that you are taught basic nursing skills and thereafter, try to secure the care certificate.
Your training also includes a defined set of standards that you need to adhere to become a healthcare assistant. This training backed up with the right certificate will help to assure your employer that will possess the right skills and behavior to be a healthcare assistant.
Experience is an added advantage, with all the training and skills you acquire, an employer may have to ask for relevant experience in healthcare or care work. If you want to apply for a role in the NHS, you might probably have to learn the organization’s values and how to apply them,
Benefits of being a healthcare assistant
- For a standard working week, you will have to work for about 38 hours out of the total 168 hours. These periods may include shifts like early starts, evenings, and weekends.
- You will be paid on the agenda for change (AFC) pay system.
- Annual leaves are not left out, you will get 27days of annual leave plus bank holidays. This leaves increases as you stay longer in the service.
- You will have access to good pension schemes and health service discounts.
Skills to be possessed by a healthcare assistant
For you to be a healthcare assistant, some important sets of skills are expected of you. A lot of these skills are grouped under your interpersonal skills which are expected to have been developed by yourself. Below are important skills that a healthcare assistant needs to possess, and those they will be trained for.
-
Communication
Communication is golden! As a competent healthcare assistant, effective communication is one of the various skills to be possessed. This helps to make the patients relaxed and comfortable. During communication; attentiveness also helps to listen to the patient’s needs even If the patient has challenges with proper communication.
Healthcare assistants are to assist nurses and other medical professionals. They should be able to understand information as well as requests and instructions.
In addition, there should be upward communication between healthcare assistants and medical staff, administrators, and downward communication to patients, patients’ family members, etc.
-
Compassion And Sensitivity
Most often, patients who need healthcare assistance find it difficult to carry out basic tasks. These tasks may include, eating, changing clothes, walking, washing, etc. healthcare assistants should be ready and willing to help these patients carry out some daily activities they find difficult to do.
Additional training helps the healthcare assistant to be more sensitive and be able to monitor a patient’s pulse, temperature, blood pressure, and other necessary observations.
Many times patients may not be fine with someone helping them with their tasks, an healthcare assistant must be able to compassionately work without hesitation, likewise, they should be free with the patients and relate with them plainly but they must be sensitive. This skill will help to make the patients free to relate well and also very comfortable,
-
Team Player
Healthcare assistants often work in a GP surgery, hospital, and clinics with other medical personnel and healthcare professionals. The ability to work together with them effectively and support them where need be is important as a healthcare assistant.
The challenges faced while caring for sick patients are not the same all through, and the only way to overcome these challenges is to work hand in hand with other professionals in the field.
However, healthcare assistants must be able to use their initiative when it comes to dealing with patients.
-
Patience
Patients that have difficulty in carrying out their daily activities usually go about them slower than normal, even though they are been assisted. Eating a meal, washing their clothes, or a short trip to the restroom can take much more than the normal time. So, for a healthcare assistant to be able to provide effective and consistence assistance, they have to be very patient.
Usually, things as minor as chatting or listening to patients talk can go a long way in making them feel cared for and comfortable which in turn quickens their recovery. Patience and empathy are what healthcare assistants need if they want to be sincere.
-
Physical Strength
Most often, patients are always weak and can hardly carry out tasks on their own. For a healthcare assistant to be of help, physical strength is non-negotiable.
Patients may find it difficult to walk, stand, eat a meal, get in and out of bed, comb their hair, or even take their baths. If they find all these difficult to do, healthcare assistants will probably have to spend more time on their feet just to attend to the need of these patients.
Health is wealth, healthcare assistants must not neglect their health. They must learn to look after themselves as well so that they can render help to those who need it.
How To Improve Healthcare Assistant Skills
One of the ways to improve your skills as a healthcare assistant is to seek employment in related roles, e.g., as a care assistant. This will help you gain relevant experience. Volunteering for care opportunities can also go a long way in helping you develop or improve the needed skills. This can also help you realize how well-suited you are to similar jobs.
If you have any family member or distant relative that needs healthcare assistance, you can both do yourself and the person good by offering to help the person for you to get familiar with what healthcare assistance entails and the basic knowledge as to how to relate well with them.
Learning resources are provided by the royal college of nursing, especially for healthcare assistants and assistant practitioners. These learning resources enlightened skills like digital skills, infection prevention, and leadership. They also contain basics such as a resource that covers the fundamental aspects of the role and the principles healthcare assistants have to adhere to.
Important Qualities That are needed To Become An Healthcare Assistant
• Respectful
To be a healthcare assistant, you have to relate with patients from different backgrounds, experiences, ideologies, and beliefs. You are expected to consider these differences and treat any behavioral, ethnic, or religious differences with respect.
When you treat your patients and service users well, you are building a working relationship with them. It is also worthy of note to consider your patients as individuals who will require their privacy, and learn to respect their lone time.
• Caring
Asides from physical and medical assistance, showing your patients or service users adequate care is also important. You will have to interact well with them and also listen to them. If you care so much about the welfare of people and you have a genuine concern for their well-being, you might want to consider being a healthcare assistant.
Many patients or service users, face isolation daily and this eats them up. Isolation has negative consequences on them and the only way to help them out is to conscientiously care for them and pay detailed attention to their health so much such that no step is missed.
• Friendly
Being approachable and open-minded helps you to build a good relationship with your patients and service users. Healthcare assistants will have to spend quality time out of their working days with their service users, so they have to have a friendly attitude so that their service users can enjoy and feel happy and safe around you
• Flexible
As a healthcare assistant, you get to meet different service users and this will continually make every day to be different from the previous ones. Flexibility to a certain degree is required of healthcare assistants to adapt to new situations and new people.
Want to become a healthcare assistant, click here to check our current job openings for an opportunity to work with the best healthcare agency in the United Kingdom.
You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn
