Essential Knowledge and Skills for Healthcare Assistants

This revised edition of Essential Knowledge and Skills for Healthcare Assistants is an accessible and comprehensive text designed to equip you with the necessary skills for your practice.
This is an essential guide for all those training as healthcare assistants, nursing associates and assistant practitioners.

Zoë Rawles BN BSc (Hons) Retired Lecturer/Nurse Practitioner and Director of HealthTrain.

Section I: All change, 1 The evolving role of the healthcare assistant, Section II: Some useful stuff, 2 Understanding reflective practice, 3 Accountability and delegation, 4 Using protocols, 5 Communicating with patients, 6 Simple assertiveness skills, 7 Confidentiality, consent and record-keeping, 8 Safeguarding, 9 Health promotion: the key messages, 10 Keeping it clean: hand decontamination, 11 Chaperoning, Section III: Core skills, 12 Physiological measurements, 13 Understanding and measuring blood pressure accurately, 14 Understanding the heart: how to perform the electrocardiograph (ECG), 15 Venepuncture and capillary blood testing: best practice, 16 Kidney function and urine: performing accurate urinalysis, Section IV: More advanced skills, 17 Examining the feet of people with diabetes, 18 The skin and the healing process. basic wound care, 19 Understanding lung function and disease: performing accurate lung function testing, 20 Administering injections, 21 Ear irrigation