The 5 best things about being a General Practice Nurse

When I started my nursing degree, I never dreamed of becoming a General Practice (GP) Nurse. This was probably because there was no awareness of the role out there at the time. 

It wasn’t until I was given a preference list for placement at the end of my first year that I started to think about GP nursing. There was a huge variety of areas to choose from on this list, including A&E, community and a variety of hospital wards and surgical placements, as well as GP. It was only then that I started to ask myself, ‘why have I never thought about going into GP before?’, and I ended up ticking that box as my first choice.

To my excitement, I managed to get my first-choice location within a lovely GP practice in my second year of nursing. It was that placement that changed everything for me. It was the first time I’d ever felt like a proper nurse: I had my name on the door, and people stopped calling me ‘student’ all the time.

The teamwork at the clinic was fantastic, and it was lovely to see how supportive all the staff were to each other. Then there was my mentor: the loveliest, kindest, most caring and compassionate person I had ever met. She was my inspiration to come back and work as a GP Nurse when I qualified.

I got my first position as a newly qualified nurse at a GP surgery in February 2020 and I’m now a fully qualified GP nurse.

So, what are my 5 best things about being a GP nurse?

1. The variety of patients

   As a GP nurse, I see a huge variety of patients, from pregnancy all the way to end of life care. But it’s not just different ages of patients, it’s different conditions as well. I just love this part of the role so much! Every day is different, and it keeps you on your toes.

   Some of the things I regularly see patients for are:

   • Management of long-term conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma and diabetes.
   • A huge variety of wound management – from surgical procedures to traumatic wounds to leg ulcers.
   • Suture/ clip removals following surgical procedures which vary from head injuries to biopsies to C-section scars to hip replacements.
   • Nephrostomy bag changes/ checks.
   • Cervical screening, sexual health testing, contraceptive checks and HRT reviews.
   • A huge variety of injections, such as B12, contraceptives, hormones, hormone blockers and vaccines/ immunisations (including baby immunisations).
   • ECG
   • Blood testing
   • Height, weight and blood pressure monitoring
   • Referrals to different community settings such as pulmonary rehabilitation, mental health services, smoking cessation, weight management, tissue viability nurses.
   • Some patients will show up at reception with acute exacerbation of asthma/ COPD or chest pains and need emergency treatment.

2. Autonomy

   When I was a student, I had several placements on hospital wards. Have you ever heard the saying ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’? That’s how I felt at times; there were too many people all at once giving mixed messages and clouding your judgement. No disrespect to any wards out there, this was just my own personal experience, and sadly, it wasn’t for me. I used to go home crying because it made me question whether I really wanted to become a nurse. Luckily, I discovered GP Nursing.

   As a GP Nurse you have so much autonomy! It’s a little scary when you’re newly qualified, but you soon build up your confidence. You work independently in your own room, and you get to manage your own clinics. You’ll have reception and other team members booking patients into your slots, but you have more say in what goes where, when and for how long, which is lovely!

   There will be some patients who only take 10 minutes and others that may need 40 minutes depending on what they’re coming in for. Being a GP Nurse, you’ll need to have a lot of initiative and forward thinking with your patients. However, you won’t know it all and you’ll still need to have guidelines, policies and your own notes in the background to help you.

   If all else fails, you’ll always have a team around you to seek support when you need it, such as the duty GP for that day and other nurses. There will be contact details for specialists such as respiratory nurses to help you where needed. GP nursing definitely keeps you on your toes at all times, which is another reason why I love it so much.

3. Building knowledge and developing skills

   One of the most common misconceptions I hear about GP Nursing is ‘you will deskill’. Firstly, can we please debunk this. No nurses ever deskill. Every nurse will need to complete revalidation every 3 years which includes maintaining your continuing professional development (CPD), hours of clinical practice and reflection and much more (NMC, 2021).

   Nursing is so varied, with so many different areas and departments you can work within, and every area has their own specialised set of skills. When you first start out in GP nursing, you’ll be required to undergo a lot of training to get you up and running. There are a couple of different ways GPs will do this with you: either by doing in-house training as you go or putting you onto a specialised course for primary care nursing where you will go to your training course once a week and then come back to work within the clinic and put into practice what you’ve learned.

   I had the privilege of being put onto the yearlong Level 7 Fundamentals of GP Nursing course through Bournemouth university. I attended once a week to train on different subjects such as wound management, long term conditions, ECG, baby immunisations, cervical screening, history taking with patients and general running of GP.

   Once I had completed this course, I was able to book onto additional bite sized courses such as asthma/ COPD, diabetes management and cardiac. I went on and trained further in asthma/ COPD as this is what the clinic needed at the time. 4 years later, I’m about to start diabetes training as I’m now required to do this in the new clinic I’ve started at.

   The main primary care network also puts on monthly training for all practices in the area. The current clinic I work at block out half a day every month for this where the whole surgery is closed for the afternoon, which I think is amazing and helps with CPD revalidation and retaining and updating your knowledge.

4. Hours of work

   I love, love, love the hours of work for GP. It was one of the biggest deciding factors for me, actually. No weekends, no night shifts and no bank holidays which means Christmas off every year!

   I learned very quickly as a student nurse that I hated night shifts, and they did not agree with me at all. It wasn’t the workload, it was purely the hours of night that just did not suit my body at all and made me ill. So, I looked for a career that didn’t involve shift work or nights to help with this.

   I now have a great work/ life balance due to my hours of work. I do the same hours every week and they rarely change (unless I need to cover or we have a bank holiday), so I can plan around work. My hours each day do differ, but they are the same week to week. My hours are:

   • Monday: 10am – 18:30pm
   • Tuesday: 8am – 17:00pm
   • Wednesday: 7am – 14:00pm
   • Thursday: 10am – 18:00pm
   • Friday: 12:30pm – 17:30pm

   And when it’s a bank holiday, we only work a 4-day week, which is even better!  These are full-time hours; you can also work with management to do reduced hours/ part time to fit around family life too. It’s extremely flexible.

5. Patient and team rapport

   GP Nurses get to follow up with their patients and build a rapport with them over time, something you don’t typically get in the acute sector. This was another thing I didn’t like about ward work; the patient would leave, and I would always wonder where they were and how they were getting on. But as a GP nurse, we tend to see a lot of our patients over and over again, which gives you the chance to build a relationship. I really love seeing my patients time and time again and getting to know them and their family too.

   You also build a good rapport with the team around you. I work with a range of different people: admin, reception, cleaners, doctors, healthcare assistants, pharmacists, paramedics, occupational therapists, etc. I’ve built some lovely connections not just in my clinic but across the UK too by sharing on social media and at training sessions.

I hope this has given you some more awareness around GP Nurses and the amazing things we all do. If you are looking at going into GP or applying at the minute – good luck! 

References: 

NMC (2021) What is revalidation? Available at: https://www.nmc.org.uk/revalidation/overview/what-is-revalidation/ [Accessed 16th May 2024]