Last week’s work

Over the weekend, I realised that I hadn’t really posted anything relating to the work I did last week. Sometimes I had touched on the more general newsworthy items and sometimes on items more personal to me, but a definite aim of writing when I started was to combine these things with a discussion and a reflection on work.

So I was considering this and my conclusion is that I was struggling last week. It was quite a hard week at work – not for any quantifiable reason – the workload was no different although I think the general workload combined with the BIA training and coursework had led to possibly unhealthy levels of anxiety.

Also after a couple of weeks which were disjointed due to additional training, it was quite difficult to get back into my stride and it was one of those weeks that I was more out of the office than in. Which is, ultimately, a good thing – but sometimes it can feel l can lose track of those cursed pieces of paper that fly around me and have a sense that I’m not making telephone calls I need to make.

So last week

• I carried out a capacity assessment relating to a woman about whom concerns have been raised about her managing her own finances.
• I set up a Mental Health Act Assessment tentatively for later this week (although still waiting on 100% confirmation today).
• I started up a one new care package and increased another one.
• I visited a few of the people that I see weekly (my general default position is to see most people fortnightly but I have some people I try to see weekly, others three-weekly etc, very much dependent on current mental state/stress levels of carer).
• I finished off one of the pieces of work for the Best Interests Assessor Training Course (actually I had Friday at home as a study day!).
• I attended a meeting of all Best Interests Assessor’s being trained by my Local Authority to discuss some of the details I had been concerning myself about over the last few weeks – I feel a lot more comfortable that a system (of sorts) is, at least, up and running – although there is an obvious uncertainty about what will actually happen come 1st April.
• I attended the usual weekly CMHT meeting and the more general monthly team meeting.  (I missed the ward round though – although passed on extensive notes relating to those whom I was involved with).

I did get an email from one of our admin workers listing my work that was outstanding (that’s needing to be done outstanding, rather than of a spectacular quality, outstanding)  though – some of which I have done but haven’t recorded, some of which I haven’t done and some of which I had actually forgotten needed to be done.

It was marginally frightening because sometimes I do get swept away in the visits and the assessments without holding back and completing the forms and data. No excuse, I know, it is a part of the job -  but it does induce a little more stress.

I don’t usually quantify my work to this extent but I think it helps. At least, if nothing else, I justify to myself that I wasn’t just sitting at my desk drinking endless cups of tea and discussing biscuit varieties with my colleagues.  Actually, before I started writing this post, I would have said last week was one of my ‘down’ weeks where I felt almost frustrated with myself for not having done a couple of things that I had marked off to complete.

For the last couple of months, I whittled my annual leave down to just two days. Those two days have been so precious to me! Our annual leave runs from April. There is always a spate of sickness in March and although it is a little cynical, it sometimes seems to coincide with those whose leave entitlements have been exhausted…

But now I’ve made it through to a significantly late stage of March that I can think of using those precious two days, that I’d been keeping ‘for emergencies’. The problem and the irony is, of course, that my diary is packed thicker than a barn of battery hens at the moment. I have a funny feeling that April will be equally packed – so I may make an attempt at squeezing in some off time here and there over the next few weeks.

I have, though, a holiday booked for July – and it is a wonderfully refreshing thing to have a holiday to look forward to, even though it seems like a long way off now..

And it’s Monday – which doesn’t have to be as grim as it sounds. I have five whole days to nudge myself back onto track and hopefully find a way to squeeze at least a day of leave into the remaining weeks of March!