Kira Cox

I am a staff nurse at an assessment and treatment unit for adults with a learning disability and mental health needs. We support individuals who have entered crisis stage and who can be a safety risk to themselves or others and require sectioning under the mental health act. As a nurse, you are named to 1 patient. You manage that patient’s treatment and care pathway during their inpatient stay, alongside the wider MDT, to provide holistic care and support that patient towards discharge and coming out of crisis. As nurse in charge, you are responsible for the running of the ward, organisation of staff, patient care, medication and management of any planned or unplanned incidents.

I am hoping this programme will improve my knowledge and skills and provide an opportunity to link with others to gain different perspectives and explore different care pathways. I am looking forward to taking this onto my unit and applying what has been learnt and exploring how it could be of benefit for our patients, staff and relatives. It will influence how we work and bring new ideas that might not have been known before. I hope that I build links to external professionals who I could go to for advice and explore other services that could support our patients.

I also hope to expand my skills in supporting others by coaching and mentorship. Being still fairly new to the nursing world and now having to support students can be difficult when you are still just trying to support yourself, so I would like to become more confident in this.