Paige Barsby tells her experience of being a nursing associate

Across the trust we have many nursing associates/student nursing associates, who work in a variety of different settings, from medical wards to operating theatres.

It was this profession that Paige Barsby was attracted to when she was pondering how to take the next step in her career.

“My background is in surgical operating theatres,” she says. “Before I did my nursing associate training, I was a healthcare assistant in our surgical admissions lounge and pre-operative assessment clinic – both at Musgrove Park Hospital.

“This meant that I’d built up a good amount of experience and background knowledge in surgery, both with the pre-surgery arrangements, as well as post-surgery and recovery.

“After spending a number of years as a nursing associate in our post-anaesthetic care unit, I applied for and got a role as a theatre practice educator.

“My role covers many different areas, including helping to expand the number of nursing associates within our operating theatres as a workforce development initiative.

“I also facilitate placements for other nursing associates who work on our inpatient wards and community services when they are allocated to theatres, so they can come into our theatres and get a taste of what we do.

“And I help to support the nursing associates who already work in our theatres at Musgrove. We have one more due to start in March, and a few who are looking to apply for future cohorts as well.

“Two of our nursing associates, including me, have a post-surgery recovery background, and we have a further three with experience in the scrub side of things. That’s how we split our nursing associates, as the profession doesn’t currently cover anaesthetics.

“My colleague Sophie Witcher covers the same role as me at Yeovil Hospital, where she also looks after the student operating department practitioners (ODP) and student nursing associates.”

It was back last summer when Paige was at a nursing associate conference in Plymouth where she was approached to appear on the ‘Just a Sharp Scratch’ podcast to discuss the critical role that nursing associates play in operating theatres.

“The person who leads the podcast, Martyn, is also a nursing associate, who works at East Quay Medical Centre in Bridgwater,” Paige continues.

“At the conference in Plymouth we were both doing a talk on our experiences as both nursing associates and as student nursing associates (or TNAs as they were called back then).

“We spoke about the progression routes that are possible, as although we both stayed in the same profession, we’ve gone on to work in different areas.

“I think nursing associates fit really well into operating theatres as they very much bridge the gap between healthcare assistants and registered nurses/operating department practitioners.

“As nursing associates, we are registered within our own right, so we can practise to quite a high standard, including being able to scrub in for a lot of complex cases and recover post-surgical patients independently with input from colleagues when required.

“When I first qualified as a nursing associate, there was quite a bit of uncertainty about the type of patients I could and couldn’t recover after their anaesthetic, but guidance has developed over time, and leaders have become a lot more confident because the skillset we learn during the programme is really comprehensive.

“The advice I’d give to student nursing associates is to be as organised as you can during the training, as early as possible. I definitely made that mistake in my first year compared with my second year, but I learned from it!

“Just having that confidence in your own profession, and your ability of what you can do is really important too. There’s really nothing stopping you from being able to go as far as your registration will allow you to.

“I have thought quite a bit since doing the podcast about potentially doing a top up conversion course, but and at the moment I’m undecided. I do really enjoy my current role, particularly supporting our students, so I think I’ll probably stay and do this for a little while, especially as it’ll be really busy as we transfer into the new surgical centre.

“I’m very excited for the opening of our new surgical centre as it’ll be a really great space for teams to grow in, and we’ll be able to work really well together as a team too.”

You can listen to Paige’s appearance on the ‘Just a Sharp Scratch’ podcast here.

The episode is called ‘Lights, Scalpel, Action: The next gen of nursing associates in theatres’, where Paige offers a deep dive into the critical role nursing associates play in operating rooms. She also shares her journey from clinical practice to becoming an educator, and discusses the unique challenges faced in surgical settings and the rewarding impact on patient care.