What a Difference a Bag Makes…
As the old cliché goes, a picture paints a thousand words… When we launched our Twitter campaign to community nurses last year, we did it with the hashtag #getyourbootback and invited nurses to send in photos of their long-suffering car boots. It made for good fun as increasingly stressed car boots competed for our sympathy but there was a serious point underlying the fun.
Before…
This was not the worst example we saw, but was certainly typical. Yes, on the surface it is messy, but there were consequences for that. This user could not easily check how much stock she had, and she certainly couldn’t find the things she needed without raking through the jumble. And forget about lugging that lot into a patient’s home!
These inconveniences have further implications. The items at the bottom of the pile were likely to go out of date and be thrown away, wasting money and resources. Some items were missing or ran out, meaning trips back to base for resupply, meaning lost time, fuel and less patient visits per shift.
After…
The Community Kit Bag solved all of these problems in one swoop. Apart from being a storage solution in its own right, the kit bag contains several colour-coded inserts with transparent sides so a nurse can put her hand to the exact item she needs in seconds. It makes resupply that much easier because everything is visible at a glance and stock-checking becomes that much easier. The strap means the whole stock can be carried into a patient’s home meaning no matter what the nurse encounters, the solution is on her shoulder. And let’s not forget the fact that the bag itself folds out into a sterile field, meaning the nurse can deliver treatment with infection prevention fully catered to. The visual difference is eye-catching, but the difference it makes to the people who use a Community Kit Bag is even more stark.
See for yourself…
“These are my before and after photos. Yes I had books and files that needing sorting following a change in job role, but the difference these kit bags make is unreal @CommunityKitBag #GetYourBootBack #CommunityNurse #ThankYou“
Charlene Martin, Frailty Support Team Member, Southern Health NHS Trust
Thank you [ ] for the new kit bags – my boot has never been so tidy!“
Fiona Johnson, Associate Community Matron, Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust
