When staff change, knowledge that only existed in people's heads is often lost. If you record agreements, give new colleagues a good start and keep the handover tight, you safeguard quality even when staffing changes.
Turnover, sickness, holidays and temporary staff are part of care. Every change is a moment when agreements can slip. A permanent colleague knew how things went, a new colleague does it the way he was used to elsewhere. Without anyone noticing, inconsistent ways of working arise. With a few conscious choices, you hold the line.
It is often the unwritten agreements that disappear first: how the team reports, when the family is called, how a particular wound is dressed. The handover also suffers from changes, because new colleagues do not yet know what is important to pass on. The result is a lack of clarity in wound care or reporting, and sometimes uncertainty around hygienic working.
Safeguarding quality starts with making visible what is now taken for granted. I help teams get the following clear:
That way, not every new colleague has to reinvent the wheel. See also writing a work instruction and recording team agreements in care.
A temporary nurse is often seen as a risk when staff change. It can also be the other way round. When I step in somewhere, I work according to the team's agreements and, as an outsider, quickly see where those agreements are unclear. I feed that back on its merits. At the end of the assignment I provide a clear handover, so that nothing is left hanging. More on this in embedding working agreements after an assignment and under the service quality improvement.
I help with this through quality improvement and consistent working agreements. Want to know what that means for your organisation? Schedule an introduction.
Ask every new colleague after a few shifts what was unclear. Those answers show exactly where your agreements are not yet properly recorded.
Small. Choose the tasks and agreements that most often lead to confusion and record those briefly first. From there you can expand further.
The most important team agreements, the way handover and reporting are done, who the point of contact is and where the work instructions can be found. Short and practical.
Yes. Practical quality improvement is a separate service. Whether I also work in the care alongside it, we decide together when agreeing the assignment.
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