Specialist Nurses' Experience of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

In the 6 months preceding the pandemic, the Deputy Chief Nurse and Consultant Nurse for Trauma and Orthopaedics had worked with this group of staff to find commonalities among their roles, and outline the development required to ensure they were recognized for the clear contribution they made to high-quality patient care and improved patient outcomes. The pain management and acute pain management specialist nurses were deployed to critical care, primarily because their workload centered on pain management post-surgery, and many elective procedures had stopped. Both acknowledged the lack of family presence at the end of life was very distressing. If the situation were to arise again, both indicated they would return to critical care one because overall she felt this was a learning experience, and the other because of the fear of how a refusal may be perceived by others.