midwife's muse

I hate paperwork

Well, today was my first day of being out there not being orientated, and it was a mixed bag. The day started off well. Time in the office to try and make some sense of all the paperwork that was overflowing from my storage box, no simple in-tray for a community midwife, a large capacity plastic box is the only receptacle capable of housing assorted edicts and communications from numerous sources. A new one on this midwife, a sheet of info from the local constabulary concerning a domestic dispute (shouting match) involving a woman in early pregnancy. I was perplexed, what the **** should I do? Hmmm, I'll speak to the Health Visitors as there are 2 under fives at that address, they should know the protocol. I'll 'file' it in my diary. Oh wonderful, several sheets of paper with columns on it, another audit perhaps. No, a log of all the women I see at  each and every clinic, the covering letter advises me that 'the funding for our service is changing. Unless we provide accurate and timely statistics the financing of the service will be adversely affected.' These Community Midwife Activity Sheets want to know everything, names, addresses, NHS numbers, DOB, G.P, Hospital booked at, Time in, time out no quick scrawl here then. Unfortunately these time and motion sheets do not allow for me being unable to start clinic in time due to the G.P praying in the room I am scheduled to use, 10 minutes. The computer guy installing an update, another 10 minutes, and then me having to change rooms a third of the way through clinic as the computer guy needs to come in to re-programme something, 5 minutes. A total of 25 minutes delay imposed upon my clinic before the usual overruns that happen because a problem is encountered with a pregnant woman. I shall write this on the form anyway, I think it's noteworthy if we are worried about how efficiently my time is being used.

There was, in my box, a letter requesting the stats for my caseload for last year. What? I only started today. How should I know? I can't find any relevant documentation. I'll write a reminder note in my diary to, I don't know really, but I'll remind myself that I should do something. Found a Health Visitor to ask about the 'domestic', 'ignore it' was the advice. 'It's really annoying, they are always sending these, covering their butts'. is a precis of what she said.

In my magical paper receptacle were also tens of A5 sheets with blood results. My heart sank, bloody hell am I supposed to file all these, keep them close to my heart, what? I turned to a colleague. She laughed at my obvious horror, file them, in the bin. Don't know why they send them to us, G'P's have a copy, hospital has a  copy, they just send one to us as well. What a waste of time, money and paper. That was not the end though. Arriving at the G.P's I looked in our tray and there, nestled comfortably in their own special plastic wallet were..........more copies of the blood results.

It took me an hour and a half to wade through all the printed matter allotted to me. Was any of it useful? No. Did any of it benefit the women? No. Who is benefitting? No answer to that one.

I survived the day. Only finished half an hour late. I'm on-call now until 8.30 in the morning, I'm feeling positive, I will have a nights sleep. Hope so because I've got another clinic in the morning.

12.4.07 22:52