How To Prepare For A Nurse Appraisal

Practice Nurse, Debbie Olusola, talks through how she has prepared for her own appraisal and how organisation and ongoing information gathering is key.

Hello, my name is Debbie and I'm a Practice Nurse in London.

Today I'm going to be discussing how to prepare for your appraisal.

First of all, what is an appraisal?

To me, how I see an appraisal is a time where I can discuss with my manager, or in my case GP partner, on my career progression, my career plans, my personal development, how I've been performing at work so far in the time that I have been here.

Preparation Is Key

So firstly, it's important that you know your job description, what has been asked of you, what is required of you to do in the time that you've been here, and has that changed since you started?

So for me, as a Practice Nurse, there are various skills, various tasks, I'll say, that I have been assigned to do in the time that I have been here.

Recognising Acquired Skills

And I have been able to exceed in those tasks by learning new skills that I wouldn't have learned before.

So these are the type of things that I will take into my appraisal, such as, since I started I've been able to do the smears, smear tests. I've been able to do children immunisations.

I've been able to do various injections, or travel immunisations, different kinds of things that I have been able to achieve which were not on my previous job description that I can now take into my appraisal.

And say, this is what I can do, and I've been able to achieve above and beyond what was originally required of me.

Another thing is not just to say, but to show and tell.

Keeping A Ongoing Record Of Your Achievements

So what achievements have you been able to do, have you been able to go on various courses, have you been able to get feedback from patients.

Any feedback that you get from any of your patients, any course that you go on, any certificates, you would have emails, you can ask your patients who, if someone says something really nice about you, you can have that in writing so you can show your manager or whoever's doing the appraisal that it's more than just my lip service.

This is what I am saying, but look, these are the achievements that I have been able to do by keeping a folder.

I have a folder here, with all my certificates, with everything that I've trained for, everything that I do is in this folder so that I can show it and say, this is what I've done.

So when preparing for your appraisal it's important to do things as you go along.

In terms of, don't wait until you appraisal time before you are getting patient feedback or you're putting your certificates together, write things as you're going along.

When someone says something really nice about you, you can have a book or a journal where you write things so that when it is time for that appraisal you are able to systematically go through everything that you've done.

And as you're preparing for your appraisal it's important to do things as you are going along, meaning that, as you're getting these certificates, as you're getting patient feedback, write things down, have a journal, whatever the case may be, but don't wait until it's time for the appraisal before you start rummaging and running up and down looking for all the resources and everything that you need.

Have a folder, have something that you can systematically look through and say, this is what I've been able to achieve over the time that I have been here.

Think About Setting Goals and A Time Frame

Another thing that's important is writing down your goals.

What is it that you would like to achieve?

You've been here for a certain amount of time, things might be getting a bit repetitive, you might want to learn a new skills, be able to say that, you know what, I've achieved all of this so far and I would now like to take things to a different level,

I'd now like to achieve this skill and that skill.

This is your personal development, this is your time to say what it is that you would like to do.

Give yourself a timeframe, give yourself certain goals that you would like to achieve.

Another important thing is, how are you gonna achieve those things?

Requesting Allocated Time To Achieve Your Goals

Do you need more study days, do you need more study time?

Things like that, these are the important things, because the truth is you're not always gonna have enough time to speak on these matters, everybody's busy, especially for me in GP world, everybody's in their rooms, everybody's just getting on with it, seeing their patients, so this is the time for you to tell them everything that you need.

Are you getting the study days that you need to achieve the goals that you want?

The problem with study days is obviously, it costs your work for, when I say your work, it costs your Manager to let you go off and have those times.

So they're not going to automatically give it to you.

If they're nice they will, but you have to request it and say, do you know what, I've been on this course and I need to have a certain time out to be able to achieve what I can, to be able to achieve the best that I can in this course, so I need that study time off.

And firstly, which is for me, very important, is a pay review.

Requesting A Pay Review

You've been able to say that I've done this, I've done that, patients are happy with me, everything seems to be going well, can I have a pay rise?

Can my pay, and obviously this mainly applies to GP Nurses, as we have to negotiate our pay, whereas in other fields of Nursing that go by the Agenda for Change, this might be a time for possible career progression in terms of banding.

If you are in a ward setting, seeing if there is a Junior Sister Role, or Senior Sister Role available for you, or a time where you can now specialise.

If you are working on a vascular ward, maybe you want to become a tissue viability Nurse, or on a respiratory ward, you wanna become a specialist, this is the time to be able to say that I actually want to change my banding and, or this is a time to say I've actually been thinking about various other roles that I can take, other responsibilities that I could take which could obviously in turn lead to a pay rise.

And then it's also important to be honest with yourself, where you are at the moment.

Being Realistic With Yourself

The job as a Nurse is very tall-scale and sometimes, what is expected of us, we're not meeting it, not because we cannot, but we just need more support from our management, and if you are able to prepare and plan for the appraisal well enough and be able to be honest, you should have a good appraisal.

So I am going to have an appraisal in the next few days and I hope it goes well.