Making The Most Of Your Supernumerary Period

Nicola tells you everything you need to know about making the most of your supernumerary period and why it’s important to ensure that you do.

Topics Covered In This Article

Introduction

Ask Questions

Get Things In Place

Shadow People

Get Training Done

Keep The Midpoint Of This Period In Mind

Final Thoughts

Introduction

Hi guys, my name is Nicola and I'm a neonatal sister, today, I'm going to be talking to you a little bit about making the most out of your supernumerary period.

So when you start a new job, you will be given a supernumerary period. And that is essentially, a protected time where you are not counted in the numbers, and this enables you to be able to get to grips with your new working environment and your new job role.

And so I'm just gonna give you some advice about what you can do to make the most out of your supernumerary period.

Ask Questions

So my first piece of advice for you, would be to ask questions.

So during your supernumerary period, ask as many questions as you can.

This is a great opportunity to gain further more in-depth understanding about your job role, the environment that you are gonna be working in and how the daily processes within your unit or whatever your job role may be, asking questions gives you more of an insight into what you will be doing, how the daily processes work, and what will be expected of you.

It doesn't matter how qualified you are, how experienced you are, there's always something new to be learned, and every trust, every unit, does things differently.

So I always tell people, go into a new job almost like you're a student and ask questions, get an understanding of what is expected of you, how the daily processes work, and this will really help you to get to grips with your new job role quite quickly.

Get Things In Place

My second piece of advice for you would be to use your supernumerary period to get the basic things in place.

So get access to computer systems, get your logins, get in touch with payroll, make sure you can access your pay slips, have an understanding of annual leave and how the processes work, you don't want to wait until the end of your supernumerary period, before you realize you haven't got access to pay slips, or parking, or you haven't got a login.

During your supernumerary period, it is still protected time.

So if you need to dash off the unit to sort out your parking, if you need to dash off the unit to go and get your IT login, you can do those things.

It becomes a lot harder once you're counted in the numbers, to be able to get your parking sorted and your IT login.

And by having all of these things in place, it makes your transition into your new role a lot more smoother.

Shadow People

So one thing that I would encourage you to remember, is that your supernumerary period is essentially, protected time.

And so really utilize this time to shadow other professionals, shadow different nurses that you are gonna be working with, even if you can't spend the whole day with them, go and introduce yourself to people, "I'm so and so, I'm a new sister, I'm a new Nurse that started, I understand you're part of the discharge team, can you tell me a little bit more about what you guys do and how I can utilize you when I'm looking after patients on the unit."

Utilize the time to shadow, utilize the time to explore different teams within the unit, it is essentially, protected time, and so you should use this time in the best way that you see fit.

Get Training Done

You can also use this time to get a lot of your training done, whether that's virtual, online, face to face, following on from my advice about getting your training done, is to do a lot of your e-learning.

A lot of training these days within the trust is online, it's a lot of e-learning, and once you're in the numbers, it's really, really difficult to get these competencies done, get your e-learning done, get your skills signed off, so when you are in that supernumerary period and you get a quiet moment, if you're allowed to nip off the ward, if you're allowed to go home early, get the majority of your e-learning done.

Keep The Midpoint Of This Period In Mind

So depending on your role and how experienced you are, I would say that by the midpoint of your supernumerary period, you should start taking your own workload independently under the supervision of whoever you are working with.

And the reason why I say this, is because for you to really have an understanding of what you are doing, what is expected of you, what it's really like to work within the team in the unit, you need to be getting yourself involved and taking your own patients, taking your own workload.

And the best time to really do that actually, is during the supernumerary period when you have the opportunity to ask people questions, where you have the opportunity where you are still being shadowed because once you're in the numbers, yes, you can still ask questions, yes, you can still ask for help, but there will still be an expectation of you to be able to manage your workload and manage your patients to a degree, without needing additional supervision.

Final Thoughts

So I always say to people, during your supernumerary period, once you reach that halfway point, start taking patients, start doing your workload independently, and you find that when you start doing this as well, you might run into difficulties, you might have questions, and that's the best way to get learning, is when you take your own patients, you take your own workload and you think, "Oh, I dunno how to do this, oh, how do they do this here?"

And then that's the best way to equip you and prepare you before you are counted into the numbers.

So I hope you found that useful, thank you so much for watching.