'[It] manages to be funny, moving, activist, and challenging.' Harriet Minter, TalkRadio 'I loved this book - I thought it was really interesting' Jane Garvey, BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Health Visiting is one of those professions that most people think is a bit of a non-job. 'You just sit on sofas and drink tea, don't you? It's not like you're a real nurse, in hospital.' Well, Health Visitors are real nurses, with at least three years' training, and they are out there, on their own. No back-up team or support structures to ...
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'[It] manages to be funny, moving, activist, and challenging.' Harriet Minter, TalkRadio 'I loved this book - I thought it was really interesting' Jane Garvey, BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Health Visiting is one of those professions that most people think is a bit of a non-job. 'You just sit on sofas and drink tea, don't you? It's not like you're a real nurse, in hospital.' Well, Health Visitors are real nurses, with at least three years' training, and they are out there, on their own. No back-up team or support structures to call for help if they're in a dicey situation. No warm lights, tea breaks spent chatting in the canteen, nobody else to ask, 'is this okay, what do you think?' Over 40 years working in the NHS, Rachael Hearson has been chased down an isolated stairwell by crack-fuelled drug-addicted pimps, threatened by a knife-wielding wife-beater in a hostel, unwittingly visited a brothel... And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
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As an NHS Health Visiter, Rachael Hearson finds herself in some interesting situations. Women from all lifestyles need help in navigating motherhood and she is there with them every step of the way.
I enjoy reading diary and confession type books as you get a real insight into the lives of people that you don't necessarily interact with on a day to day basis. I loved Adam Kay's 'This is Going to Hurt' or memoirs of prison doctors but I found this one a little lacklustre. I think part of this is that I find the stories of the patients and situations more interesting than the background of the person telling the story and Handle With Care is much more memoir of Racheal Hearson's life. This may be due to the fact her job means she only pops into the lives of her patients for a short amount of time and often doesn't know the outcome of her visits. I would say you get the background of her life and training for about 70% of the book and actual case studies for 30%. Although it's an interesting and engaging read, it wasn't really what I had expected and requested the book for! Perhaps if they had been more snippets of personal stories and better intertwined with the cases it would have made for a well-constructed read that fulfilled a lot of readers expectations.
There also feels like a lot of the 'saviour' complex in this book, with Rachael talking about how many times she single-handedly turned a person's life around or gave her own money to patients frequently. Although this may be true, it didn't really make it easy to empathise with her when you are just bashed around the head with how amazing at her job she was without any talk of mistakes or trepidation she had with decisions she was making.
When the actual cases were delved in though to they were very interesting and it was an insight into a part of the health profession that I have never needed to use so I did find it fascinating in that sense. I did also really enjoy the end chapter about the NHS and the Coronovirus, which especially as I was reading the ARC, is amazingly current. It's a heart-warming addition about just how important and life-saving the NHS is and how lucky we are to have it which is so true.
Overall, I found Handle With Care a little disappointing - it's too much about the personal life of an individual Health Visitor than proper insights and confessions of the job as a whole. Thank you to NetGalley & Mirror Books for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
