A no limits book about the reality of working within the NHS as a health visitor. A very really, honest & raw accounts, A fascinating read so story aren’t pretty but that is the life of a health visitor

This was a good book detailing the life of a health visitor and how they found their calling. It was a lovely story showing that despite having a professional job you can still experience financial difficulties which she use to help others help themselves. Often people working in this position giving advice can be viewed as not actually understanding their position but you can see this is not always the case. Beautifully written with a good amount of details from her cases while working.

Usually this type of book gets atleast 4 stars from me. I find memoirs and autobiographies really interesting. However this particular book did nor hit the spot, the subjects were uninteresting and not what I expected.

I usually enjoy books like this as they offer an insight into the job and often mention interesting cases.

I found the introduction very defensive and almost like an attack on the reader, accusing them of thinking all health visitors sit about drinking tea and have an easy job. If the reader thought that then why would they bother to read the book?

The style felt very disjointed and seemed to jump around, talking about her life and brief mentions of the odd case.

For me, I felt there was far too much talk of her personal life and complaining that the job isn’t what it was due to lack of funding. I know this is an important issue but it just came across as the author complaining.

At times the book felt quite political and her comments about patients were a tad unprofessional sometimes.

Fortunately the book was quite short but it wasn’t an enjoyable read for me at all. I expected to learn more about the role of a health visitor and get an insight into some of the important cases over the years, but this was really lacking.

It seems like this book was just rushed in order to cash in on the interest in the NHS during the pandemic.

I wouldn’t recommend this.

Thanks to Mirror Books and NetGalley for a copy to review.

I can never give less than a 5 star rating to a real life story. It's someone's account of what they experienced.
I am glad I had the opportunity to read this through Rachel's eyes as this book will stay with me for a very long time.

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Rachel Hearson and Mirror Books for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.

As a former Health visiting graduate I enjoyed this book and found it interesting and moving. Would recommend.

An interesting read that I'm glad to have discovered. I'll definitely be seeking out more by this author.

I enjoy reading medical memoir style books and from the description thought this would be a good read for me. However it read more like an autobiography with few and short case stories included. At times it felt opinionated rather than factual and detracted from my enjoyment. On the whole I found the book to be interesting but would have liked more in depth description of client/nurse interactions.

Being the kind of person who doesn't really enjoy reality TV, memoirs of people's personal life, podcasts about personal things, this book leaned a bit too heavy on the personal side of the author's life.
The professional side of things were interesting, though, and gave some perspective. It's easy to read and digest and, at the same time, gives me respect for the people who work in these sorts of circumstances. Even though I thought some parts lacked professionalism at times and I didn't always agree with the author, it shows that people are different. The humor was so and so.

All in all, this was not a favorite.

Handle with Care: Confessions of an NHS Health Visitor by Rachael Hearson was an okay book. As a health visitor myself I was hoping for a bit more on the life in the job but the majority was focused on her own life. Felt it could have been used as an opportunity to show what a valuable job and service we provide to all walks of life but this fell short of this.

Thank you to Netgalley and Mirror Books for this copy of Handle with Care in exchange for an Ho eat review.
I was expecting this to be more about patients but was largely focused on Rachael’s personal life and training and only a small amount was about actual patient care.
I think had there been more cases included within the book I would have found it more interesting but unfortunately I really found this book difficult to get through.

I found this book didn’t quite deliver what I felt like it promised. I expected a memoir along the lines of ‘This is going to hurt’, from the perspective of a health visitor and the range of people/cases she had encountered in her career. However this seemed to be secondary to an account of the author’s personal life, career choices and policy/funding changes, which I didn’t find to be interesting content. Perhaps would be more relatable to those already within the profession.

I loved this book which describes Rachael’s varied experiences as a health visitor as well as her previous training as a registered nurse and midwife. It is also autobiographical in style which gives a human element to her story. She comes over as a very caring person with quite a sense of humour. As an ex health visitor myself it made me reflect on all the changes that have happened within the health service and within the profession over the years.

I was expecting this to be a memoir of the authors days as a health visitor and full of case stories. This is more a autobiography cum discussion on the state of the health visitor and how the authorities have diluted the job. It was ok, but a little disappointing.

This book has as it’s premise a description of what it’s like to be a Health Visitor. Well that’s the idea but unfortunately there aren’t a great deal of case studies and experiences rather a foray into the authors personal life. There are some interesting stories shared but not unlike another very similar book this came across as a little self-indulgent. It felt as if the author was suggesting were it not for health visitors then many children would be neglected/abused. Although it is the case that they do a brilliant job, safeguarding children is never about one single entity but many working together from all disciplines. There was too much of this and her own life experiences which was disappointing

Found this book disappointing because I was expecting a memoir about what life as a health visitor is like, with stories about the people she had met, in the same vein as the introduction which hinted at sometimes insane situations she'd found herself in. However, the rest of the book just seemed to be the author recalling her life, and there was not much about her position as a health visitor, much less about the life experiences she's had in that career. Read like an autobiography rather than a memoir about something specific, which frankly, I came here to read about but found little to none in the book.

'Handle With Caee' is the memoir of Rachael, who has worked as a NHS Health Visitor for the past 30 years (as well as 10 years of nursing prior to that).

I was intrigued to read more about the daily comings and goings of health visitors, as I don't think that they get as much recognition as other health professionals, and imagined a memoir on similar lines to 'The Prison Doctor' by Amanda Brown.

Overall, the book was interesting to read, and it was nice to get a glimpse of 'behind the scenes'. However, it really was just glimpses that you got. A lot more time was spent explaining Rachael's childhood and her personal struggles when her husband was made redundant, rather than delving deeper into her very brief stories about different clients.

I'd still recommend this book to my customers and promote it as it is interesting when detailed, but I would think that, like me, they'd also find the book a little disappointing in its execution.

Thank you to Netgalley for a pre publication copy. In return for an honest review! #Handlewithcare #netgalley

Rachel Hearson is a midwife, nurse and health visitor working in the NHS. This is the memoirs of her journey of finding her feet as a tri-professional from studenthood through her many different experiences as a qualified tri-professional.

This book featured in one of Netgalley monthly newsletters and the description made me know this book was for me.

This book is a page turner. You want to follow Rachel through her fight and whilst assisting those to fight through the rock bottom of life.

This book does exactly what it says on the tin. A lovely but emotional, at times, read.

However I do feel at one particular point during this book that Health visitors were made to be the only ones able to do certain aspects of care. It almost came out as derogatory towards other professions Eg " but health visitors are the only nurses who have, as their main focus. Prevention of ill health and promotion of well-being. These qualified professionals who have also studied an extra year on top of their nursing and midwifery qualification have unique access to families through home visiting which enables us to identify health needs early and often before they become critical weakening irreparable damage. .." This is certainly not true community nurses work on being proactive to ill health prevention and wellbeing promotion rather than reactive. However they usually are dealing with a specific aspect of health which is" abnormal. " They visit patients at home and are able to prevent health deterioration becoming critical just like health visitors but with a different type of patient. The nurses are not required by the NMC to have an extra year of study but this does not make them any less qualified. I imagine the author was not meaning this to read how it did but meaning they were the only professionals to visit mostly well people for this type of work. However it reads differently which, although unlikely, could be catastrophic for some professionals when trying to work with lay people who have misinterpreted this.

Overall I enjoyed this book and it has helped me get out of my reading slump.

As with most nhs memoirs I enjoyed this one. It had the usual mix of happiness and sadness and was an enjoyable and educational read.

A simple and quick read for me, I didn't expect it to be so autobiographical though.

Her description of life, redundancy and family were easy to relate to, but I can't say I enjoyed those bits, most of us are able to have written the same! The health visitor stories were more scant, with some detail that made me uncomfortable., a bit of respect towards others just wasn't there.

On the whole I found it sad and a bit depressing.