In the same style of recent nursing memoirs. A good look into a staple of the Nhs. Interesting and thought provoking.

I was really excited to read this book after reading the likes of This Is Going To Hurt but I was disappointed that rather than being confessions of a health visitor, it was simply a story about the author’s life.

When I reached roughly 75%, I was finally reading the book that I was looking for: an informative insight into how health visitors operate. I was also looking forward to reading anonymised stories of different encounters and experiences with clients but felt that the handful included were rushed and weren’t explored.

The title of the book and the synopsis led me to believe I was in for a humorous but informative read and I was left feeling very disappointed. The epilogue felt rushed but did have some pertinent points in the midst of the worldwide pandemic we find ourselves in.

I knew I would enjoy this book just from the title and front cover. I work in the NHS in Primary Care and have heard some great stories from various sectors over the years.

Rachael, this book is excellent, your book is incredibly well put together and the stories you have covered have touched me. I could sit and have several cups of tea and happily listen to you talk.

Excellent, and highly recommended

I really wanted to love this one, but I struggled with the writing, the way it was told and it just didn't hold my attention at all.

Sorry

Having previously worked for the NHS and spent time within the children and families sector I was keen to read this insight into a health visitors career. With over 30 years experience Rachael has seen the many sides to society.

Whilst I enjoyed reading about the cases she shares, I did struggle to gain an affection for Rachael. Not quite seeing her personality through the words and feeling uneasy about how she single handedly saved families. Although it is clear that she has gone above and beyond I don't feel it is right to claim this acclaim.

If you are hoping for a book like 'Call the Midwife', covering lots of interesting case studies, you are likely to be disappointed. This is much more of a memoir, with plenty of homilies about how the system has flaws and what could improve it.

It was an interesting read - written in a fairly colloquial style, with a variety of cases touched on briefly. The author is not shy about telling the reader how well she does her job, how she dips into her own pocket to help those in her care, and indeed how she and her family felt the despair of job loss and very low income. She doesn't really deal with many cases where she made a wrong choice or was afraid or worried about her charges. Usually she knew exactly what to do.

I was particularly interested to read what support 'universal' mothers should expect from health visitors after the birth of a child in the late 80s and 90s, which contrasts strongly with the experience I received!

Thank you to NetGalley and Mirror Books for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love medical memoirs. I’ve read about doctors nurses paramedics so it was good to have an in sight into a profession that most people think health visitors sit and have coffee with. However it was interesting to have an insight into what a health visitor really does how the job has changed over the years because of circumstances and life. I would have liked to hear more about cases rather than her personal experiences but on the whole a good book.

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.

I found this book quite informative and interesting. Never realised how much a health visitor would go through. I found some of the stories very funny and others heartbreaking.
Thank you to netgalley and the author and publishers for the opportunity to read this ARC for my honest opinion

First of all, thank you to Netgalley and Mirror books for allowing me to read an ARC of this book.
When I heard about this book, I was expecting something along the lines of This is going to hurt, The Prison Doctor Texas al, but this is slightly different. The focus of the book is on the author herself, her early days growing up and later, her personal history. While this is interesting, I was expecting the focus to be more on the families she visited rather than herself. I realise that patient confidentiality must be respected but other authors have managed to give longer, more detailed case histories without violating confidentiality. For me, the stories were a little rushed and not expanded upon.
However, it’s still an excellent read. It took me a little while to get into, but once I did I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This is difficult to rate because this author has opened up about her own heartbreak and experiences she has been through for that I want to say that is extremely brave, and thank you for sharing. It means that woman aren't alone in their own situations and I think some things need to be talked about more.

Aside from this authors own experience, I was absorbed in the beginning. It was interesting to learn how her career aet of and the differences between nurse training when she begun and now.
As the book went on I found myself less engaged. I think I wanted more understanding of the health care, and as the title suggest "confessions". I don't feel there were any real confessions, but I do understand the author may not have been able to expand on more.

It was an interesting read, and it gave me an insight into the Health Care side of things which I didn't fully know before.

Handle with Care: True Confessions of an NHS Health Visitor, a frank, honest and brutal look at life as NHS Health visitor. It's a thought-provoking and extremely relevant read.

I was hoping for memoirs reflecting upon Rachael Hearson's experiences working in the NHS. Instead, a significant portion of the book discusses her upbringing and there is far too much emphasis on her personal life. Whilst this could be an interesting addition to the book, it could easily have been condensed. At times, it felt as if I was reading an autobiography that briefly discussed her work. Not what I expected.

The client stories - which should form the bulk of the book - are far too brief and disjointed. Understandably anonymity is essential, however there was very little information as to how decisions were made and what happened as a result which seems bizarre.

I also felt Hearson's tone was incredibly unprofessional and she seems very judgemental (one client being described as "bat-shit crazy"). She is frequently belittling of peoples circumstances and behaviour, yet repeatedly sings her own praises which I found irritating and left me struggling to finish the book.

Disappointing.

Thanks to Mirror Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

I love a medical, autobiographical non fiction read. So when I saw this one pop up, written by a Health Visitor I thought this looks right up my street.

The book was very interesting. I loved the highlights made with specific cases which really showed what the day to day life of a health visitor is like. Hearson's career has been varied with a number of roles being mentioned prior to being a Health Visitor. These also added a further rounded view of working within the NHS. Also in varying settings in society and around the country (such as city vs. country living).

With regards what I didn't enjoy so much was the heavy mention of politics. This is very much a personal opinion. I was looking for a purely medical case based book. But the authors perspective and views are highly politically weighted. And so, not so much for me here.

Highly recommend for those looking for a new type of medical autobiographically non fiction.

Brilliant book have read memoirs of Gps consultants and midwives so was lovely to read about a Health Visitor. Funny in parts sad in parts but overall lovely

Beautifully written heart warming and enlightening after haveing a baby my self and haveing a pretty useless health visitor even though I was a young mum who had also lost her own mother I wish I had of had you
You are an inspiration and people should aspires to be more like you

i read this book whilst in the middle of the covid 19 lockdown . it gave a great insight into the insight of her life as a health visitor over 4 decades and of the `NHS and its services
it shows what the role ws expected to be at the start of when health visitors started to help in communities to the present day, with the cutbacks and funding greatly reduced.
A very interesting book.

Thank you to netgallet and Mirror books for the opportunity to read this advance copy in exchange for an honest review #Netgalley #MirrorBooks

From the synopsis of ‘Handle With Care’ I was expecting that majority of this book to focus on the author’s experiences she had whilst working as a health visitor for over 40 years. Instead, I found it to be mainly about her training, policy in the NHS and her family life and very little about the cases she had dealt with. The cases that she had dealt with were also mentioned very briefly and not in any real depth, and whilst I appreciate the need for anonymity for families, it is possible to suitably anonymise cases whilst giving a proper review of them (as other memoirs have achieved in the past).
For me, this book focuses too much on the author’s own family life and the financial struggles they had to deal with in the recessions, such as owning two homes in negative equity. I felt it was not delivering what the synopsis of the book had stated.
Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoy these types of books about the emergency services etc and this one did not disappoint. It was well written and gave a great insight into the NHS and it’s services.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

Rachel Hearson has a lovely relaxed writing style and her depiction of her childhood was lovely. Usually in a memoir based on a specific career or time of life then I prefer the story to begin at that point but in this case I was very grateful that Hearson took us back to her early life. I am a generation behind the author’s so it was interesting to see the 80’s through the eyes of someone who lived it as an adult. If only it were so easy to get a degree now!!
Rachel is clearly very proud of her profession and done as described in her book, I’d agree that Health Visitors are amazing people! Sadly, my own personal experience with of being bullied by our village’s HV when I was a single parent and then to have her not notice/ignore my post natal depression means I’ve never experienced anything even remotely close to what Hearson describes. Sadly no one I ever knew or met had a good word to say about the woman including the GP!! I’m sure Rachel is an incredibly dedicated and loving HV, she radiates kindness and a firm, fair positivity but I do think she needs to acknowledge that many of her professional colleagues aren’t like her. A trip to any parenting forum will bear this out, with HVs giving out old fashioned and now superseded advice regarding cosleeping, the use of punishment with preschoolers, weaning and more. I was very lucky to have my 4th child in a different town and not have to deal with Cruella D’visitor. This time I didn’t receive a baby visit which was fine by me and at 10 months received a phone call to ask me how things were and if I wanted a visit. My cheery “No thanks!” Was met with an equally cheery “well I’m fairly sure you know what you’re doing by now!” When my daughter was under 6 months we were invited to stay behind after baby group and listen to the HV give a weaning talk. The woman said that babies should be weaned from the breast or wouldn’t eat well and that “in my day weaning age was 16 weeks and now it’s 24, it never did my kids any harm and you’ll know if your baby is hungry” no word on the 4 month sleep regression that many parents mistake for hunger or the virgin gut evidence that underpins the need for nothing but milk for 6 months.
At age 2 I received letter after letter inviting me to some group observation thing. The letter said were I not interested then to ignore the letter. Which I did. So they sent another. And another. And yes.. another.
It has always been my view that the service was a waste of NHS money as most people can access what a HV provides via other routes, the GP, breastfeeding clinics etc and that it was more of a social care concern. So I’m sad to hear from the author that someone in government had the same idea as me and made a total hash of it and didn’t ring fence the budget for it!! She made very good points about the lack of integration within the GPs surgery and the council way of working with hot dealing, working away from the office etc not being helpful in the health visitor role. Perhaps then they do need to be under the NHS again then but with the resources firmly targeted at those women who Rachel describes being so important to. Those in hostels, those under social care, in poor housing etc and there must be much more commitment to ongoing training and keeping abreast of changes to recommendations and why those recommendations were made especially when they are from the WHO. There is no need for them to be qualified nurses and midwives if they tell mothers that baby led weaning will ‘starve’ their child and cause them to be dependent on the breast (like that’s a bad thing)
Despite my prejudices and personal opinions I enjoyed reading this book and finished it in a day.