Hi, I'm Steven and I'm a porter supervisor.
A typical day for the portering supervisor varies depending on which shift we're on. At the start of the shift, we would do handover with the controller that we are relieving, and he will identify any job slots that are available, or any people that phoned in sick, and extra duties that I would have to then cover.
We would then get phone calls from wards, support workers, labs with all these different jobs which I would then have to prioritise and put onto the portering task creation system. Then I would have a pool of porters that would then select the type of job through the task creation system and book it depending on the priority.
I would say the most important skills for a portering supervisor are cooperation, communication, and personal skills. Some of the phone calls we get are a little bit heated and people are worried about their patients. We've got to try and de-escalate the situation and get the correct information that we require to do our job correctly, whether that is taking blood, or getting patients transferred to different areas.
We have also got to cooperate well with these departments as well as our staff working the floor. We've got to be in constant communication with them to stop people going for the same jobs, or down to the same areas of the hospital. We've got to keep an even spread right throughout the department.
What makes me proud being a portering supervisor in the NHS is my staff, especially during the recent pandemic. My staff have all given nothing short of one hundred percent, right throughout the pandemic. All of them have gone above and beyond to pick up that extra workload, to pick up extra shifts, staying back to help other shifts out in a moment's notice. Just seeing the way they've all joined together to support each other has made me extremely proud.