Living with
Haemophilia
Professional view
A Day in My Life - Ged Lalor
Ged shares his unique view of haemophilia care as a haematology social worker.
What is your role in the multi-disciplinary team?
I am certainly a rare creature. I work as a social worker in the oncology and haematology units at Royal Manchester Children's Hospital.
What are your day-to-day responsibilities?
My job is to fill in the gaps that can't be filled by doctors, nurses and physiotherapists. That means I have quite a wide-ranging brief but generally I provide practical and emotional support and advice to children, young people and their families affected by haemophilia and other blood disorders.
My role involves quite a lot of face-to-face work, home visits and meeting people in clinics. However, I also do a lot of work behind the scenes including liaison and negotiation with other agencies such as other health trusts, the benefits agencies and occasionally children and family departments. Really I try to respond to whatever is thrown at me by the families and then we see whether or not it falls within my brief which, by and large, it does.
How long have you been doing the job?
Well I have been in my current post at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital for just over 11 years, although I qualified as a social worker in 1982!
What first sparked your interest in haemophilia?
I suppose you could say that my interest is something that has developed over the years. I was a pretty experienced social worker when I came in to the job and I understood how families tick and how they function. I also understood how something like haemophilia affects the whole family, and has an impact not only for the person themselves but also for everyone around that child.
I actually came into this job fairly ignorant of matters to do with both haematology and oncology, so in the first 12 months of the job there was an awful lot to learn including terminology and the experiences of families living with haemophilia.
Can you describe a ‘typical day'?
A typical day is difficult to describe, however, it would start with a very strong coffee! I see families a lot and I try to see them in their own homes, somewhere that they feel comfortable with my visiting them although sometimes that isn't practical. As well as seeing patients, a typical day would involve a lot of phone calls, typing on the keyboard now like everyone else, applications to other agencies such as grant giving organisations like the Roald Dahl foundation.
I also do a lot of negotiation with housing providers, benefit agencies, education institutions and I talk a lot to other health professionals. Often, I think that is where a lot of the important work is done in informal conversations with colleagues, nurses and doctors, sharing and pooling information.
What is the greatest challenge in your job?
There are a lot of challenges, but the greatest would be in being absolutely honest to families. There is a great temptation to tell a young person or tell a parent what you think they might want to hear, or to promise what can't be delivered. When you are dealing with a life-long condition like haemophilia you can, as a social worker, ease a lot of the difficulties in dealing with a crisis, but you don't have a magic wand. I think it is a daily challenge to be absolutely honest with people about what we can and can't do.
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
I think that I'm very lucky; I'm a social worker who enjoys coming into work everyday. But, I think the most rewarding part of the haemophilia aspect of my job is that rather than having to rush in and fire fight or deal with a crisis and then go away, I can actually work with a family over a long period. I have actually worked with some families for over 11 years. It's being able to follow through and develop a professional relationship with families in the long term to become hopefully a small, but a reasonably consistent, part of their lives. That's the best bit of the job, that I can actually build relationships with people.
