Posted on 21-September-2015   by Imogen Jones

Kate Burnett talks about Daniels in Northern Ireland

I recently caught up with Kate Burnett, Business Development Manager and chatted to her about her role with Daniels in Northern Ireland.

Kate provides support to customers in Northern Ireland and told us it’s a very enjoyable part of her work. It’s traditionally been about building relationships, so her customers know we have trays, training and can provide them with audits.

She can react very, very quickly to any serious incidents they may have, because she has the advantage of being in a very flexible job. For example, when a customer has had a report of a sharps injury, she’s been able to go in and assess whether or not it’s something to do with our Sharps containers or the way the customer uses them.

Plus, many times, when a customer has run out of a product and hasn’t got time to place an order or the stores don’t have them, Kate’s been able to walk to our distributor and take them physically there, to tide them over. So, what’s an average day for Kate? Read on to find out what she told us…

Just Your Average Day

‘A normal day for me can be anything from auditing to delivering my trays and running into different people. The day I really enjoy most is when I go into a community area, which we have more of in Northern Ireland now, as they want people to go local rather than to the hospitals. I go into a community area maybe for one Tuesday morning, and run hourly training sessions the district nurses can pop into. It means they can call in for a 20 or 30-minute training session while they’re collecting more supplies or leaving specimens.

Thanks to the knowledge I’ve learned from Daniels and my colleagues, I’m always able to give them something they’ve never heard before. And they say, “My goodness, Kate, I didn’t realise that. I didn’t realise Sharps containers shouldn’t be on the floor or why we had to use a temporary closure. That’s going to change the way I use Sharps containers and that’s going to make me safer.”

I consider that the safety, the service, and the support – every day. That makes it for me.’

Making the Team Work

‘The team around me are superb. Colin Paice, our local customer support person, comes to help me. Historically, we do audits for every single trust every year. We go into the areas they want us to go into. Some of them choose the areas where they’ve had needle-stick injuries or problems with waste disposal and the like. If they don’t give us enough areas, we randomly pick a few more.

We go in with our audit sheet, which has increased over the years, so it takes us a lot longer to do it now, but it’s more beneficial to the customer, because we’re answering the questions that they can’t get out to see in all those areas.

I went into a psychiatric ward one day and they had the Sharps bins perfectly done, all temporary closed. They were locked away in a cupboard in a locked room, which was absolutely perfect, but I walked out of it, and they had a recess trolley on the ward, and on the recess trolley was a Sharps container, which contained scissors, razors, and sharps. And they didn’t realise what they were doing that out in a psychiatric ward where the patients were actually mingling. It was a big an opportunity for me to add value and explain the reasons why you need to keep the Sharps container on the recess trolley empty at all times. I always advise customers that they need to be continually doing a risk assessment in their heads. Colin helps me to do that when we are out with customers. When we see a problem on the ground, there and then, we tell someone.’

Daniels In Northern Ireland

‘When I joined the business 13 years ago, Daniels wasn’t being used in Northern Ireland, I was employed to build relationships here – to get to know the customers; get them to do trials of our product; and monitor the trials. The product spoke for itself and we’ve had the contract in Northern Ireland since 2005.

I get plenty of support from you (the office base team) and contact you whenever I need new trays sent over or brackets. I have a home based office, so I’m in my car a lot – so my work environment shifts a lot so I rely on the team, and other reps as well, who are all amazing.

I have some great memories of my time here – along with some funny stories. Once, I was training in a hospital community room with occupational health nurses. It was a dementia ward and a lovely old gentleman came into the room in an old-fashioned smoking jacket. He sat on one of the chairs and listened for a while. Then walked over to the corner, and the next thing he was urinating over some equipment covered in bubble wrap. It sounded like a drum roll. Then he just pulled his pyjamas up, looked at us and walked out, and that was what he thought of my training!’

A big thank you to Kate for sharing her experiences in Northern Ireland with us. We do get to hear some stories here in the office, but it’s really nice to be able to sit and hear more about what our team get up to on a day to day basis when supporting our clients.

Imogen Jones

Imogen is the Product Manager for our SHARPSGUARD® range, and our Marketing Manager for the UK & Ireland.