Handle with care by Rachael Haerson.

An ok read but not what I expected from this genre of book it was more about the authors life rather than anecdotes of her career. At one point I thought I couldn’t possibly finish the book I was bored but I hate letting a book beat me. It was more of an autobiography in truth not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to both the author and net galley for allowing me to read this book.

A very enjoyable memoir of an nhs health visitor, amusing, emotional and sometimes shocking. Realistic stories of what it’s like to be a health visitor.

I was a little disappointed with this book, I was expecting more stories and anecdotes from the front line in the style of Adam Kay's 'This is going to hurt' series. This is more like a memoir about the author's life and although enjoyable at times, in other parts it was tedious and monotonous and never really got going. Such a shame. I requested this on Netgalley and actually put it at the top of my list to read as I was so excited to read it but ended up feeling underwhelmed. Six out of ten.

I love these kinds of books and have read so many about the NHS and couldmt wait to read this one. I read it in one night. The stories from her job as a health visitor were interesting and surprising at times. I don't know how she got through some of those families but the book also went into her personal life story which was good but I would have loved more stories of her patients and families.

As a health professional myself I really enjoyed this book and having an insight into a different profession. Thank you netgalley for the opportunity to read this title in exchange for an honest review.

Rachael Hearson has worked in the NHS for over 40 years, with more than 30 of them spent as a Health Visitor.  During her career she has had a wealth of positive experiences, more than her share of negative ones and some just downright bizarre ones thrown in for good measure. This is her story.

I've really enjoyed a few of the medical professional memoirs that have been published recently, so when this popped up on NetGalley I was quick to request it.  Unfortunately I felt it missed the mark.

Reading the blurb I was looking forward to reading about Rachael's professional life and hearing about some of the families she has worked with.  I assumed this would be the focus of the book.  This one is more of a personal memoir, and although it does cover some patient stories, I felt there was less of that side of things than I was looking for, and a heavier focus on the author's personal life. Don't get me wrong, she's had an interesting life and has worked through some incredibly hard times, but that wasn't the book I was expecting or hoping for.

The other reason for my low rating is that the book seemed quite fractured and the sections didn't flow well from one another.  Quite often a new section or story would start but I'd feel that the previous one hadn't quite finished. 

On the positive side the stories that Rachael tells of her time as a Health Visitor were really interesting, and showed what a phenomenal range of skills her and her colleagues need in order to be able to help people.  Some of the sights they see are unbelievable, and to be honest hearing about the level of poverty that some families face was distressing. 

What I learnt about Health Visitors and the challenges they face was fascinating. Seeing how they can find ways to get through to people who don't think they want or need help, and learning about the many aspects of their role was the highlight of the book for me.  I felt like we got a taster of something brilliant, but there just wasn't enough of it, and having had the taste the other bits didn't do it for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Mirror Books for an arc in exchange for an honest review

I am a fan of these career biographies and was hoping that this would help me to have even more appreciation for essential workers during this time but, to be honest, I found the style of writing extremely dry.
I know that it is a true-life story but there are huge swaths of details that bog down the story and the anecdotes until I was quite bored.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest, independent review.

"Over 40 years working in the NHS, Rachael Hearson has been chased down an isolated stairwell by crack-fuelled drug-addicted pimps, threatened by a knife-wielding wife-beater in a hostel, unwittingly visited a brothel..."

I enjoyed this book. We follow Rachael's career through the NHS, as she trains as a nurse and specialises as a Health Visitor, helping women from all walks of life navigate motherhood. I enjoyed hearing about the ups and downs of being a Health Visitor, and the type of help they can give women. It also shone a light on poverty, and the difficulty some mothers find themselves in.

The downside to me was there was too much personal content, with more focus on Rachael's personal life than a 'confessions of' style medical book. I'm interested to hear about how people in healthcare got into the role, how they trained etc., but I found at times there was more of the author's personal history than there was of her medical career. I feel I would have enjoyed it more if there were more sections on visits to patients.

It was a thought-provoking read though, and interesting to see how much Health Visitors do.

'Handle with Care' is a timely release when all things are considered. Published by mirror group, this professional confessional is a refreshing first-person memoir of 40 plus years working as a health visitor in a bureaucratic, cash-starved, and often forgotten, NHS.

Before clapping on a Thursday and priority shopping at supermarkets, this integral part of the healthcare profession was often ridiculed and not lauded like it is today.

From midwifery school to eventual health care visits, and raising a family herself, Racheal gives a startlingly refreshing and heartfelt life story that is as much social history document as it is a diagnostic on social health in the 20th century.

Rachael is a hard-working Mum who's passionate about her cases and delivers an intelligently warm narrative which comes across well in this warts and all account. Where it may lack in real life case-by-case examples of practising healthcare ( a lot of personal life stories here) the cases that are discussed offer an insightful and often thought-provoking look at life on the frontline of our ever-changing and politically charged healthcare services. Our only criticism would be that the impassioned covid19 epilogue should have been put at the start of this book - very inspiring stuff!

I requested this book for review on Netgalley as I loved books in a similar vein, namely 'This Is Going To Hurt' by Adam Kay and Leah Hazard's 'Hard Pushed: A Midwife's Story'. I am very interested in learning about jobs that I know very little about plus, I haven't had great experiences with health visitors myself. I'm still waiting on Erin's two year check and she'll be six in September!

The first half of the book was very slow and it took me a while to get into. It reads more like a full autobiography, starting with her childhood and it seems like it has a lot of filler that I wasn't hooked on. I much prefer the stories of clients she visited.

The second half of the book, I loved. It was much more work-based and tough to read about some of the houses and situations that were visited by Hearson. You hear about the setting up of a nappy bank, which was very much needed, and the judgements of online keyboard warriors who automatically think that these people shouldn't have children and probably spend all their money on drink and drugs, when in reality money issues could happen to anyone. It was even an issue for the author in the recession when her partner ended up unemployed, she was still working in the NHS and they struggled to feed their children and pay their school fees for a while.

It is such an interesting look at what health visitors are required to do and even things that aren't even in their job description. If my health visitors had been like Rachael Hearson, I would definitely have had a much better experience.

I really wanted to love this book, but it just didn’t live up to my expectations. I expected more stories around the authors health visitor job, but there was too much backstory and information about her personal life. What I did love was the writing - engaging and sometimes funny - and ultimately what kept me reading until the end.

It's no secret that I like a good medical memoir, and this is the first that I have read from a health visitor. Starting with her time as a student (back when student nurses didn't have to pay for their course, and we a lot more respected) right up until current day with the epilogue talking about the merits of the NHS during the corona virus.

My favourite thing about this book is while talking about all the families whose story Rachel has become part of it she also talks about her own struggles, which I think gave a real humanity to the book. She also managed to weave in politics without coming down to heavy if politics aren't your thing.

Fully recommend this book!

Thank you to netgalley.co.uk for giving me a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest.

At first, I didn't understand the blurb for this book, I don't think I know of anyone who would accuse a health visitor of not being a proper nurse. I can understand how isolating it can be stuck out in the community with no team to support you. After reading [book:This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor|35235302], I was curious to read something by a nurse/health visitor because it is clear (from my sister's stories) that nurses clearly have very different experiences.

I thought the book started off very well but as I was reading the book, I began to feel a bit disappointed. I know I can't confirm this but I found it quite hard to believe that Rachael would be using her own money to buy food for her patients. I found the book didn't focus enough on the job and this is why I wanted to read the book.

Rachael Hearson shares with us her childhood memories, and how she first got into the nursing profession.

I found the book to be a fascinating and insightful read, as I too was of the opinion that a health visitor would just ‘sit on sofas and drink tea'. How wrong was I?!

A really interesting read about the life of a health visitor. Rachael’s account comes across as raw and honest. It is heartbreaking and eye opening in places.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

I struggled with this book. It wasn't that I didnt enjoy its content but random sentences were missing and parts I had already read i was suddenly re reading a few chapters later. The content was good, however its not till about a quarter of the way into the book you really read about health visitor side of it. It is more of an autobiograpy/memoir. I wanted to hear more about the health visitor visits.

Handle With Care is a well detailed account of the life of the health visitor. I found it very interesting from all aspects as Rachaelgives a lot of detail about her own life too. Most enjoyable.

I really wanted to like this book as I usually love these types of memoirs. However, I just couldn’t.

This was written almost as spoken.- more like a fractured, over-informal conversation than a book. It tries a bit too hard with the humour, sometimes in a red-top tabloid way (such as talk of Rabid Health and Safety laws). The book often came across as patronising when describing some of the patients, and it would seem as if the technical explanations were lifted straight off of the internet or Govenment website (such as the definition of controlling and coercive behaviour).

I wanted to hear about her work and experiences over her long career and how it has changed (for better or worse) over this time, however, too large a focus was on her personal life. Whilst this is important to a degree (hearing about how her career and home life worked together), I did not need to know as much as was written.

I cannot just pick out the negatives. She has experienced the true impact of Government cuts and talks about them passionately and she talks of the good work done by food banks and nappy banks. These are things that we need people like her to stand up and shout about.

However, I found it a struggle to finish this book (although I did) and would not recommend it.

We follow Rachael's career through the NHS and her personal life. It tells us what it's like to be a health visitor for over thirty years. Thrnstories she tells are about real cases. It's clear Rachael loves her job.

This is quite a thought provoking read. It does seem to focus more on Rachael's personal life than her career in the NHS. There's some sad and funny tales and shows how the services provided evolved. It's quite an easy book to read. I would have liked there to be some more tales of the cases shes had to deal with.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Mirror Books and the author Rachael Jearson for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Mirror Books for my arc of this book!
After reading Adam Kay's book about being a junior doctor, I, like many people have been drawn into reading the real life medical memoirs that have recently been released so naturally this was next on my list.
Before reading I read a few reviews on here saying it was more an autobiography than of life as a health visitor and so I thought I would be disappointed.
To anyone wanting a full diary of being a health visitor this isn't what this book is. It's about Rachel's personal life around working for the NHS as much as it is working on the frontline. And I can honestly say I really enjoyed it!
It is raw, honest and informative, when reading about HV back in the day it is nothing to how they are now unfortunately, like most professions, the human touch isn't there as much as it was then. However having had 2 babies myself and having a non diagnosed silent reflux baby that almost destroyed me mentally, my biggest thanks had to go to my local HV who was the only professional to actually listen to me and help me (unlike my GP who told me she wasnt ill I just didnt give her enough attention!) and I have since been back and thanked her, she has no idea how much she helped me and this book made me realise just how amazing they are!
This book isn't along the same narration as other medical books at the moment but I can honestly say I enjoyed it just as much! Would definitely recommend.