OET Listening Part B
↓ Find more practice questions here.
You hear a speech and language therapist briefing a ward nurse about a stroke patient.
Therapist
Before I go – Mr Okafor in bed six. I’ve reassessed his swallowing and he’s much better.
Nurse
Can we take him off the thickener, then?
Therapist
He managed a full glass of water without coughing – ordinary fluids are fine now.
Nurse
OK. And the lunch trolley’s due soon. Is he having anything, or are we still waiting?
Therapist
We can get him started on solids – soft and bite-sized for now. But go carefully – he rushed every spoonful I gave him this morning, so that’s a real risk. So, whatever he’s having – a meal, a drink – someone needs to be sitting beside him the whole time. Could you pass that on to the evening staff?
Nurse
Of course – I’ll put it on the board.
Therapist
And I’ll be back on Friday – I’ll see if he can manage a normal texture then.
Nurse
Right – I’ll get all of that into the care plan.
You hear the manager of a renal unit talking to staff about medicine fridges.
One quick item before we finish. From Monday, the way we monitor the medicine fridges is changing. At the moment, whoever opens up in the morning reads the thermometer and writes the number in the logbook – but the audit found a lot of mornings when that didn’t happen at all. So, the hospital has fitted an electronic sensor to every fridge on the unit. The sensors measure the temperature day and night and send the readings to a computer automatically, so the paper log stops completely – that’s one job off your list. But it doesn’t mean we can stop paying attention to the fridges. If a sensor finds the temperature is outside the safe range, it sends an alert to the nurse in charge, and that alert has to be acted on immediately – quarantine the stock and phone pharmacy. Any questions, catch me afterwards.
You hear a paramedic handing over a patient to a nurse in an emergency department.
Nurse
Hello – bring her through to cubicle four. What can you tell me?
Paramedic
This is Margaret – she’s eighty-one. A neighbour found her at the bottom of her stairs this evening. Sounds like a simple trip – she thinks she missed the last step. There was no loss of consciousness – she’s very clear about that. Obs have been stable and she’s been fully alert throughout. Injury-wise, just a graze to the forehead and a sore left wrist.
Nurse
That all sounds fairly reassuring.
Paramedic
One thing you should know – she takes warfarin every day for atrial fibrillation. She’s had a bump to the head while she’s on a blood thinner, so even though it looks minor, that obviously means a scan and proper observation.
Nurse
I’ll get that requested. Is she going back to an empty house?
Paramedic
She lives alone, yes, so that will need some thought – but it’s the warfarin I keep thinking about.
You hear a practice nurse talking to a patient about vaccinations for a trip abroad.
Nurse
So, for where you’re going, the main one you’ll need is the hepatitis B course – and the timing is a bit awkward, I’m afraid.
Patient
Awkward how?
Nurse
Well, normally we’d spread the three doses over a full six months, but you fly in just under five weeks.
Patient
Oh. Does that mean I’ll have to delay the trip?
Nurse
Well, luckily, there’s a faster schedule for exactly this situation – a dose today, one after seven days, one after twenty-one. It only works if we start now. Wait even a fortnight and there won’t be time for all three.
Patient
Right – today it is, then.
Nurse
OK. So, I’ll do the first injection now, and we’ll book the other two in before you leave.
Patient
And that’ll be me covered?
Nurse
You’ll need a booster after twelve months as well, but that can wait until you’re back.
You hear a radiographer talking to a patient who is about to have an MRI scan.
Radiographer
Come through, Mrs Bennett – how are you feeling?
Patient
A bit nervous, to be honest. But my daughter’s had one, so I’ve had the full briefing. I think I know what I’m in for.
Radiographer
Then you know more than most. Did she tell you how cold it is in the scanning room? We keep it cool to stop the machine overheating – it’s the one thing that catches people out. Nobody thinks to mention it.
Patient
Oh. I’d have worn something warmer.
Radiographer
That’s what the blankets are for. Now, the noise you’ll know about.
Patient
Yes, she said the noise was the worst of it – she could hear it through the earplugs.
Radiographer
It is a racket, but you’ll have headphones with music. And about halfway in, I’ll inject some dye through a little tube in your arm – it helps certain tissues show up. You’ll get a cold feeling up the arm, maybe a metallic taste – both completely normal.
You hear a hospital pharmacist talking to a group of junior doctors.
Before you go off to your wards, one thing from last month’s medication incident review. We had four separate near-misses with children’s prescriptions, and every single one came down to the same thing: a dose worked out from a weight that was wrong – either guessed, copied from an old admission, or, in one case, written in pounds instead of kilograms. Luckily, all four were spotted before anything reached a patient, mainly because the nurses questioned them, and all four were written up properly – so the reporting is being done well. The message I want you to take away is a simple one: whenever you prescribe for a child, check that the weight on the chart is today’s weight, actually measured, in kilograms, before you write anything. Yes, in a real emergency you sometimes have to estimate – there are approved formulas for that, and that’s fine. It’s the routine, non-urgent prescribing where the shortcuts are being taken.
You hear a physiotherapist talking to a nurse about a patient.
Physiotherapist
Just before you take over – Mr Lindqvist in bed nine, the chest infection. I’ve had him up this morning and he did really well.
Nurse
Oh, good. Shall I leave the commode next to the bed for him?
Physiotherapist
I’d rather you didn’t, actually. Whenever he needs the toilet, I want him walking there with his frame – it’s the best exercise he’ll get all day, and he’s steady enough now. One person alongside him is plenty.
Nurse
Right. And does he still need the oxygen when he’s up?
Physiotherapist
He came off it this morning – his levels held up fine without it, so there’s no cylinder to worry about.
Nurse
That makes life easier.
Physiotherapist
It does. I’ll be back on Thursday to see how far he can manage along the corridor.
Nurse
OK – I’ll pass all of that on to the rest of the team.
You hear an infection control nurse talking to staff on a surgical ward about an outbreak of vomiting and diarrhoea.
I’ll be quick. We now have five patients with vomiting and diarrhoea across bays two and three, so from today the ward is being managed as an outbreak. The patients who are unwell stay exactly where they are – we’re not transferring anyone, because moving people around is how these things spread – and both bays are closed to new admissions until forty-eight hours after the last case. Then there’s staffing. Instead of everyone covering the whole ward, each of you will be given one bay at the start of your shift and you stay with that bay until you go home – no drifting next door to help out, however busy it gets. Visitors can still come in, one per patient, as long as they wash their hands on the way in and out. And that means soap and water – the gel doesn’t touch this particular bug.
You hear a biomedical scientist phoning a nurse on a ward about a blood test.
Scientist
Hello, it’s the lab here – I’m ringing about a sample you sent down on Mr Achebe in bed twelve.
Nurse
Oh – is it the label? I did write it out in a hurry.
Scientist
The label’s fine – everything matches the form. Actually, the sample’s haemolysed – the cells have broken down somewhere between the arm and the analyser. Drawn too slowly, maybe, or shaken about on the way.
Nurse
So, the potassium result won’t be reliable, then. The doctor’s been waiting on this one – the patient’s last one was borderline, you see, so if the doctor sees a high number, she’ll be straight onto it.
Scientist
She won’t see one – I’ve cancelled the result rather than release a figure that isn’t really him. It was reading very high, but that’s the cells leaking, not the patient. What I need is a fresh tube, drawn gently, and sent straight down.
Nurse
I’ll get that sorted now.
You hear an anaesthetist talking to a patient at a pre-operative assessment clinic.
Anaesthetist
Right, Mrs Doyle – let’s go through your tablets, because what you do with them on the morning of the operation matters.
Patient
I did wonder about that. My neighbour had to stop hers a week before her operation, so I assumed it would be the same.
Anaesthetist
Not for you. The amlodipine – the one for your blood pressure – I want you to carry on with that exactly as normal, including on the day itself, with a small sip of water.
Patient
Even though I’m not allowed breakfast?
Anaesthetist
Yes, a sip of water with a tablet is fine. The furosemide is different – the water tablet. Leave that one out on the morning you come in, just for that one day, and start it again once you’re home.
Patient
Should I bring them all in with me?
Anaesthetist
Just the list from the pharmacy. The ward keeps its own stock, so there’s no need to carry the boxes in.
Patient
That’s simpler.
You hear an audiologist talking to a patient at a follow-up appointment about his hearing aid.
Audiologist
So, it’s been six weeks now, Mr Reilly. How are you getting on with it?
Patient
Much better than I expected, mostly. I can follow the television without the volume right up, and my son says I’ve stopped asking him to repeat himself.
Audiologist
That’s what we want. How’s it feeling behind the ear? You said it was rubbing last time.
Patient
It was, but since you reshaped that bit, I hardly know it’s there.
Audiologist
Good. And you’re managing the batteries?
Patient
Fine – about a week each, as you said. No, the thing that really gets me is the telephone. The moment I lift the receiver to that ear, it starts squealing, and I can’t hear a word the caller says.
Audiologist
That’s feedback – the receiver is too close to the microphone. There’s a setting we can switch on for that, and I’ll show you where to hold it.
You hear a consultant geriatrician talking to the team on an elderly care ward about a recent discharge.
Before the ward round, a word about Mr Petrov’s discharge last week. On the face of it, it went smoothly. His medicines were checked and were ready the day before, his daughter was called with the time he’d be home, and the transport was on time. What we didn’t know until the Saturday was that the district nurses had never received the request to give his insulin. It went across on the Friday afternoon, but nobody rang to check it had arrived, and he sat at home with no insulin until his daughter raised the alarm. So, from now on – if a patient is going home relying on anyone outside the hospital, somebody speaks to that team, hears them say yes before the patient leaves, and writes down who they spoke to. I’m not asking for the nurses to visit the same day – next morning is perfectly reasonable. It’s the gap we can’t have.