Verbal Handovers

This week on prac, I was about to see a new patient and was required to provide a handover to my supervisor prior to seeing the patient. The Patient had only been in hospital for 2 nights but had already accumilated a rather extensive set of notes, since following his stroke he had a number of other complicating matters. I had been trying to read the rather difficult to read writing in the notes for while, and then my supervisor asked me to provide a handover. At this point i really hadnt gotten some vital pieces of information about the patient, let alone the full picture. But i endevoured to give the handover.
Subsequently the handover came over as a bunch of squabble and with incredibly poor articulation, with 'ums' and 'ahs' scattered densely throughout. I was well aware of this poor performance.

I have since performed a number of verbal handovers that are not perfect, but are certainly better than that performance. One thing that I learnt from the poor performance, is that if you do not have the information you cannot provide a decent handover, no matter how much you speak with confidence. And if you dont have this information, you are better off stating this to the person you are giving the handover to and asking for more time, or assistance with reading messy writing or difficult to interpret notes. ie. you cannot give a good handover without the required information (obvious but true).