To think night staff could be a bit quieter

Those damn night staff diligently monitoring you regularly over night trying to keep you alive or stopping further deterioration.
I take it you would have preferred a close the door and just hope she is better in the morning approach.

I had my ankle fused a few years ago, almost went septic. I was in a bad way and the night staff were the icing on the cake. I did not sleep at all as they were so noisy in and out, having a chat here and there. Trying to start conversation with me whilst taking my observations in the middle of the night?!? Not to mention the constant lights and the beeping. I was highly medicated on morphine and fentanyl and they still managed to wake me up numerous times. There’s no chance of sleeping in hospitals.

Troponin

And returning to the real world? There aren't the resources for them to pander to oversensitive people. Go private, problem solved.

I had just had thyroid removal surgery so I would assume the blood test was for that???

We always tried to keep the noise down on the wards when I worked on them. Most of the nightime noise came from sundowning patients/detoxing patients/those with delirium and one memorable evening someone trying to break through the fire doors from the ward next door using a fire extinguisher bets were taken on how long they would hold up ! . We quite often had to move a patient for their own safety, because a sleep deprived patient was threatening to harm them, so they ended up in their bed in the corridor next to the nurses station.
Add to this the call bells, the resus bell being accidentally being pulled in the toilets and the phone ringing through the night, us tiptoing around and whispering really had very little impact !

As a result of reading this, I've researched the cost of private health insurance. I'd rather go without a lot of things than be subjected to the dreadful lack of attention and basic kindness which is essential when you're ill. I endured it 4 years ago when I was admitted to the local NHS hospital with a broken hip. They failed to fix it, bodged a remedy and I ended up paying £14,000 for a private operation which should have been done free under the lifelong NH contributions I've paid. The constant noise at night was totally unacceptable and impossible to ignore together with an elderly man nearby (probably suffering from dementia( who screamed with pleasure as he masturbated throughout the night. How the very young nurses dealt with him I really don't know.

It felt like a modern day experience of Bedlam. To be told that our NHS is still the envy of the world is such a blatant lie that I will pay my last penny to avoid it.

@shellyleppard unfortunately there are several reasons bloods need to be drawn at very inconvenient times. Just off the top of my head:

1. repeat troponin levels. If a patient had experienced chest pains or sudden arrhythmias during the day time, bloods will have been taken as part of the chest pain/arrhythmia pathway. Then several hour later, normally 8 or 12 hours, bloods are repeated to monitor the troponin levels and ensure they aren’t rising. If troponin is present in the blood stream the muscles of the heart are damaged and can be extreamly serious even if the patient feels ‘well’ at the time.
2. timed medications. Peak and trough levels, or just serum levels, need to be taken for some drugs to ensure they levels remain in a therapeutic range. Depending on the time to medications are prescribed the bloods may need to be drawn at very awkward times. If bloods are not taken at the correct time it will delay the next dose of medications which can have serious implications for the unwell patient.
3. if a patients night time observations are deranged. Or if the patient spikes a temperature. Again the patient may feel well but by drawing blood at the first sign of deterioration the results can be reviewed by the doctor and antibiotics/treatment can be rapidly administered before serious complications such as Sepsis develop.
4. Severe or worsening AKI which can be life threatening May require twice daily bloods and the doctor may have requested them at horrible times. (8am and 8pm would be the ideal for nurses and patients but I have know 4am and 4pm as it’s more convenient for doctors to review the bloods when they start their ward round at 8am then having to make two trips to the ward to review the results that weren't back yet).

All of the above situations could be life threatening if the correct protocol wasn’t followed. However I would be shocked if someone was just having ‘routine’ bloods done in the middle of the night and would definitely be questioning that practice.

I had bloods taken at 3am once as my heart rate was ridiculously high. Tbh I was more concerned about how ill I was and why than being woken up.

2am though???? What blood test is that time specific??? Hmmm

I had this the last time I stayed overnight in hospital. My ward was beside the nurse station and they made no attempt to talk quietly, and I could hear them laughing. I hardly got any sleep. So inconsiderate, I was lucky I was only in one night.

Private hospitals do elective surgery, don’t have emergency admissions, don’t have elderly confused patients, they don’t have critically unwell people and you have to fit a strict criteria to have your op there, so no one who has co morbidities, like uncontrolled diabetes, chronic lung disease… they are very fussy, they want the money from the NHS for a patient that will be in and out with no problems. So that’s why it’s different from the NHS and is quieter because there is generally no problems. The staff are trained the same with a lot of nurses that (old school were trained in the NHS) worked previously for the NHS. Of course if you become really unwell, don’t worry because they will phone an ambulance and you will be shipped back to the NHS pretty sharp! Have worked in both and would much prefer being in the NHS IF I WAS VERY ILL. !

They didn’t want a blood test for the fun of it. It might have been one of the tests that have to be at precise time from the last one but never mind you do you!

Not enough nurses to take patients outside, and the windows only open a small amount due to patients lobbing themselves out of them( 2 in my career) I wish I could’ve just shut the doors at 10pm and had no admissions, no emergencies and could have ignored all patients until 8am and just hoped that I didn’t find anyone dead. Cheers!

My last hospital stay my bed was next to the toilet. Old lady in bed opposite kept getting up in the night and leaving the toilet door open and fan going. Then they wanted a blood test.....at 2 am!!!! I told them to come back at a more reasonable hour!!!!!! Hospitals are not the best place for any sleep I'm afraid x hope you feel better soon x

This! It’s not like anyone on here is complaining about staff doing essential care, it’s the loud discussions by nurses about their own personal lives at 3am when patients are trying to sleep that’s the problem; it’s just so unprofessional.

Or night staff could he a bit bloody considerate of people trying to rest and keep the volume down a bit?

When I was in having my last baby, I ended up losing my temper on night 5 after the cleaners were having a loud conversation about how many steps they'd done! I understand they're just at work so it's normal routine for them, but night staff should try and remember that everyone else is trying to rest!

I hear what you’re saying and nightshift must be awful when you are tired yourself, but there are 10 pages now of awful experiences with nighttime staff in hospital. Do you really think we are all just nurse bashing or whinging for the sake of it? No-one is complaining of necessary noise, or expects resus in silence or the dark but I’ve experienced staff yelling, shrieking with laughter, banging lights on, singing, being snarky or unnecessarily rough with patients. I’ve heard the loud gossiping about other patients and their own private lives. It may be from the stress or tiredness from their job, but being in hospital can be scary, you may be in pain or very ill and you just don’t want the situation being wilfully made worse.

Before it’s mentioned, I know some patients, their families and their visitors are nightmares (there are many posts on this too) but two wrongs don’t make a right and I’m sure you and your family would hate it too if you were a patient feeling I’ll and vulnerable. Wards were NOT like that in the past, they were kept quiet with individual patient lights for obs. Many posters have said that other countries hospitals and private facilities are not like it, so why should our wards be?

I totally agree with you. It’s a nightmare and for the 1 hour it might be quiet some fucker starts snoring.

In a private hospital you can choose to have a single room and they have time and resources to adapt to personal requests, that's what you pay for. Probably the best solution if someone doesn't like the basic services that the hard pressed NHS can provide. It would also free up a bed for someone else who needs it - Win Win .....

Anyone who’s worked nights on a busy ward knows that patient care is 24 hours. I’m not condoning loud raucous behaviour - sadly it does happen and in my experience other staff do mostly call it out- but there is always going to be some noise on a ward. Whether it be alarms sounding on bipap machines and infusion pumps or staff communicating with elderly poor of hearing or confused patients, it’s simply unavoidable. Most wards get admissions day and night. It’s impossible to deal with these speaking in a whispering voice, to put a central line in without the light on, administering IV meds in the dark. I suspect most posters really don’t have a clue how sick the vast majority of patients are on wards nowadays, the frequency of observations, the necessity for medical/nursing interventions overnight.

NHS does supply ear plugs and masks. We provide them and patients use them regularly. Ask the docs for night sedation. Listen to soothing music on your phone via earphones to muffle out disturbance. The only thing that will truly work are single rooms or small bays where the door can be closed but even then if you’re ill enough to be in hospital you’ll need monitoring overnight.
Most of the HCPs on this thread have apologised and made suggestions but as usual these threads turn into nurse bashing just for the sake of it. And note that the complaints are almost never about doctors who in my experience can be equally oblivious to the noise they are making in a ward environment.

Yes, me too! Do private nurses have training on not blaring out their private lives on quiet wards for all to hear that the NHS don’t buy into?!

Glad you got some sleep last night.