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Original poster

Should I complain about this nurse

239 replies

AprilF00L · 21/03/2025 16:38

or just let it go?

My very vulnerable, very elderly neighbour fell in his house recently and was treated in his home by paramedics.

Today as I was rushing out to an appointment a district nurse approached me and said that she was there to visit my neighbour but he wasn't in/ This really alarmed me due to his vulnerabilities and physical state. I asked if she'd looked in all the rooms and she said she had. I got her phone number to contact her after my appt.

On my return an hour later I came across her again. She told me that she had returned to see if my neighbour had returned home.

He'd never been out. He was sleeping in bed. She lied. She hadn't looked in every room. He could have been dead for all she knew.7

I'm so annoyed at her lying. So unprofessional. AIBU to report her.

OP posts:
Whataninterestinglookingpotato · 22/03/2025 21:29

Helen483 · 22/03/2025 21:10

I don't know what world you're living in. When my elderly (96yo) mother came out of hospital Home PathWay installed a key safe and the world and his mother had the code to it!

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This is all very standard these days. If someone has reduced mobility discharge assessment services push for key safes to be installed before they’ll even accept someone. They do make life a lot easier tbh.

Whataninterestinglookingpotato · 22/03/2025 21:22

VickyEadieofThigh · 21/03/2025 16:48

And do you know for certain that she had been given the keysafe number?

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It would be pretty standard for them to have it. We use the same system to write notes on as the district nurses in our area and key safe numbers are usually stored on peoples profiles.

Helen483 · 22/03/2025 21:15

Bearbookagainandagain · 21/03/2025 16:54

But you're not her boss. She doesn't owe you anything, even the truth. She went back, that's what matters.

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Whaat?? So is supposed to advocate for this poor old man?

This is exactly where abuse occurs. Somebody else said it better than me:
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"

Helen483 · 22/03/2025 21:10

YourSnugHazelTraybake · 21/03/2025 16:47

They don't get given keys! She'd have only been able to look through the downstairs windows. They don't just let themselves in if no one answers.

I don't know what world you're living in. When my elderly (96yo) mother came out of hospital Home PathWay installed a key safe and the world and his mother had the code to it!

WiddlinDiddlin · 22/03/2025 21:02

Blushingm · 22/03/2025 14:36

I’d normally knock/ring. Wait and if no reply try the door.

Lots of people can’t get up to answer the door or risk a fall if rushing to the door.

you don’t seem to like/appreciate your district nurse very much

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I don't konw how you get that I don't like her from that one comment?

She's actually really nice and I really do appreciate their existance, but as I said earlier on in the thread, she walked in without knocking at all, despite clear instructions to knock and wait.

My partner was here and we have dogs which I prefer to have moved out of the way so I can focus on what the particular visitor is here for (they're nice dogs, my OT asks to have a fuss and a cuddle once we've done whatever we need to discuss/measure/sort out!).

She failed to follow a simple instruction, and I checked, it was written down, she simply hadn't looked at her notes! (She was also shocked to find I wasn't a pensioner, she just saw 'pressure sores, housebound' and assumed all the rest for herself!).

I didn't post to complain and I didn't complain about her - she already felt silly as she'd just walked into a neighbours house in error too. Just to point out to all the people saying that nurses can't and don't just walk in, yes they can and they do.

OneWildBiscuit · 22/03/2025 21:00

AprilF00L · 21/03/2025 16:56

She didn't check with neighbours. She was about to drive off as I left for my appt. I asked her how my neighbour was... and YES all his carers have access to his keysafe. She has access to his keysafe. It's on all his notes in hospital/care agency/social work dept.

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She didn't check with the neighbours because to do so would be a total breach of confidentiality. And speaking as an actual community nurse, I can assure you that we do not routinely get given key safe numbers - this doesn't just happen automatically.

You genuinely don't know what you're talking about, and come across as a spiteful busy body who is hell- bent on seeing a hard- working nurse getting into trouble

croydon15 · 22/03/2025 20:36

Thanks OP for being such a caring, considerate person, the world world would be a nicer place if there were more people like you. The nurse was lazy and of it's happens again you should definitely report her.

Blushingm · 22/03/2025 20:36

TicklishMintDuck · 22/03/2025 20:07

You don’t have to be housebound. District nurses visited me after surgery on an evening.

Criteria here is housebound or something a practice nurse can’t do………or a part of that the gp surgery hasn’t signed up to eg wound care.

JasonTindallsTan · 22/03/2025 20:21

Willoo · 22/03/2025 19:24

Not all nurses are saints. The worst person I know is a nurse

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SHE CAME BACK!!!

Umbrella15 · 22/03/2025 20:12

AprilF00L · 21/03/2025 17:12

She told me she would come back after she had visited someone else in the area - to "see if he returned".

Which she did. So what exactly is
she being reported for ?

TicklishMintDuck · 22/03/2025 20:07

You don’t have to be housebound. District nurses visited me after surgery on an evening.

SantoriniSunrise · 22/03/2025 19:45

Does your neighbour have a keysafe, otherwise what are the arrangements for the nurses to get in?

I work as a community carer and we do not carry keys on our person.

Willoo · 22/03/2025 19:24

Violetmouse · 21/03/2025 16:50

I can't imagine this nurse was doing something deliberately wrong - if she was being neglectful and not looking everywhere why would she bother to come back an hour later?

Not all nurses are saints. The worst person I know is a nurse

Blushingm · 22/03/2025 19:20

starsinthedarksky · 22/03/2025 19:06

It’s not a random though, is it? It’s a nurse going there to care for an individual with mobility issues.

I know a nurse who does home visits and she always lets herself in with the code. She’s told the code by the patient themselves or social services.

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But in many situations there’s a key safe but no one has told the nurse what the number is

Blushingm · 22/03/2025 19:19

hcee19 · 22/03/2025 18:18

Yes, needs reporting, how many other patients has she left without doing her job properly. As a retired community matron l would indeed want to know about this...

But she didn’t, she went back

Bluejacket · 22/03/2025 19:09

BeaTwix · 21/03/2025 16:57

Your faith in joined up care is touching.

i’m regularly phoned for the key safe number of the elderly person I support as even the same organisation cannot make sure all their staff have it.

Let alone expecting Social care to pass it to NHS staff!!

Oh so true!

starsinthedarksky · 22/03/2025 19:06

Annascaul · 21/03/2025 16:50

Just because he has a key safe doesn’t mean any random can actually access it, op!

It’s not a random though, is it? It’s a nurse going there to care for an individual with mobility issues.

I know a nurse who does home visits and she always lets herself in with the code. She’s told the code by the patient themselves or social services.

Lovehascomeandgone · 22/03/2025 18:43

FFS are you serious OP, no wonder some many nurses leave the NHS because they are sick of the way they are treated. Mind your own business.

JasonTindallsTan · 22/03/2025 18:20

hcee19 · 22/03/2025 18:18

Yes, needs reporting, how many other patients has she left without doing her job properly. As a retired community matron l would indeed want to know about this...

🙄🙄🙄 she literally came back.

hcee19 · 22/03/2025 18:18

Yes, needs reporting, how many other patients has she left without doing her job properly. As a retired community matron l would indeed want to know about this...

TumbledTussocks · 22/03/2025 17:33

JLou08 · 21/03/2025 16:52

It actually sounds like she went above and beyond to locate him by talking to you and then coming back. I think it's very unreasonable that you are considering making a complaint.

This

Glasgowqueen · 22/03/2025 16:15

ShiiiiiiiiiitDinosaur · 22/03/2025 06:26

Personally, I would approach this District Nurse myself if I saw her again and inform her that you had concerns regarding why she told you she checked every room when indeed she hadn’t and had just shouted up the stairs.

Whatever, the truth is on this occasion the nurse reflected and came back so if she was caught out in a lie by you she did at least come back to ensure her duty of care to her patient was fulfilled. This at least shows she put the patient care first in the end.

You are not wrong in how you are feeling, and if this ever happened again challenge the nurse more or any HCW more at the time and gauge if their reaction to your valid questioning warrants a formal complaint.

You sound like a lovely neighbor.

Edited
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Maybe he was asleep and refused to engage / declined intervention.

Glasgowqueen · 22/03/2025 16:11

WiddlinDiddlin · 22/03/2025 14:27

They should not, without express permission to do - but they DO.

Or are you saying @Whatthefuck3456 that I imagined the DN walking straight into my home shouting 'DISTRICT NURSE!' without bothering to knock or wait?

The criteria to have a district nurse visiting would mean you were classed as housebound .Often people who are housebound fall when rushing to answer the door so she averted this

Printedword · 22/03/2025 16:09

Blushingm · 22/03/2025 14:02

Because they’ve been given it

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Well obvs, in the circumstances it was necessary

Devonshiregal · 22/03/2025 15:00

BriceNobeslovesMurielHeslop · 22/03/2025 10:14

Of course I know some nurses are neglectful, but I don’t think this nurse appears neglectful. It’s much more hassle to dodge a visit with the resultant paperwork etc than it is to complete the visit. She came back, she saw the patient and he was fine. And actually, it doesn’t even sound like she left particularly quickly- he was in his bed, fair enough, he doesn’t need to get up and he’s old and probably pretty fatigued a lot of the time. It might even be that the key safe is only there in the event of a fall, and he prefers to answer the door himself most of the time- frail people can have autonomy to make these decisions. To me practically bed bound means “in bed apart from short periods sitting in a chair”, not “takes 5 mins to answer a door”.
I suppose I’m a bit flummoxed why you’re so convinced she’s neglectful when she completed the job and the patient was unharmed. District nursing is quite a difficult and isolated job, you have to juggle so many different priorities, usually with no one to discuss it with. It was the hardest area of nursing I’ve ever worked in, pound for pound.

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Oh no I’m not saying she is definitely neglectful at all.

My thought was just that it is possible for nurses or whomever to be neglectful and having a neighbour who cares enough to want to protect him is a good thing.

I was shocked at how attacked the op was for coming on here to ask whether she should consider raising it as a possible issue. I think people who are either nurses or who have friends/family who are (and therefore know how tough the job can be and how difficult working with the general public can be) kind of jumped on her for using the word complain.

and I felt that people who are saying oh no she can’t possibly be bad at her job because I’m a nurse and I am not neglectful aren’t realising that this thought process is what can contribute to taking such a long time to stop actually harmful behaviour.