Should I complain about this nurse

All this neighbourly concern yet you knew him not being there was unlikely yet went around your day without making effort to check on him yourself?

I was being facetious!

The Op is clearly nonsense .
He's barely able to make it to the door yet had gone to bed in his townhouse upstairs.

I used to be a home carer and one of my service users was basically stuck in her small upstairs bedroom with a commode and a small fridge. They were unable to fit a stairs lift and she was waiting for an actual lift to be installed. I looked after her for a year and it hadn't happened. She did have a dh who refused to do anything for her citing a bad knee - he had his bedroom downstairs. He insisted all carers and nurses used the keysafe. When he went into hospital for a knee replacement social services decided she could remain at home as they had a ds who spent the night.

Sometimes the person will have a key code and yes they will let themselves in. Carers also will do this

I'm also concerned now about this bed bound man living upstairs in a townhouse. If he's so unwell he is bed bound, and didn't hear the nurse enter his property and call out should he be at home?
How is he managing continence care, activities daily living, such as shopping, cooking laundry?!
Maybe the nurse herself will be raising an adult concern?...

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.

sounds like she lied

I mean she has attended the appointment so obviously intended to carry out her duties. Despite having a key safe many patients who have district nurses come out do still go out in the community.

DNs are almost always lone workers, exploring someones home that you are not familiar with can put you in a very vulnerable and awkward position. Not all patients will be happy with you doing that, despite having a key safe. She has made effort to locate the patient but either not found the bedroom or perhaps felt uncomfortable to keep looking around for whatever reason.

As someone who does home visits...we don't always get the key safe number, we have other patients and it's highly likely she had to see another patient within a time frame possibly meeting up with another health professional. She would have phoned in to notify she couldn't get access and probably advised to see next patient and return whilst someone is trying next of kin to get the key safe number.

But nobody’s saying that she shouldn’t care- it was actually a pretty notable drip-feed that OP had been so involved, patient confidentiality is a thing so the nurse would have absolutely been in the wrong if she had discussed her patient with someone that presumably she doesn’t know. And if OP had been so involved, does she not have the key safe number? Could she not have checked if it was so shocking to hear he wasn’t seen in the house?
The nurse didn’t really do anything wrong, she went back to the house. That’s a pretty major detail that some posters seem determined to ignore.

@DBD1975 a district nurse should have the key code - it's a major failure of the system if they don't
.................. as highlighted by @AprilF00L

Flipping heck yes! I'd definitely be asking questions.

Who are all these people saying it's none of your business?
I hope they never find themselves in the same vulnerable position of needing help.

You don't have to 'report' anyone but you definitely need to highlight the fact that more could have / can be done - there are so many weaknesses in a system where people are vulnerable and don't have relatives to step in and help.

We do the same for an elderly neighbour who has no family - they're not going to get the help and support they need if we don't speak up for them. Of course it's our business! - it's called caring.

Nurses / doctors / the NHS can apparently do no wrong in MN's eyes ............ but we know that's not always true in real life.

Well done @AprilF00L for caring about your neighbour - I'm of the generation where we do keep an eye on the people in our street / neighbourhood. Surely it's a good thing?

• but today it seems to be construed as 'interfering' ...................

So keep interfering! (but maybe not in a 'reporting' way, but more in a querying way?)

Carers will have the key box number a district nurse probably not.
She must have been concerned if she approached you and she came back, I don't understand your issue with the actions taken by the district nurse.

Definitely report this! Not to say if she did something wrong or not but just so that what happened is logged to avoid anything similar happening in future.

It could have been totally innocent but it's a pretty major safeguarding concern when someone vulnerable might not get the care they need because someone didn't do a thorough check to make sure they were in.

learnt a lesson ? what lesson exactly do you feel she needs to have learnt ? Pick up the phone to social services if your that concerned and have a discussion not lodge a complaint but a simple discussion , why has everything got to be a “ complaint “ or “ report them “ ? You quite obviously haven’t learnt a lesson yourself .
so so fed up of the public treating nurses with a target on their back , granted their are good and bad in every walk of life but I believe your judgement is poor!

Huh?!

What does that even mean? As in, trust me, if you’re fucking your job off then you don’t come back, because otherwise, you wouldn’t be fucking your job off… Common sense no? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Something which is not in abundance on this thread.

Ok for starters , not really any of your business to be reporting a nurse who is not looking after yourself or your family as you do not know the facts . Secondly everytime people like yourself make these complaints who do you think has to deal with them ? The managers of the district nursing team , therefore the managers that are already under great pressure and mostly working with reduced staffing capacity then have to sit at their desk for hours to follow complaints policy and investigate what’s hapenned when they in fact need to be out doing calls to support their team members . if you really are so genuinely concerned it would make more sense to speak to this gents family about your concern if of course it is genuine concern and not just because you e nothing to do but stir up a bit of drama to keep you busy for the afternoon .

my mums a district nursing manager and I’m fed up of her walking out of her door at 7:30-8 am and getting home at anything up to 10pm in the night , mainly because of time wasting complaints against her staff that are untrue and carry no foundation ! no wonder nhs nurses are worn out and end up off sick from burn out and stress when the public are hell bent on looking for the negative all the time , had that nurse not have come back after your discussion then any normal caring human being would be concerned but she did , so exactly what do you want the resolution for this situation to be … what would you be happy with ?! … another nurse on temporary dismissal when in fact she has done nothing wrong . I’m hoping that the many responses in this thread have given you some food for thought for your ignorance to a situation that you quite obviously know nothing about, there’s being caring and there’s just being a busy body trying to find ways to fill their day up 🙄🙄

Some carers are bad, there’s not much evidence that this district nurse (there is a difference) is bad.
We don’t even know she was away for an hour, OP was and met her again when she returned? She’s got no way of knowing OPs relationship to her patient, so why would she go into detail with her?

The OPs question was should she report her- for what? She was under no obligation to discuss her actions with OP, she returned and fulfilled her duties within an hour, and her patient was fine.

There is a degree of risk in looking after vulnerable people in the community that you have to accept, presumably this man wants to be home and has an understanding of this risk.

This is the strangest thread. How on earth do I dislike nurses. How is that clear? I love some nurses. Including beloved family members whom I trust to be kind and thoughtful professionals. Including nurses I’ve had over the years who I remember fondly. I also know, like all people, some are capable of being not so good. So I don’t think op should just be jumped on as labelled as crazy because people, like yourself, don’t want to admit some nurses are capable of being neglectful.

He takes about 5 minutes to make his way to the door here is where I got practically bed bound btw. I mean, you’re the nurse.,..Perhaps he’s just a easily distracted old man but to me, anyone who takes 5 minutes to get to the door is struggling rather than just pissing about taking their time. And it seems like a dreadfully long time for someone who isn’t at least close to being bed bound or heavily chair/sofa bound.

Why do to you say trust me like that? Like trust me I know because I do it? Or trust me I know because I’ve seen other people do it? In which case you know that it’s good people are looking out for this man because some carers can be bad

And it’s pretty obvious you really dislike nurses, so surely you must be biased as well.

Also in another post you describe the man as practically bedbound, but that wasn’t mentioned in the OP.

The likelihood is the truth fell somewhere between the two, but we’ll never know because even OP has a very limited knowledge of events.

None. None at all? Absolutely no chance at all that she didn’t, in fact, look in every room? Considering she DID miss an entire human being (a super slow moving one who wasn’t playing hide and seek) in a house?

and if she was stressed because the service is over stretched, and did her job badly, she still did her job badly. Next time your taxi driver crashes because he’s been working overtime due to the economy tanking, bad bosses and is tired - you can say well the poor love wasn’t to blame and pay for your own whiplash treatment.

and if you have a surgeon who takes your kidney instead of your appendix because the nhs is shit and he’s flustered, I’m sure you won’t put a complaint in, right?

but seriously, you do not know this nurse. You have decided she is a victim simply due to a bias based on the fact you are a nurse too. Have you really never met any bad nurse? They’ve all been veritable angels yeah? Right. You care so much about your patients and “put them first” so much so that you can’t even believe someone would dare think about complaining about someone you’ve never even met… hmmm.

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

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...

OP you have made both of these statements above in different posts which one is the truthful one and which one is a lie?

Need to get a life OP