I love our NHS, I do, but OMG my experience this afternoon...

[NewMatress]

DH admitted yesterday. Long story, but he usually has his pain managed by the hospice and is generally comfortable. I gave the hospital the hospice discharge letter with a list of his prescribed meds, when he was admitted.

He's been calling me c. every hour crying with pain and begging to come home. I've spoken to the nurse in charge a number of time asking what's gone so wrong with his pain management. She's been quite rude saying that he's getting everything prescribed.

Anyway, eventually a McMillian nurse called me to check the dose as she thought the break through pain relief dose was low. It turns out they've been using a liquid with a concentrate of only 1/10 of the one he's actually prescribed. I.e his prescription is for 5ml of a 10mg per ml liquid every hour and they've been giving him 5ml of a 1mg per ml liquid.

Once we got to the bottom of that I thought he'd be more comfortable, but when I went to visit him this evening, he's still crying with pain because at 6:30 he was still waiting for the breakthrough pain relief he'd asked for at 3:30. The nurse told me it was because it needs a 2nd sign off as a controlled drug, which I understand, so get one! At which point she said well discharge yourself then. I'll get a doctor and you discharge yourself. The doctor never came, I'd love to talk to to a doctor, no one has yet been able to tell me why DH is still there, as they've established the chest pain he was admitted with is nothing more sinister than his usual cancer pain.

When he did eventually get the pain relief, both nurses were quite rude to me about my impatience and one accused me of saying I wanted her to lose her job, which was simply not true. I said I wanted her to do what was needed to get the pain relief I.e. find a second person.

Meantime, the man in the bed opposite as begging for help the whole time I was there. He has no use of his hands and no one would help him with a drink (I did) and when they brought his dinner they just left it for him with no means to actually eat it. I marked my card again by insisting that someone help him.

I'm exhausted and I'm not the one who's ill. Don't tell me everyone in the NHS is an angel. I get it's tough but this is simply not OK.

@Sanguinesuzy

Volunteers are a great idea but how do you screen them ? How do you ensure they are not like the very same nursing staff that people are naturally complaining about ? Some nurses can be lazy, lack compassion and rude, invariably the general public can too. If anything the vetting process will be even more lax and open to abuse, attracting unsuitable people.

IME volunteers tended to be very, very good because they genuinely wanted to do it - the ward I worked on had a lovely young lass who did two afternoons on a voluntary basis as part of her duke of Edinburgh (IIRC) . She was able to assist with mealtimes (mainly handing out meals), serving drinks and biscuits and doing general stuff we struggled to find time for ie helping people to use the phone, or running down to the shop for patients, and she was allowed to write out the menu cards too.

She was absolutely superb for a lass that can’t have been older than 18 .

I do think there’s a difficulty with volunteers as you can’t rely on them to do any nursing care and it does need to be reiterated continually that they need to escalate to nursing staff in xyz scenarios; but the lass we had was brilliant, and she worked with us for well over a year (which may be unusual in itself I suppose) . I think looking back she wanted to train in medicine so she was certainly lucky to get the level of experience and exposure to a busy surgical/polytrauma unit that she was getting !

First hand experience of my very sick child and a catalogue of errors during assessment and eventual hospital treatment. Shocked by the level of competence of many NHS nurses and staff unfortunately....😞They are not angels with wings and I definitely did not 'clap for the NHS'. Since this experience I am trying to save a financial cushion so that we can potentially pay for private healthcare if required.... ☹️☹️

thought of this thread when I read this

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-57254855

Not acceptable.

I've just come out of hospital after an accident requiring surgery.

I've seen some great nursing but also some shockers. The HCA on the bay I was in was asleep most of the shift that she worked, she was hidden out of view of people walking past the ward.

The lady in the next bed to me was elderly with a hip operation. No one explained buzzers, that she needed to request a bed pan so she was literally lying in her urine for hours on end. Nurses were short with me for speaking out for her telling me that she was of 'sound mind' therefore I shouldn't be making requests on her behalf.

The fact that patients can't have relatives in means that nurses can be slack unfortunately.

Sadly, this has been my experience of hospitals over many years. Compared to other countries, healthcare in England is among the worst I have experienced, in particular due to the horrendous attitude of many of the nurses I have come across.

I'm very sorry to hear it OP. Your poor DH. I agree the the NHS does dole out pretty shit care on a regular basis. Ive seen it with my 90 yr old Dad being ignored and treated rudely and with disdain and recently my friends DD bring entirely neglected in agony.

My mum was admitted four years ago when she had suspected dementia and found wandering. The ward wasn't geared to deal with dementia patients at all, the staff would leave her medication for her to take by herself which of course she never did. The so called 'amazing' dementia specialist nurse told me that if were to end up putting her into care not to visit her as it will upset her too much. Hopefully things have improved since then.

@lifeturnsonadime

Not acceptable.

I've just come out of hospital after an accident requiring surgery.

I've seen some great nursing but also some shockers. The HCA on the bay I was in was asleep most of the shift that she worked, she was hidden out of view of people walking past the ward.

The lady in the next bed to me was elderly with a hip operation. No one explained buzzers, that she needed to request a bed pan so she was literally lying in her urine for hours on end. Nurses were short with me for speaking out for her telling me that she was of 'sound mind' therefore I shouldn't be making requests on her behalf.

The fact that patients can't have relatives in means that nurses can be slack unfortunately.

I have worked shifts where agency staff have fallen asleep on the job- particularly when watching one to one confused patients ! I reckon some of them just used to take whatever shifts they could so they would work all day in one place then all night in another. I would cough loudly to wake them up.

Gosh, this thread .
Is there such a thing as volunteer advocates in hospitals for those who don't have family? I've heard so many stories over the years of people, mostly elderly, receiving atrocious and sometimes downright dangerous 'care'. It's totally unacceptable. I for one would be interested in advocating for those who need it (I have a decent understanding of medicine).

I'm so sorry for your experience and I agree with you in full. The NHS is not fit for purpose. I have seen on the children's ward a small child with Down's Syndrome left to cry all night after she'd vomited on herself. Requests by me to attend to her was met with defensiveness from the staff.

I think part of the problem is saying things like "I love our NHS" and "It's the envy of the world" (no it's not, everyone thinks it's shit except Britons) and making it sound like it's some magnanimous charitable institution that we should be eternally grateful for.

NO, it's a government organisation which we are all paying for. And like every other tax payer funded service we SHOULD expect things for our money.

@Zoladrama

Gosh, this thread . Is there such a thing as volunteer advocates in hospitals for those who don't have family? I've heard so many stories over the years of people, mostly elderly, receiving atrocious and sometimes downright dangerous 'care'. It's totally unacceptable. I for one would be interested in advocating for those who need it (I have a decent understanding of medicine).

Volunteer advocates sounds good. I'm sorry for what you're going through OP

TBF most of the anger is directed at nurses not the actual system. Even if it became insurance funded you'd still have the same nursing staff and complaints about poor care. What the solution to that is I don't know. Better selection process in the initial stages of application to do training ? Nurse mentors able to flag up poorly performing students more easily and early decisive action taken to expel them from the course ? Or maybe improving working conditions to prevent burnout, more ancillary staff to help with basic care, less pointless back covering paperwork and mutual respect on both sides, staff shouldn't be expected to deal with abuse and threatening foul language on a daily basis- multiple problems, no easy answer.
What would volunteer advocates do ? How would they be chosen and vetted. There are advocacy services provided by the local authority and charities already. I think what pp means is an individual there to check up on patients, funnily enough they do have comfort checks on most wards but that is yet again paperwork to fill in.
Did OP ever come back and tell us how her dh was getting on now he's on a different ward ?

I didn't clap the NHS and have very little respect for nurses at my local hospital.
They swan around as though they are gods, begging for beauty items and food for their staff room / staff wellbeing room.

Here's a novel ideas.... why don't you just do the job you are paid to do and buy your own biscuits and face mask!!!

@AnotherKrampus

Sadly, this has been my experience of hospitals over many years. Compared to other countries, healthcare in England is among the worst I have experienced, in particular due to the horrendous attitude of many of the nurses I have come across.

This in spades having watched how my father was treated.....and it has nothing to do with funding ....nurses lacking basic human decency to offer people water, dress open wounds or change beds. My sister was a senior nurse/ manager in the NHS for over thirty years she says the amount of staff who take the piss with the system is shocking forcing the employment of high paid supply, extended maternity leaves, erroneous sick leaves, flexible working demands, insurance claims etc,etc,etc....

This is just a free for all complaining about nurses What really is the point of threads like this apart from demoralising the ones who do do their job properly ? Thread after thread. You make no suggestions, no constructive discussion, fail to listen to what real life nurses are saying apart from to nurses who retired years ago or a friend's sisters boyfriends mum, doubt anyone even reads the whole thread but just puts their two penneth in about how lazy and crap we all are. My ICU colleagues are currently dealing with a third wave up here in the NW, not one is moaning or complaining, just quietly getting on with things. We've dealt with it for over a year now. No one is justifying poor care, it's indefensible, but to smear us all with it is awful.

I don't think anyone on here is stupid or ignorant enough to imagine this covers all staff, that kind of exaggeration is unhelpful...

My experience in the maternity ward was so awful I never had another child. Let that one sink in. And the neglect I was given has had long term medical effects.

@Livelovebehappy

More money thrown at the NHS isn’t going to make nurses kinder or more caring. There are a lot of nurses who are outstanding, but a lot who lack the empathy and understanding to be good at their job. It really does make you wonder why some go into the job in the first place. I trained as a nurse many many years ago, when you just needed a couple of o levels and did your training mostly on the wards for a lot less money than nurses get now. I just feel that with nurses now studying at uni for a lot of their nurse training, and requiring degrees, that the quality of candidates that go into nursing is poor. Not sure why this is.

I think a lot of the people who previously went into nursing are no longer attracted to the role because of the degree.

We need to have a proper level of nursing auxillaries, like we used to have. People who did the basic stuff, including turning patients properly, ensurinnig they ate, etc. Do we really need all nurses to have a degree?

@Bearnecessity don't know what you do for a job but doubt there are whole threads revolving around how members of your profession are lazy, uncaring etc The whole thread really is unhelpful, no one makes any suggestions to explain why some nurses might behave as they do and solutions. Funny how doctors never attract the same level of vilification, just nurses and teachers..oh and GPs but they are never accused of being lazy...

@Sanguinesuzy The thread is what it is an Op sharing her experience and other mnetters sharing theirs and empathising. Nobody has to come up with reasons and resolutions especially as frankly it is bewildering why some of the actions occur as they do. Stop trying to dictate the terms of discussion. Doctors, GPs and other professions are not immune to warranted criticism either..

@NewMatress take your complaints to the CQC if you have been to PALS before and had poor response. The only way failing NHS hospitals get the help they need is by altering the CQC.

I’ve had two recent experiences in the NHS, I had breast surgery 6 weeks ago and had to be kept in recovery for 3 hours because they needed to wait for a shift change on the surgical admission lounge to be able to see to me.
It meant I had been without food for 24 hours, and when I asked for a yoghurt, you’d have thought I was asking for their first born.
The night nurse when handing over to the next shift complained that I only had one vein you can get blood from and she hadn’t been able to. She also complained that I’d been flagged as extra obs and she didn’t see why I had been. I did raise my voice and say if you are going to slag me off, don’t do it by the bay entrance.

Last week, I was asked to go to hospital by my oncologist as I had a high temperature. I turned up at the oncology assessment unit and got lots of questions because they don’t have my chemo records. I’m having chemo at home privately because of delays in NHS provision but my oncologist works across both.
I had a nurse tell me that I shouldn’t be there because I am having private treatment, she also told me that the swelling and redness on my vein during an IV was normal and she could stop it if I wanted but I’d need the night team to resite it.
The night practitioner came at about 3am and put a cannula in my left hand, but I have had a lymph node clearance on that side and can’t have infusions. That according to the nurse was my fault and I should have told her. Eventually it was redone, my infusion finished and then 40m later they woke me to do obs.
I discharged myself the next day against medical advice because I had reached my limit.
This is without the HCA’s answering call bells and not actually telling the nurse they are needed.

Paranoidandroidmarvin
so sorry 💐