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.

Judging by this thread the rose tinted glasses for the NHS have fallen off!

The nhs is free. That’s the only good thing about it. It’s a right bloody shambles. I saw the same sort of stuff happen when I was admitted to a HDU.

The nhs is free.

It’s not free.

The rose tinted glasses were never there tbh. A media construct but a fickle one too.
Mumsnet has had a plethora of threads over the years critical of the NHS, many 10-20 pages long and
nurses rightly or wrongly subjected to the vast majority of that criticism. Did you ever read the 'nurses dancing on empty wards in tik tok clips' threads at the height of the pandemic or 'frontline nurses pushing to the front of the supermarket queue' ? They are hardly flavour of the month. Ever.

None of this is any surprise to me. Not one thing. Hospital care is in tatters. And long before COVID-19.

I’m sorry both you and your husband have had such a poor experience. Please consider giving feedback on your care to the regulator cqc.

@NewMatress

He does actually have private medical insurance, but I don't know how to go about getting him on a path for private care or even if it would make a difference.

In my experience it makes a lot of difference, it would be worth finding out about it from the insurance company. Polite and attentive staff, being seen to quicker, individual comfortable rooms. I don't think the private health care in the UK is as good as it should be, but it's a heck of a lot better than the NHS.

The "what do you want" from the nurse you spoke to today is appalling. What is wrong with them that they can't have a bit of compassion in the situation? It's really disgusting.

@NewMatress

He does actually have private medical insurance, but I don't know how to go about getting him on a path for private care or even if it would make a difference.

I would certainly make enquiries

Your experience is awful and I sympathise with not wanting to complain while he's actually there.

Hope tomorrow brings improvement all round

OP, this is horrible, and so so familiar. I have had a mini breakdown after 18h and started screaming at a nurse in charge- only then the wheels started to turn :( It was very similar treatment of someone, close to me. It was heartbreaking to watch and I felt so helpless:(
I did submit a complaint to PALS.

I have nothing to offer to help you, but your thread is tough to read.

I'm sending you and your DH some un mumsnetty hugs. I hope things get easier for you soon xx

@JFCO

OP, this is horrible, and so so familiar. I have had a mini breakdown after 18h and started screaming at a nurse in charge- only then the wheels started to turn :( It was very similar treatment of someone, close to me. It was heartbreaking to watch and I felt so helpless:( I did submit a complaint to PALS.

Same here when my ds ( young adult) was admitted with an excruciatingly painful pilonidal sinus and was left in agony for hours without pain relief. As he was being admitted to the ward I got very cross just out of sheer frustration at watching him writhing around in pain for so long. Then I was taken off to a side room, everything explained etc, I must admit the nurse on the ward was good and got things moving and was lovely, even bought my son a can of coke from her own money from the hospital canteen when his op was postponed at midnight after hours of being nil by mouth. Prior to that Nurse becoming involved though it was a shambles - notes/ admission details were lost so that when he finally went to theatre they couldn't even let me know as they had no next of kin contact details - god knows what would have happened if god forbid there had been any complications !

could you arrange the stretcher transport via private medical insurance.
so you could maybe get him out quicker. i don't know. just a thought.

i too have seen what you did, esp the cruelty of leaving unreachable food in front of a patient. then clearing it away.

so sorry you and your husband are going through this.
people being surprised are either v lucky or inexperienced re hospitals.

TaraR2020 it was started by Tony Blair to get waiting lists down, if you need any kind of routine surgery like general surgery, orthopaedic, gynaecology, you can usually choose to go to a private hospital on the NHS, I had 3 gynae ops, my gall bladder & a shoulder op at my local private hospital on the NHS. It's brilliant, everything happens when it should, you get a private single en suite room, WiFi, sky television, pain relief as soon as you ask for it, no waiting for drugs to go home, out of 5 ops I only had to spend 1 night in hospital, everything else was done as day surgery, often in the evening, I had an ovarian cyst done at 7.00pm & was home in bed by 10.00pm, my consultants were lovely, no junior surgeons doing the ops, everything about the hospital experience was 5* It was how the NHS should be run.

By all means complain, but the way to fix this is funding. Which means all of us putting our hands in our pocket and all of us using our vote sensibly

@SergeiL You are absolutely right.

The UK voted for this, and it's heartbreaking. If people don't like it, then they need to vote for something different.

I know of course I will be shot down.

But I have had direct experience with the NHS throughout the terminal decline and death of both my parents and the 'nursing care' is the problem....I trained in 1982 - a 3 year hospital based course leading to SRN qualification

No one wants to hit this nail on the head but the people who are entering nursing today are doing so for completely different reasons to those who started training in the 70's and 80's - and previously.

Todays nurses are not recruited for their wish to care for patients with compassion, but more for the progression of the qualification and career prospects. Now its a University degree course with tough A level entry requirements - it is research based and theoretical learning seems to be the priority with relatively little 'practical' placement experience, and that, in my view, simply doesn't provide anywhere near enough 'patient care' experience ....

So instead of making it a political issue about underfunding, how about looking at the structure, recruitment and above all training of Nurses across the board.

I am lucky to still be nursing using my 1982 qualification in an outpatient setting having been an Accident and Emergency Sister grade until 1996; I won't go near a ward or a NHS hospital department now, because when I have done so, I have utterly despaired at the attitudes I have come across and I do mean almost ALL of the time from top to bottom.....yes there are some great, really great, nurses in the NHS but they are sadly in the minority and actually memorable - precisely because of that. Nursing, is still, and always will be about providing skilled and intuitive care....today, the goal seems to be to have as little contact with the patient as is possible.

To get good nursing care now, means getting 'lucky' and that is just not acceptable given the odds.

@Claricethecat45 What a huge generalisation. You seem to be writing off a whole generation on the basis of anecdote. Student nurses on the whole do get a fair amount of practical experience but they also get a far more structured rigorous theoretical education to back that up. Far better than I got in the early 90's. What I do take issue with is the way students are allocated to different areas. Some end up having relatively little acute experience because of where they are placed whereas others do by pure chance.

@Claricethecat45 I agree with you absolutely. While there are still good and compassionate people going into nursing, the structures and training do not do a good job of turning out compassionate capable nurses. We've seen the same problems in Australia for the same reasons, possibly for a little longer.

When I was a medical student my mother remarked how ironic it was that they were increasing hospital time in our training while it was being decreased in nursing courses. (I've worked in the NHS though been out of it for a while, so seen a little of both systems)

Team working is so important in healthcare, it would help to go back to a model where all nurses start out playing a meaningful role caring for patients basic needs, cleaning, feeding etc, while they are also being trained in the more technical side. Aim to ensure they mostly all understand that good care starts from these basics and without them you can't have good care.

@Claricethecat45 Research shows that wards with good staffing of degree educated nurses decreases mortality and leads to better patient outcomes. Are you seriously arguing against this?

@YouAlreadyKnow

'Research' may evidence 'better patient outcomes' ?

It may, but balanced against what ? Historical data reaching back to 1970/1980's models? Looking at and measuring past 'outcomes'?

Surely the journey to 'better outcomes' needs looking at and actually quantifying what the more recent model of training 'improves' on? and how does having graduate trained nurses improve....compared to vocational hospital based training provided?

I would prefer to see 'best' outcomes, not 'better' as currently 'better' is not good enough when reading a sample of user experiences on this one single thread? And beyond...

I do not wish to be deemed argumentative, but I cannot see how compassion and care and a real motivation to provide best care for patients can be quantified in 'research' statistics.

Maybe less 'research' and a more hands on approach with evidence based practice looked at properly - from a practical perspective, taking patient and carers stories into account - is the way forward?

Maybe a lesson could be learnt from reflection, on what was, to help make improvements on what IS ?

My own recent experience of hospital was horrible. Admitted twice due to suicide attempts. The second time I was very poorly,semi concious and terrified as didn't know who or where I was.
I was treated with obvious contempt,noone gave me a kind word. I witnessed an elderly woman being shouted at and manhandled because she needed the toilet. I was discharged to walk the 40 minutes home in my dressing gown and slippers.
All these campaigns about let's talk about mental health? It's all bullshit. There is no meaningful help.
I hope your day gets out of there soon as.

As a nurse I am so saddened to read this. I know things go wrong and care can be bad but I am so passionate about nursing and advocating for my patients. I have years of experience and don't have a degree but am happy to address any situation and challenge the doctors.

I would not allow this to happen on my ward and would personally follow it through. However I work in an outstanding hospital and staff are for the main part happy and friendly.

Nurses need degrees now as we need to be seen to measure up against our equivalent AHP and we carry out complex roles the doctors don't have time for anymore. It is assumed that all nurses want to work up and that is how we are pushed, with so many management courses, including band 5 nurses.

Care on wards is complex and now we take patients that a year or so ago would be managed on ITU. Complex drugs, central lines, enteral feeding, pressure management on wounds. Then we have patients with dementia, head injuries, serious abdo surgery, post-op and palliative patients. Nurse ratio in my ward is 1 nurse and 1 HCA to 9 patients. (When staffing is correct). Patients are complex particularly post covid, as have been becoming unwell at home for months and we now have the ability to keep patients alive at all costs.

In my experience when palliative patients come to the hospital from a hospice the prescription often gets changed by the hospital, or is not completed fully or in a timely manner. If this were my patient I would contact the doctor to get the prescription corrected and if this failed I would contact our hospital palliative care team (who are fab) the doctors seem to take more notice of nurse specialists. I would them escalate up if no progress. Datix are worthwhile but in this situation the ward manager would likely deal with it, if you sent this to the doctor's consultant it would likely be ignored long enough that someone else would close it so nothing learnt. If a nurse has made a drugs error there is a rigorous policy that is always adhered to.

I am so sorry to read all of these stories it really makes us nurses feel awful and wonder why I continue if these is how people feel about us.

I wish you well OP and really hope you get some answers , one thing I would suggest is go to the ward and refuse to leave until you have some answers. The matron will come along sharpish. I have witnessed this as a successful tactic. Don't be afraid you are your DH advocate so this is your right.

There are many wonderful people in the NHS but I hate the way we are expected to put everyone on a pedestal and accept bad treatment as it’s our amazing nhs! I’m so sorry your husband had been treated like this, heart breaking for you both

@Rupertpenrysmistress it’s how people feel towards the bad nurses. I bet your patients feel in safe hands and glad for all you do

When I’m working on the ward I try to treat patients as I would want myself, or my family members to be treated. As well as my specific role, I check they’re ok and ask if they have everything to hand that they need. To be honest I would call this basic good care (and basic common sense) but it is surprising how many ward staff don’t do this.

I experienced bad care myself during one of my admissions for childbirth and felt very alone and vulnerable, so I always remember how that felt. I think effective communication is key.

I have worked this weekend and the whole atmosphere of the ward can depend on which staff are working. There are hardworking staff who are on top of everything that needs doing and act on everything that is reported to them. Then there are the staff who spend a long time sitting on computers, in breaks etc. These are very frustrating.

It can be difficult if you have a ward full of patients with poor mobility or those who keep trying to wander about as this can take up a lot of time though.