Nurses stuck at work as no-one to relieve them.

[Bristolbanshee777]

Have you seen this? Nurses in Glasgow were forced to work 24 hour shifts as there were no qualified nurses available to relieve them. This is a disgrace.

www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/10048287/nurses-scotland-working-24-hour-shifts-nhs-meltdown/

Happens in residential homes too.

I lost count of the times I did a 12 hour waking night shift (actually 12 and an half as had to be in at 8:30pm for hand over) and then the day staff didn’t turn up.

Ended up working until 8:30pm until 3pm next day when the manager finally sorted out agency cover many times, and then was expected to be back in for 8:30pm that night or be sacked. I had a 45 min drive each way on top.

Thing is, they were happy for me to just work round the clock. They didn’t want to pay for agency staff and didn’t give a shit. Just said I could have a lay down in one of the empty rooms for an hour and I was supposed to kiss their feet for that.

I took the sack one day when I couldn’t take it anymore. Manager turned up a 9am, I was supposed to leave at 8am, day staff didn’t turn up. I had a hospital appointment to get to. I told her it was her problem and I was going. Got screamed blue murder at, she even tried to stand in front of my car as I was leaving bashing on my windscreen telling me someone would die and it would be my fault, but I couldn’t take it anymore.

A nurse leaving after her shift wouldn't be "leaving patients with no care". The hpospital is leaving patients with no care. A nurse leaving after her shift is not "leaving her colleagues understaffed". The hospital is leaving the nurses understaffed.

Although in theory this is true I don't know any midwives who would leave a woman to give birth alone.

I wouldn't either, I would get the charge nurse to find someone else for her. And if she finds no one, she can stay.

This has been happening all my nursing career (25 years.) It even happened when I worked in private care. It's not new but no-one was bothered all those years ago. Also fine the coming in on a morning and being sent home for might shift thing too.

I've learned to say no many years ago, bleep the on call manager, let them know then finish. I have my own responsibilities at home - kids etc and if you give them an inch they'll take a mile.

Yes I do work front line facing.

There aren't enough agency staff at my hospital, they often choose not to work school holidays in my trust , because they can pick their hours.
This includes high cost off framework agencies.
It's not a case of 'just get agency'

"If all nurses told managers that from Monday this was going to happen they would have to get agency staff in..."

I think the agency nurses are all busy working in the other wards. And the bank staff. Either that or they are declining shifts because they know how awful it is at the moment.

It waset al! Sunshine and rainbows when Labour were in government many times I had to work 13 he's without a break or stay on after a

Shift due to lack of cover when I was a nurse in the late 90,s and 00,s

This has been happening for years in care homes and no one has given a shit. Now it’s happening in the NHS people are up in arms about it.

Any nurse who leaves at the end of their shift without someone to handover to could lose their PIN number.

Not every service has a charge nurse to handover to, and if there is, it may be that the charge nurse has already been there beyond their contracted hours and maybe overnight.

There aren’t enough staff, put simply, not enough on substantive contracts and not enough on agency.

But what if the midwife had no one to pick her child up ?
when I was single and a nurse I would cover shifts but once I had children they came first I couldn't just stay on after a shift if there was no.cover ,because you can't just leave small children alone.

Yeah, same as it ever was.

Care home staff are treated like shit an no one gives a single fuck, ever.

And it a nurse had to leave after there shift to care for their child then what?

It's been happening g for years in the NH S too.

I can only speak from experience of being married to a nurse, they phone someone else to get the kids because to all intents and purposes they’re unable to leave work.

An NHS hospital is a completely different scenario from a care home, in the NHS there will be another nurse available somewhere to take over (even if just nominally) a nurse in a care home may be the only qualified staff member with no option to call on someone else.

Yep, it sucks.

They'd have the choice of their child going into temporary Foster care or potentially criminal case against them for living, best case sued.

This has been happening in care homes and in the community for years, people only seem to care if NHS/ Nurses. It is getting worse recently though.
My mother recently quit as a carer in a care home after thry made her do this. There wasn't enough carers before brexit and more people are quitting, will suck for the people who need care and I do think we'll get to the point where they'll die before companies are forced to improve pay and working conditions. Obviously they should improve pay and working conditions now in order to retain staff and attract new ones, can't see many companies doing it though.

It’s the same for carers too in care homes, not just nurses. And depending on the setting, there might be no nurses working there anyway, medication is given by care workers.

The managers would put off calling in agency care staff as they were too expensive, expecting us just to stay and work or bullying staff who weren’t working that day, or who were sick to come in and work. I was hounded on my days/nights off at one place I worked who expected me to drop everything and come in immediately to cover. It was always a no from me and bloody hell, I paid for it.

I’ve worked at a dozen residential homes and have been threatened with formal warnings, the sack, had my shifts changed on no notice, not told of my rotas until the day before, not given my hours as punishment for saying I wouldn’t stay on after my 12 hours at all of them, until I finally snapped and told them to
sack me then.

But no one gives a monkeys that it’s been happening to care workers forever.

I am voting with my feet. I will not be renewing my NMC registration this year (after 20 years experience). I have another, job still helping people but nothing to do with nursing. I’m self employed and charge £45 to £55 for 1 hour. I choose when I want to work too. I will never work as a nurse ever again. The NHS has never been this bad imo!

Where else has this happened? It's new to me, I can't imagine how terrifying it would be after working 20 hours to need to do a drug calculation.

Very common in Veterinary nursing. My longest shift was 72 hours! 'Normal' night shifts are 15 hours to cover all the hours practices are closed. 'Normal' day shifts are usually 10 hours and if an emergency comes in you might have no choice but to stay an extra few hours. Hence the staffing crises in our industry. Many vets don't even have qualifed nurses any more and use untrained animal care assistants to monitor anaesthetics and administer meds.

Very common in Childrens homes to find yourself working 26 hrs without a break and no sleep. Arriving to work 17hrs then having to sleep in but getting no sleep due to incidents, unable to go home next morning. Agreeing to work two long days with a day of between but then finding yourself unable to go home for four days. Health and social care is a shit show now.

It's been happening in hositals for many years, too. It's just that people are talking about it more, now that nurses are striking.

My DD has been a ward sister for more than a decade, and she's been working hours longer than her normal 13 hour shift for a lot of that time.

It's not a competition nor is it good to look for reasons to resent each other.

I don't want my paralysed elderly mother's carer's to be half asleep, and I definitely don't want someone half asleep giving me drugs or emergency care, as nurses and doctors have had to do for years.

It’s not as simple as just leaving. A doctor leaving without handing over to another doctor/ACP would be in breach of gmc guidance and could be struck off and I assume it’s the same for nurses. The hospital management know this so they know you’re not just going to walk out so they are less incentivised to fix the problem. The only exception is if you’re so tired that you could argue you providing care is more unsafe than non care at all. There’s a chance you could end up in front of a criminal court for negligence if you left not just the regulator so you’d have to be very sure of your arguments.

This is why “work to rule” never works. If a HCP is aware of a particular sick patient needing care the regulator says they have to provide the care or hand it over so you can never just walk out at your supposed finish time, but if you never go to work in the first place that day (a strike) then no such duty exists.

Yet the SNP keep claiming how much better the SNHS is than the English one. They've got a bloody nerve.

You make it sound like it's a new thing! I'm now a retired nurse but many times I had to do 24 hour shifts as nurses phoned in sick for the next shift and management refused to get agency due to budgets.