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/

I worked in the NHS for thirty years and never known anyone stay on for days and nights on end. The occasional extra hour or two, yes, but never stopping over to do two, three or four back to back shifts.

No one is ‘looking for reasons’ for resentment, care home staff have had to tolerate poor working conditions for years but no one notices as they’re run by private companies. It’s a legitimate comment to make that people are only just talking about this.

@Toomanylosthours what the f**ck has that little rant got to do with anything ? Yup there’s bullying the NHS. Who knew 😮Have the tories defunded the NHS ? Yup no surprise there…
And what on earth has wokeness got to do with anything ?

No it’s not a competition.

But it feels like a kick in the stomach to care workers who have to put up with this crap and worse, and have been doing so forever.

When I complained to people about having to work 20 hours, I would just get a head tilt and a “oh, poor you” because I am seen as just some thicko who cleans people up and makes old people tea for minimum wage. Or someone who’s too stupid do anything else (I don’t kid myself that’s how people see me and I’ve been talked down to patronised enough over the years, even on this forum the attitude towards carers has been shocking).

But when it’s a nurse, people are horrified, and it’s unacceptable for them.

This happened to me at a nursing home when I was on the agency. Ds1 was in nursery and I couldn't collect him and had no friends or family in the area. I was absolutely frantic and ended up making a medication error on the lunchtime drug round because of the panic. Eventually, my agency found someone to cover, but the care home didn't give a sod and would have quite happily let the nursery phone social services and report me for abandonment. I was sick with worry and never went back to that care home.

I don’t think they are complicit in their own tragedy…rather, they are being put in an impossible position by those at the top who have facilitated the lack of recruitment and retainment whilst simultaneously doing nothing to address the working conditions.

Thinking back to the lovely midwives I had in the lead up to my second birth over the summer, the delivery midwives and postnatal midwives, I can’t see many of those feeling comfortable leaving the ward knowing there is no one to replace them and thereby leaving newborns and mothers very vulnerable. In these professions it’s not as simple as just leaving. My best friend is currently training to be a nurse and has often felt compelled to stay beyond her shift as
she’s been on the wards where people are going unable to feed themselves etc and if she doesn’t, the food just gets left and then collected again.

Not comparable working conditions or hours by any stretch but when I’m on my 20th hour of unpaid work of the week my husband always says, just don’t do it…they can’t make you. Well no they can’t but equally, I can’t turn up on a Monday morning with nothing to teach or to the parents evening to discuss mocks without having marked them…it has to get done. Easy to say leave or don’t do the work until you are faced with those options!

Mate if mine is a nurse
Used to be a sales director
He thginks peiple who think working as a nurse is stressful have not lived the real world

That wasn't a rant. That was clear facts.. there would be more nurses in the NHS and the conditions wouldn't be as bad if the bullying etc wasn't there. You know 2 + 2 does = 4

I'm not sure how the opnion,or one nurse is relevant ,there are different types of nursing and many different setting ,s some settings will be far less stressful.than others .

I do sort off agree with you but, in my experience nurses are not supported, you are made to feel guilty and like you MUST do it. I was 'made' to work 7-3 and then come back at 01:30-07:30 as there was no one else and they were leaving me to sort it. I am a band 6 but felt pushed into a corner. I swore I would never do it again but this sort of thing is happening day in day out. My MH is a mess.

What do you do you can't walk away from the patients and leave your colleagues. It is the worst it has ever been. I feel sick before every shift, the only way I can cope is by taking anti anxiety drugs.

"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."

Taking an employee to criminal court for leaving would mean the hospital would have to expose itself as so dangerously understaffed that no one would be there if the employee left at the end of the shift they were rostered to do. It won't happen. And if they sack them, then they will be even more understaffed.

We have more power than we think we have.

I’ve done more than one 25 hr on call as a medical reg (which is incredibly full-on and busy) because there was a gap in the rota and nobody turned up to relieve me. It is a pretty common occurrence - often HR departments don’t bother looking for locums as they know they can force the day SpR to cover it.

People saying “just walk out” - you can’t, if there is nobody to hand over to. It puts patients at risk. You would risk your licence. There is a clause in your contract saying you have to cover “unforeseen emergencies”. People are not staying to martyr themselves, they are staying because they are being made to stay.

Taking an employee to criminal court for leaving would mean the hospital would have to expose itself as so dangerously understaffed that no one would be there if the employee left at the end of the shift they were rostered to do. It won't happen. And if they sack them, then they will be even more understaffed

You might want to read up on the details of Hadiza Bawa-Garba’s case. The hospital was so short-staffed she was covering four people’s jobs, on her first day back from mat leave. The hospital was quite happy to admit that, accepted no blame whatsoever for her making a mistake as a result, and faced absolutely no consequences for running such blatantly unsafe levels of staffing. Hadiza was struck off and went to prison.

When my husband was a care home manager years ago, there were weeks when he basically lived at work, coming home for a change of clothes and heading back. He slept on a camp bed to make sure they had staff there. He missed a lot of the first year if our son's life because of that and it was a massive relief when he got a new job outside care.

Longest shift I've done as a nurse in a nursing home is 36 hours. Horrible. I regularly do 24 hour shifts when the night nurse doesn't show. I'm a lone parent and it is very stressful. I've even had to have the dc brought to me at work until I've been able to leave as I've had no one to care for them and can't leave without handing my keys to another nurse. If you leave, you will be disciplined and referred to the NMC.

These sorts of contracts for public sector workers are the killer, saying you have to do xyz in an emergency or your hours plus something completely wooly and indefinable.

It is awful if it happens to care workers too, and in that situation I think care workers ought to be unionizing and striking.

Genuinely what happens if you have children at home and no one who can step in last minute? Or other caring responsibility?

This isn’t a new thing, 20 years ago I was the only nurse to turn up for a night shift on a 32 bed acute surgical ward…management hand to steal staff from other wards around the hospital to help, a qualified medical nurse and an agency care assistant turned up. Medical nurse had no idea about working on surgical ward and care assistant wanted to sit and get her knitting out dead on 11pm! I’m retired now thank god!

You should report this to your local council as this is just dangerous.

I've been there for 6 years and love the place, best care home I've ever worked at. The grass isn't always greener and I know they get good care. Even if that means I've done meds round with my toddler on my hip because there has been no one else and I've had to go in.

Reading this thread is very depressing. It's no wonder the NHS and social care are in a mess. It's obvious why there's a staffing shortage, and those saying "managers should just get agency staff in" are incredibly naive to think there's this bank of agency staff available to fill every gap.

There's a vicious cycle here... The more this happens, the more people will leave the profession. The more people leave the profession, the more acute staff shortages are to happen. It needs proper radical intervention, not a sticking plaster.

I am a nurse in The HSE in ireland. The place would fall asunder only for Agency staff me being one of them.i used to love doing agency and loved the staff( may i add i get the same rate as Hospital staff ) we had great fun / chats and worked super hard too on busy wards BUT in the last 2 years multiple staff leaving due to bullying. They recruit abroad- new staff come.v poor english- their note writing is sometimes deplorable- in report so hard to know what they mean/ what they are trying to tell you - differing cultures - only for abroad recruitment ,the HSE would absolutely collapse The ward dynamic changes. ( apparantly the nhs have an english exam- ireland does NOT ) Existing staff leave as dont get off on time. Cant get holidays over summer as new staff need 5-6 week blocks to head to their home country. Some agencys offer huge money so the existing staff leave.i mean the ward im on is unrecognisable from 2 years ago. Only for abroad recruitment there would be no care / treatment. Young newly quaifieds girls are running out the door to australia and NZ . The carers are fantastic. The issue is management. They dont care about the girls on the ground. Bully existing staff out . So it gets worse and worse. The HSE were literally begging nurses to cover over Christmas. Nurses dead right to leave the NHS sadly

I feel for the managers. They are often cast as the villains, but who would want to be responsible in this type of situation?... Yes, they may be paid more than the staff, but it's not like they're paid anything like the kind of money that's commensurate with the impossible take they have.

Have you read this thread?

It depends on when he worked - things were tough years ago but nothing like today - and it would depend what kind of nursing he did.

I wasn't familiar with the case so I went and read it. The doctor you mentioned did not leave the severely understaffed ward... she actually stayed, for many many hours, giving care to an impossible number of cases by herself, and as a result of her exhaustion and lack of proper staffing ended up making mistakes which ended up causing the death of a child.

This case actually supports my case instead of disproving it. Staying to cover lack of staffing may end up causing a health professional and their patients much worse consequences than reporting it to your superiors and leaving.

Nurses cant just leave a shift without handing over to another nurse, they could lose their pin .

Care assistants can, you may lose your job over it but it's not that easy for a nurse to just say fuck it and walk out

@Tuilpmouse it's very true. He still had levels above him so he couldn't increase wages or recruit without approval. When he did prepare adverts and things to go out they would take weeks to be signed off and posted. When he interviewed and appointed, it seemed forever for HR to get references and CRBs sorted. Sometimes people would get sick of waiting and start other jobs.