Are patients not washed any more in hospital?

[Shortkiwi]

I am a nurse of over 40yrs plus. My 93 yr old father has been in hospital for a week. We have visited every day and had to wash and shave him in the afternoon or evening because it hasn’t been done. When I asked if he could be showered one evening, for the next day, I think they showered him but without using soap or shampoo, basically hosed him down from what he reported. His hair was definitely not washed. His teeth have not been cleaned without us doing them. Shaving is definitely not on the agenda. When I was a young nurse it was a given that patients were bathed each day, either in the bathroom or in bed. Teeth/dentures were cleaned and male patients shaved. We were admonished if these things weren’t done. Dad’s ward was very quiet today with several nurses chatting at the nurses station. They were very happy to get us any personal items we didn’t have. I just think if it wasn’t for us he wouldn’t be clean. He actually said, through his dementia, how much better he felt today after we showered him and washed his hair and said it would last him for a while! Which it won’t of course!
We had a list, in the old days, in terms of total patient care, in which we had to tick off items of personal hygiene for every patient in both our theory and practice. I’m sad for those that might not have relatives to attend to personal hygiene these days. It has never been discussed that we would do it, it’s just not been done. Basically, we have had to take the initiative. Years ago there were charts and care plans at the end of the bed, now it’s all computerised. I can excuse the 3 days of hell in A&E but not these last 4 days on the ward. My Dad is not mobile unless he has a lot of help and he is confused.

I am so sad reading this. I was a nurse, had to stop patient facing clinical care due to back injury, but I used to love the personal hygiene aspect of nursing as it was an excellent time to assess skin integrity and get to know people a bit better, find out how they were really feeling, any worries etc...

I would really encourage you to contact PALS and make a complaint. Things don't change otherwise.

The ward my grandchild was in had plenty of staff but they kept moaning about busy they were. Then I noticed 5 (yes FIVE) of them going into the break room AT THE SAME TIME!! They were in there for AT LEAST 30 minutes. During this time a poor student was rushing about, almost in tears trying to cope with buzzers, machines alarming, babies crying, phone ringing etc. There was a staff nurse on the ward too but she was stuck in a cubicle with a sick patient. For crying out loud - organise your breaks better!

I’m sure family would help where they could but I expect many people, especially elderly patients, don’t have family who can come to the hospital at the drop of a hat or certainly not every day (Aren’t there visiting hours in any case?)

I’m already thinking about who is going to help me as I age or if I became ill as I am a single parent to two disabled children. This thread is very sad and quite frightening.

We need to acknowledge no one wants to do traditional women’s work. It’s poorly paid , inflexible and undervalued. As a society we want dedicated, compassionate HCA, aged care workers and childcare workers but individually it’s a job most people shun.

Women are more qualified and have more career options than ever before. Would you like to provide intimate personal care on anything up to 15 incontinent patients a day? Is that a career you or your DC aspires to? The reality is no one wants to do this work and they are leaving in droves or just not even starting

@Shortkiwi the very fact you have observed nurses standing around doing very little in two hours makes me very angry. I can’t think of many jobs where staff would get away with so little activity! We all know how much better we feel after a wash etc when unwell. Surely, tending to very basic patient hygiene is part of the recovery process and could free up beds far quicker. Not even cleaning teeth and tending to dental hygiene is shameful and would have long term implications and place yet more pressure on already overwhelmed services.

Honestly, where is the joined-up thinking here? I have no doubt that many ward staff are busy, but are they consistently busy? If not, then they should be, there’s plenty to be done. I wish your Dad well, thank goodness you are in a position to care for him in the way that you are.

Nurses carry out 95% of patient care needs on any given ward. That includes complex stuff such as monitoring for deterioration, decisions about interventions, resuscitation, IV drug therapy (in a higher dependency ward that might be IVs every 2-4 hours for each patient, often multiple IVs), artificial feeding, oxygen therapy, nebulisers, catheter bags, cannulation and other tube placement, wound care.

In addition they are stopping the (many) dementia patients harming themselves, organising complex discharge, teaching patients self care or how to administer their medication for discharge, speaking to families, teaching students, attending ward rounds, supervising HCA and students, chasing AHPs and doctors, pharmacy deliveries and are often the only person on the ward to answer the ever ringing phones.

Patients will see a doctor for 2 mins a day, sometimes not every day. That’s right, the nurses deliver almost everything else.

This leaves bugger all time to chat to patients, wash them, feed them, make beds, etc. That is now delegated to HCA staff. Some nurses still do it on the rare well staffed ward, but lower dependency patients who just need help washing are a very rare thing. If you’re not very ill you’re not in hospital.

We have terrible numbers of vacancies, 1 in 10 average but much higher in unpopular areas. There is a growing number of junior staff as the seniors burn out and leave. Many new recruits decide it’s not for them and leave before they invest in pensions.

Those hanging in there are often burned out. It will get worse, not better.

I never see nurses sat at stations chatting as reported so frequently on these threads. I see them sat there documenting or planning care with colleagues. Most of the time they’re run ragged.

There are some hideous cases of poor care such as mid Staffs and we’re at high risk of more of those coming to light as the workforce is demoralised and unstable. But on these type of threads I also see examples of the worst type of misogyny. Posters expecting nurses to be super human while arguing they’re too stupid or unskilled to deserve better pay than themselves.

I was taken into hospital by ambulance in 1994 with extreme HG. The drugs that ease it now (I believe) weren't given then. You had to get to 12 weeks and then you could have stematol injected into your muscle layer in your ,by then, non existent bottom. I weighed 6 stone and was vomiting myself to death. It was my second pregnancy. I was put in a room on my own on the postnatal ward. I had a drip in my arm. They gave me a sick bowl which I used immediately. I had to keep ringing for new ones. They brought one at a time. At 4 in the morning I buzzed again and a very angry nurse came and said they were having a Chinese take away and to stop ringing. She gave me a stack of bowls and walked off. I didn't see anyone until my lovely midwife came to visit the next day. She was horrified that I was lying in bed with used sick bowls all over the wheely table over my bed. My husband was at home with our 10 month old first child. It was one of the most miserable experiences of my life.

@Shortkiwi
It's really sad to hear this;
I'd be getting in touch with PALS at the hospital to report this. That's not acceptable at all, in any way, shape or form.

That sounds awful, but if you were being sick so much then surely there was nothing left to bring up but bile?

I hope you said something to them?

You can even see the nurses on here doubling down, instead of acknowledging it could be improved, that it is scary to be a patient at times on our wards and some nurses aren’t great o - there is a how dare we chat mentality loaded with contempt.

Yes, and every tiny bit of fluid in you. Every sip of fluid you mange and the saliva you swallow.

You’d be surprised just how much fluid comes up even when you are totally empty and have been sick for the 20th time that day.

I’ve been there myself, 3 times. Thankfully my 2nd and 3rd pregnancies were 11 years after by first and drugs had moved on. so while still bad even after i’d found a drug that worked for me, they were in no way as as bad as my first 21 years ago.

And bringing up bile continuously is very uncomfortable and painful.

My mum was a nurse and trained in the 60s. She said the same when I was in hospital for 5 days in 1994.

@Kevinyoutwat

Yea I know, I had it myself, which is why I asked her.

Search yourself. Any thread discussing poor hospital care or nursing strikes. There will be post after post arguing nurses are well paid for what they do, that you don’t need a degree to be nurse. It’s insulting.

if you pay people better not only will you attract more people to do it, you’ll also have a better quality of applicant to choose from.

All my patients are washed daily. We are short on staff so it takes longer now mind. It used to be HCA's did washes and everyone was done for 11am. They would do their singles and then pair up to do patients that required 2 staff members. Now, due to the changing needs of patients and lack of staff, we cant have all the HCA's behind curtains washing, i just cant happen. We have so many 1-1ss that require a HCA being taken off the floor, and nurses have gone from having 7 patients to 12 minimum for the shift. Between my other tasks though, i will go in with a HCA and ensure my patients are washed though. Some days, it'll be late in the shift before we've been able to get to everyone for more than pad changes and turns. We are also eternally grateful to those family members that come in and help provide basic care to their relatives.

More money won’t fix a culture of contempt and indifference in the NHS.

What do you propose we do about that?

My dad was in and out of hospital between Oct and December, the "care" he received was shocking.
Dirty shit covered toilet (he refused to use it) on another ward no toilet seat!
He had an open wound on his foot was repeatedly left without a dressing for hours and it wasn't a shock that he caught step A while in hospital. He was then left in a ward next to a covid positive patient which he then caught and died two days later.
It was hearbreaking and frustrating trying to get him cared for, if I could have had him home I would have but due to the strep A he needed a cocktail of IV antibiotics which could only be done in hospital.
My mum was with him when he died, she noticed that his breathing had changed from gasping to very shallow / stopped. She called a staff nurse to check him who declared he needed to be repistioned. I got there an hour later and soon realised dad wasn't breathing, I touched his head and he was cold. He had passed away when mum called the nurse over an hour before.
I quietly went to get the ward sister who was lovely but shocked.
Everyone deserves a good death and my dad didn't even get that.
I despair about hospital "care"

@Swissmountains not me! I said that there was lazy staff and don't understand why some staff insist on doing a half arsed job getting everyone 'washed' on a morning.
You do realise that nurses become patients aswell. That we have relatives that are patients too.
Yes I would be livid (as I have done in the past) ward managers, matrons, PALs the lot.
There's a few nurses I wouldn't trust with my loved ones!

Where I work you I couldn't tell you what the nurses station looks like!

Ah ok. I’ve just had my fair share of people over the years, including midwives and doctors saying to me “you can’t possibly be vomiting that much and not eating, there would be nothing to come up”.

Even medical professionals don’t realise how horrific HG is, they think a ginger biscuit will cut it. Sorry you suffered it too.

@Swissmountains l am not doubling down rather what a lot of ex- nurses(myself included) and nurses are saying is no one wants to work as a HCA anymore. Personal care of patients really is predominantly the role of a HCA and it’s a backbreaking, relentless poorly paid job that is often left to overseas workers to do because as uncomfortable as it is we as a society want ‘others’ to do this work. Complain all you want but are you volunteering at the local hospital? Are you retraining as a HCA ?No. And no one else is either

@lacey79

Gosh yes, that sounds like my ward. We have an ever increasing amount of enhanced care level 5 patients, who require a 1-2-1 with them at all times. It's really difficult. Also, they get sent to us from the main hospital, and it's not handed over that they are enhanced care, so we don't know. If we did, we would be able to refuse them based on us not having the staffing levels to provide the 1-2-1.