What do you think nurses do?

[Felix01]

I've just been reading some of the threads over the past few weeks and I wanted to ask MNers, What do you think nurses do in their jobs on day-day basis ? Responsibilities etc how many patients they look after?

On wards : Doing obs, taking bloods, dishing out drugs & scoffing chocolates, mainly. All important jobs, for which they deserve to be properly paid.

The question is too broad to be honest. Would depend on the specialty and if we are talking about general nurses, mental health or learning disability etc. Kind of like how long is a piece of string type of question.

I thought...
Set up all the machines and in body devices
Tests
And monitoring like 5 patients at a time...

Am I close?

A ward nurse would take blood pressures, administer medication, check notes and note changes in temps and such.
They'd also help people just by being there to reassure them. They'd be the first contact for patient families in a lot of cases too.
They'd be the ones getting drinks and pillows and making tea etc. Noting fluid intakes and food.
They could end up looking after wards fill of people, 12 to a room, 5 room per ward, it'd mount up and up.
That's before you even think about the emotional side of things with patients dying or the stress of a emergency etc.

And the paper work... I can imagine that there is more paperwork now than ever.

A good nurse should be paid far more than a bad doctor worth their weight in gold.

I'm in social care (dementia) I pretty much do everything. 30 patients, meds all day on a 12 hour shift. Dressings, Catheters, Syringe drivers, Meetings with doctors, social workers, CPN's family, Psychatrists. Help the healthcares to feed, change, dress the patients, Run interference when a patient becomes distressed, or violent.
You name it we do it, and all our qualified nurses are over the age of 60 now. We need some young blood with more energy.
I actually do less and am working slower than I did in the NHS. So NHS nurses have my respect.

I don't know but I think it's too much given that most of them seem constantly overwhelmed.

What sort of nurse?
One based in a GP surgery, a hospital or the community?
One with specialist training?
How many years experience?

Your question is too vague.

In my recent hospital experience, nurses seem to mainly do paperwork.

Another student nurse watching with interest 😉👀

As highlighted already in this thread, most people when asked what nurses do assume general nurses.

Literally no idea- I think it's probably a lot broader than most of us imagine and a lot more complex that it was in the past.

The mental health nurse I spoke to this week was bloody amazing. Good HCP's are very undervalued and worth their weight in gold.

The MH nurse on the ward I was on, was in the office all the time and only came out for ward round, med time, or to jab someone.

I think there’s lots of different types of nurses, so much that it’s not really meaningful to compare/generalise?

My friend is an ultrasound nurse and does scans all day. Mostly she says she helps old people undress and dress again.

When I go for a smear test, that’s a nurse.

When I took my child to A&E the nurses were being used as substitute doctors. A nurse did triage, another nurse admitted us, another nurse did blood tests and analysed the xrays then there was the older lady everyone called the ‘Nurse Practitioner’ whatever that is, who unfortunately was a TOTAL idiot who insisted on lots of unnecessary tests and misdiagnosed my child causing her quite a bit of distress and pain. Whenever I asked to see a doctor the nurses asked like I’d asked a vicar to meet God. Eventually after 6 hrs of this I got sick of the whole thing, discharged us, hired a private doctor on the internet, 40 minutes later I had the prescription we needed and was off to a pharmacy. So in that case I’d say the nurses were clowning around trying to imitate doctors while having none of the training required to recognise basic medical complaints despite me telling and showing them on google exactly what the problem and what treatment was required.

(Or then the was the nurse who swore and shouted at my dying gran for asking for water.)

So I guess what I think nurses do is use machines to do scans and hand out medication and the Titanic that is the NHS is forcing them to act as doctors despite the ones I met being absolutely incompetent to do diagnosis and too tired/angry/inexperienced to provide compassionate care.

Suspect that isn’t the answer you were looking for sorry about that.

😂😂😂😂😂

At a guess, I'd say they probably spend a lot of their time banging their heads off a wall out of sheer frustration.

Yes question way too vague. I've been an ITU nurse, a cath lab nurse, a clinic nurse , a cardiology nurse and a general ward nurse in my career. I've been senior and junior. All VERY different jobs where I did different things.

Also, nurses do a lot more nowadays than when I was trained - we were never trained as student nurses to cannulate, do bloods etc when I trained as they were doctors jobs. Nursing is way more complex nowadays.

They do absolutely everything. Sole care of patient until obs reach a level where a dr is bleeped. 12 + patients, with a couple of hca to assist.
They are non stop, rushed off their feet for their full 12+ shifts.

Community here- simple wound care, complex wound dressings, vac therapy, compression including lower limb assessments, urethral and supra pubic catheters, picc line care, home IV's via accufusors, bloods, end of llife care including syringe drivers and verification of death, referrals to all parts of the mdt and outside care orgs, assessments for chc funding, daily bowel care, drains phlebotomy...... that's just off the top of my head in addition I am a prescriber and have the usual staff management stuff and training that goes with team leadership.

the allocation. I will then do meds count and , check BMs. Monitor a patient who has an infection they are becoming very aggressive and making threats to kill. Much more confused than usual and their gait has changed. I cannot administer PRN until I have stabilised their Blood sugars as it can make them further crash. We will have to restrain with 4 staff to administer glycogel then I will have to try to convince them to take the calming medication (all care planned ). I have to be very careful when administering injections and get back up as patients have been known to grab the needle and inject the staff. I then call the doctor to come and urgently see them.

Next is doing feed , and meds through PEG, I then get punched in the breast, then suction , take bloods from confused patient who unfortunately needs to be restrained. I then do the morning meds for everyone, mostly covert medication for this ward. Do tracheostomy care, Bowel care and physical observations, ECG for medication reviews.

A patient then hits another patient hard with a Zimmer frame , so I have to move them with staff support to their room and attend to the injured patient, take observations , fill in safeguarding and incident forms. Contact the doctor. Attend the MDT ward round , discuss a DNR decision with family sensitively offer support and a chat. Lunch time meds , facilitate relatives visits, update careplans tea time meds paperwork. Alarms go off and staff need assistance patient is assaulting staff so I deesculate then a debrief fill in another incident form. Start filling in handover from all the events of the shift. Manage staff and students.

The main nurse I see is the practice nurse. She does smears, diabetes clinics, asthma clinics and takes bloods, does vaccinations. I think she can listen for chest infections. She probsbly does other things too.

To be honest i cant tell who is who in a hospital setting. I have no idea if a
healthcare assistant, nurse or som e other person like a radiographdr is doing whatever is happening

I kinda have the impression that all HCP jobs have shifted a notch, so nurses are doing what junior doctors used to do (say 40/50 years ago), junior drs are doing SHD tasks, SHD are doing consultant task, consultants are more directors.

Associate jobs (physician associate? Nursing associate?) Are doing old nurses type jobs and maybe even cleaners/porters.

Also get called a big titted slag and whore X 100 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I can imagine what with the explosion of diabetes and people not controlling it. I bet you have treated some very nasty necrotic wounds

I quit long before this shitshow, so I can't even imagine how bad it is now...

I looked after 20 patients in acute mental health as the only qualified nurse, alongside 3 or 4 support workers - meaning no break and all the responsibilities and decision making. Doctors worked 9-5 and the on call Doctor could be at home if they could arrive in 15 minutes.

When I moved to community, my caseload was 45 and I was working 30 hours. I was expected to see most weekly ... additionally, one of my days was an on call day, and one was a blood clinic. The doctors didn't always have to be on site, and if you called for a prescription, they often asked you what to prescribe.

OP why are you asking? Your long post is full of acronyms that many lay people will not understand.