Our poor NHS nurses

[onehorserace]

Having just spent a week on a ward I am horrified by the things I have seen nurses having to put up with. I have always had respect for nurses but with today's attitudes their job is so much more difficult.

Why do so many patients act as if they are in a private health system? Demanding to see THEIR doctor right now.. shouting and butting into other patients' time with the nurse? Talking to nurses like shit .

Why do so many patients question absolutely everything they take apart from the lithium and the oramorph?

Why are relatives gathering in their hoardes invading wards from 8am when visiting times start at 10? Also talking to nurses like they are shit.

Why are so many patients in denial about the damage THEY have caused their body by their own behaviour with alcohol and drugs and blame it on everything else? Eg the antibiotics

Why do some patients go walk about for hours on end then to come back and complain they haven't had their meds and then have a major meltdown at 10.30pm when others are in bed - seriously ill people. They treat hospital like it is a hotel.

The amount of money I have seen burnt this week by ungrateful sods is beyond belief. Sadly this " entitled" lot don't seem to appreciate what we have here.

Our poor nurses!

You know smokers usually have shorter stays then non smokers as they actually get moving. Laying in bed when you can move is significantly worse for you.

Laying in bed is worse for you than smoking? Yeah ok ...

DM was on a stroke ward for 3 weeks and complained to PALS about vile racial abuse I saw another patient give out to hardworking nursing staff. She also smeared faeces on the walls, deliberately chucked her food on the floor and loomed over other ill patients and berated them night and day. I happened to be on the ward when someone from PALS came to follow up and all they said to the staff was "she is tricky isn't she". Nothing was done about moving her away from seriously ill and dying patients on that ward. Luckily DM moved to rehab shortly afterwards. No wonder nurses are leaving in droves!

It's definitely annoying and disrespectful but again, it isn't a prison. If people are well enough to be in and out, they can't be forced to stay in. Especially those who are respectful.

What's wrong with eating chips?

Same in education. People take it for granted and treat staff like shit.

Her condition which I won't go into.

Fair enough.

It just goes back to the fact that hospitals aren't prisons and unless they become more like prisons, they can't stop people leaving if they are well enough. It's really difficult though when they aren't considerate, I do agree with you there.

We encounter disability discrimination frequently in the NHS over DD1. It’s hypocritical to complain about patients being racist, while treating the disabled as a waste of NHS resources! I would have thought people, complaining about racism, would be more aware of their own disabilist discriminatory attitudes?

See Mencap’s “Valuing People” and the annual LeDeR reports. 50% of deaths of people with learning disabilities are avoidable - due to inadequate care in the NHS and social care.

If they are on lithium it will be for a serious illness eg schizoaffective or the more serious type of bipolar. It has no 'pleasant' side effects & is not something someone would be eager to take without good reason. Non-compliance is high due to side effects

It's quite a toxic drug with a lot of side effects & you have to be very very careful with it. It's also a time - critical drug which means you can't mess around taking it an hour late etc.

Full blown mania & psychosis are horrific for those who suffer it as well as those who witness it. Those of us who have experienced psychosis feel completely humiliated & devastated afterwards. It's really not deliberate behaviour & not something to joke about.

I've also experienced lithium toxicity in a general hospital & a relapse of mania due to poor drug management of the nursing staff. Consistently failing to understand the consequences of giving the drug late, tiny changes in hydration causing toxicity etc.

I think you can add in the horrid, judgemental 'know it all' 'my illness is holier than thous' patients into the mix of unsavouries you have just mentioned

Not just nurses. The hospital where I worked the female HCAs and domestic staff would regularly be sexually propositioned by the 'dishy doctors'.

Now I'm not sure if it was Librium or lithium ... these things are unknown to me. I admit to not knowing very much about mental issues but my eyes have well and truly been opened. Can I add that many of the issues were with people not on this as I heard every meds round etc.

Smallglassbottle has hit the nail on the head. Solution? I have no idea

Nail on the head.

Nurses are being discussed as though they all do the same job.
A nurse working in an out-patient fracture clinic has a very different role and hours, to one in resus.
The biggest danger to nurses is managers imposing impossible demands on them dictated by this government.

In A&E, staff are being cut and shifts slashed all while demanding waiting times are shorter.
Funding for British student nurses to attend university cut, in favour of bringing in cheap foreign nurses. Who are not so cheap, considering they bring dependents with them. That relieves the NHS but puts costs back on tax payers.

Today the front page of The Times states that all medical staff pay is to be linked to waiting times. Hospital funding already is linked, so the figures get manipulated. Think it's hard to hide patients? They could be kept in the back of an ambulance for one.

Both patients and staff are going to suffer for Streeting's mad purge on waiting times. Is he okay I wonder if someone with a severe headache is sent home with analgesic rather than get tests?
I bet he is okay with that, as long as he can show improved figures.

Thank you @Serencwtch . That's exactly what it is like. Lithium is no walk in the park, I hate being on it, you've got to be SO careful to keep within your range and side effects can be distressing. Last week I was at a party where most of those there happened to be medical. I had a quite obvious tremor and was convinced they had all guessed (I don't share my diagnosis with anyone at work).

But it keeps me a lot more stable than previously so I keep going.

Nice way to talk about someone with dementia.

The most abuse I’ve ever received was from nurses so I have little sympathy. The things they think they’re entitled to just because they are ‘angels’

Re all you say about ‘low quality people’:

So depressing but I’m afraid I suspect you are right.

I’m old but what on earth has gone on that people have so little respect for others these days. People don’t seem to take any pride in just ‘being decent’ any more.

I've worked with horrible nurses, doctors, ward clerks, receptionists, housekeeping staff, porters and kitchen staff and met horrible patients, relatives and visitors.

Yes. DD was an inpatient in a mental health unit recently for several weeks.

The nurses and HCAs:

1. smirked at patients in severe distress
2. ignored them
3. told them to stop the noise
4. made derogatory remarks in the hearing of another patient
5. refused for several days to give prescribed medications, when there were electronic drug charts across the whole mental health trust
6. refused to give paracetamol for 10 hours for a severe headache (no doubt withdrawal effects from not getting psychiatric drugs)
7. ignored patients knocking on the office door 5 times for emergency medication as prescribed
8. took at least 3 requests to different staff members to do a simple task like recharging a phone
9. stood around chatting in groups of 3 - 6, ignoring the patients
10. took 4 days to produce the keycard to the bedroom
11. it took 3 of them 15 minutes to get the signing in book for visitors

I visited DD practically everyday, and can honestly say, they were the laziest people, with no vocation or empathy for people with mental health problems, I have ever seen in a care setting - this with a staff ratio of 15 staff to 18 inpatients. I’d say patients were an unwelcome interruption in the staff’s social lives at work.

I honestly wonder why some people choose this a career when they clearly hate people. I have never as an adult had to deal with such rude, bitchy, two faced, unempathetic people. Every time I stay in hospital its like being back at secondary school. Until either yourself or a close family member has spent a significant amount of time in hospital they honestly have no idea what its actually like. And this isnt all nhs staff some are amazing but their is a significant number who really shouldn't be working with vulnerable people.

To be fair,there are some pretty awful nurses around. I witnessed this first-hand when my late DM was in hospital. The way some of them spoke to her was appalling. I'm not saying ALL nurses are like this,there are some lovely ones out there. But to say to an 84 year old woman who asked if she could have help getting to the toilet 'I'm not your servant' is unkind and uncalled for.

There is a panorama documentary on BBC I player filmed by an under cover reporter on the secure unit at the mental health trust I used to work for, some of the behaviour of staff was sadly far worse than you have described
Sadly some wards are just toxic ,not all staff are like thst but when staff have been there years some think they can behave however they want with no repercussions.

Abusive staff can be reported to the nmc, social services, cqc and the police

I work for the nhs and have done for 16 years. I had my son 12 years ago.I was treated terribly when I had my son by a midwife. Zero empathy and zero interest. So rude. I was such an inconvenience. A student called her out on her behaviour and attitude in front of me and my husband. I work on a paediatric ward at the moment and the abuse all our staff receive from parents is disgusting.

I think as a society we need to stop it all round. What are we gaining from this.