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!

DH did make a complaint to social services (safeguarding), the CQC and the mental health trust on DD’s behalf - she’d already appointed him as her advocate.

So we have moved too far in to what the individual wants, no more collectivism

I do think this is true, but it's been pervasive in all areas of society.

i Think it’s frustration- my dad was in an nhs ward last year and nobody would explain his medication and why they had changed it. A nurse tried to shove a Covid swab up his nose WHILST HE WAS ASLEEP without permission. It’s a shit show.

I had a nurse try to inject me in the stomach why I was asleep with one of them blood thinner injection things that was the worse way ever to be woken up like what the hell are you doing 🙈 🤣🤣🤣

I’m a nurse and there was a definite shift in attitudes from patients during and after Covid.

I think people in general are a lot ruder than they used to be.

I’m in hospital at the moment and it’s so so hard for thr nurses. People are so rude and so demanding and blame the nurses for things that are so out of the nurses control. I’m a doctor so thought I was reasonably aware of it but it’s so much worse for the nurses than it is for us. And most of them are incredibly patient despite the rudeness

You do realise as a dr you will be being treat significantly better then the average patient

I don’t think people realise the extent of the racism. I am a white person who worked in healthcare and the racism is shocking, particularly by the elderly. And no it’s not always dementia. It would be unusual for the African nurses and HCAs I worked with not to experience racial abuse at least once per shift. Not always the N word but constantly having patients double check with a white nurse or HCA that they had been told the correct thing, not remembering names, not caring about names, not treating the black nurses as humans for example no interest in chit chat or friendliness, asking white HCAs to do all their personal care etc etc etc

I don’t work in the trust I’m being treated in - most of the staff don’t know I’m a doctor as it’s not relevant to my treatment. And even if they did know it doesn’t change the foul abuse the nurses are subjected to by other patients, the threats, the swearing, the abusive relatives.
Definitely patients are overall much politer with doctors , and then take out all their frustrations and fears on the nursing staff. Yes - there are some terrible and rude nurses , but the majority are really really trying their best. It’s hard to be a doctor in the NHS right now but the nurses have it so so much worse. And then also have to deal with some very arrogant, poor communication from doctors including passing on all the upsetting messages to patients. I never do that myself - if I can’t do something a patient hopes for I tell them myself and I can deal with the fall out. But I’ve watched it happen time and again on this admission

That's one of the biggest issues I had when my son was in hospital. The communication between doctors and nurses was awful and doctors would always, always leave the poor nurses to suddenly tell my son things such as actually, you can't eat 2 days before your surgery rather than the usual just the day of.

Communication between different specialities was awful too. I had to rush out and tell some doctors that my son absolutely can't be weaned off TPN because the gastro doctors hadn't mentioned it so nurses, doctors etc were encouraging him to eat more until I realised why they were doing it.

Yes they are, however I’ve been given wrong meds DESPITE the screens and double checking.
I always question my meds because nursing staff have tried to give me the wrong meds. I’ve also bothered staff to give me my meds because missing a dose can trigger a seizure.

Im the same check every single time because of how many times iv been overdosed or underdosed by nurses. Its actually shocking how often it happens.

Communication or lack of is definitely the biggest issue.

Im definitely not politer to drs then nurses but I spend a lot of time in hospital so I dont get nervous infront of drs or think their god the only time I ever get annoyed at nurses is either when I see them being abusive
to vulnerable patients, when I hear them slagging of patients or when a dr has told me something completely wrong i have a rare condition so happens a lot in local hospital as not specialist and im explaining why their wrong or questioning what their saying and the nurse jumps in even though she has no clue what she's talking about to stick up for the dr and thinks he knows everything because he's the dr and couldn't possibly be wrong. Some drs seem to have this thing where they feel like they have to answer every question and arent willing to say they dont know something so will randomly make up answers and it infuriates me if you dont know something say you dont know or that you will find out I dont expect you to know everything but I do expect you not to lie to me.

My 90 year old Grandma was recently in for heart issues. Put on a dementia ward “because of her age” even though she absolutely does not have dementia.

She regularly noticed the nurses giving her incorrect drugs/doses and they treated her like she was being objective when she pushed back and asked them to check. Every single time she was right.

Regularly left waiting over an hour for the commode and watched other patients mess the bed as it was not brought to them in time. Or brought the commode and then refused help to set on it, or left there sat on it for over 30 minutes (cannot reach the bell from the commode!). She found it humiliating and refused to drink as she hated having to use the it, despite being told she need to drink more to improve her condition.

In 12 days she was offered the opportunity to clean her teeth 3 times.

She was indeed grumpy with the nurses at times but as a 90 year old with limited mobility but absolutely all her cognitive abilities she felt uncared for, embarrassed, undignified and at worst unsafe. Family trying to advocate for her were met with a string of brush offs, “in a minute” and ever changing round of faces so no one person ever knows whats going on and the only way is to complain to PALS. As soon as you do that it all changes but why is that the gateway to even goodish care?!

Pals have always helped me loads they've been brilliant but it absolutely shouldn't be like that i don't want to run to pals to tell on people but I will also not tolerate the level of abuse iv recieved or witnessed in hospital. No where else in life am I spoken to or treat so terribly.

I mean all you're really going to get from staff is apathy if they're physically assaulted and verbally abused on a regular basis along with being spoken to like shit from people on a daily basis. I'm not sure why people would think that it would go any other way.

Agree but nurses aren't a generic group. I've witnessed some pretty poor behaviour from nurses over the years too.

Another wondering if OP is on a gastro ward !

Maybe but alcohol dependent patients are pretty unwell uf they're on the gastro ward.

Maybe but alcohol dependent patients are pretty unwell uf they're on the gastro ward.

Quite often yes, I was always rooting for them to finally kick the booze, and there were success stories amongst the tragedies.

I have experienced wonderful, lovely, kind and knowledegable nurses. Truly the loveliest and warmest people I have ever met.

I have also experienced rude, arrogant, ignorant and lazy nurses. In fact, I have encountered absoutlely appalling people who don't deserve the title "nurse" such as the two horrors who left my Dad in his urine and poo for hours ignoring his calls for help. My Dad's English wasn't good and he was dying of leukaemia. Same bitches told us our Dad was fine nothing wrong he'll be home soon. Actually he was dead a couple of days later.

I haven't personally witnessed any nurses being treated badly by patients, but I am not saying I don't believe it happens - probably a lot on Friday and Saturday nights in A&E I imagine for one.

With your attitude I’m surprised you lasted 18 months, if I was your ward manager you would have been managed out correctly at the end of your probation!

My DH says the same. He has monthly Zometa infusions for his blood cancer and always insists on checking the bag label himself to check the right dosage after twice being given a dose twice as high - he only realised when the infusion took twice as long and questioned it after he thought his time should have been up. First time he accepted it as "just one of those things" but after the second time, he's now much more assertive and checks things himself! Even after asking the nurse for sight of the label, which you'd have thought would have triggered the nurse to double check herself, she handed him a bag that was twice his dose! "Controlled/regulated" or not, human mistakes still happen far too often.

Nurses should learn the difference. Fair enough to be shitty back to patients who are shitty with them, but no excuse at all for being shitty with patients who are actually reasonable/normal and not abusive.