Dear Lord this is like my own personal therapy and for Freeeeeeeeeee
Siobahnagain, hi, we tried that to some level, but sadly no one told the patients. It?s like the joke on here about baby books, the baby hasn?t read them eh!.
It can take one little thing to ruin it all one small snowball and suddenly it?s all shit.
We did buy and install a cordless phone out of our own funds, so that it could be taken to the patients, but it still needs some one to answer it. As for the ansa phone you?re talking to someone who once got written up because I was doing a dressing on a patient, my HCA was feeding 3 patients and my student was sitting with a patient who was dying, her family were on the way in but at the time it was touch and go if they would get there on time and there was no way on this planet someone was dying alone on my shift if I could at all help it. (Poor little student had been told that if he moved from her side before the family arrived I would kick his arse from here to next week.) So we left the phone to ring, apparently a family member had tried to call twice, didn?t get an answer so called the complaints dept. I can?t imagine how she would have coped with an ansa phone. The ?wanker-- ?manager? who took her complaint told me that I didn?t know how to resource my staff appropriately, and as the dying patient couldn?t/ wouldn?t complain, I should have had the student answering the phone. If I recall correctly my answer was Fuck the fuck off , and the only reason I didn?t punch him in the face was because one of the House Officers (junior doctors) had a hold of the collar of my uniform, saying if you get sacked whose going to shout at me? And at the end of it who was going to have the time to sit and listen to the messages and answer them?
I started as an 16 year old auxiliary nurse only doing the job as I thought that it would look good on my CV, I wanted to be a teacher (I confess here I was considered (cough G&T) and did my countries equivalent of A levels at a month shy of 16, but no teacher training course would accept me until I was 18, Ma suggested hospital work, proof that I was a real grown-up 
Although secretly she always wanted a nurse in the family. I was only going to do it till I was old enough to be a teacher Old enough to care for the ill, confused and vulnerable, but not old enough to be a teacher?s helper?
I was the ward baby, petted and loved and fed, but also aware that if I didn?t do my job to the best possible standard they would kick 7 kinds of shit out of me.(think Hattie Jacques attitude).
So when I started, old style training was still going on, I saw it, I worked with the students, and yes there were some very good points but there were also teenagers not much older than me been left in scary dangerous positions in charge of 15+ patients. There was still a lot of doing by rote, do as I say, don?t ask, just do.
What do you mean why? Doctor said do it, so do it.
Sister said Jump, you said how high?
I can put my hand up and say I witnessed egg white and oxygen been used on a wound, and it worked, didn?t know why, then.
But as I said I was lucky enough to work with Nurses who had been through old style training and knew its bad points and drilled in to me always ask WHY? Doing something without knowing why is as bad sometimes worse than doing nothing.
For example: you?ve started a blood transfusion, you?re doing 15 minute obs, pulse, temp, resp, blood pressure, which of these is the most important and why. As an auxiliary I was taught one answer, as a uni trained nurse I realised that what I had been taught was wrong.
If anyone really wants to know I?ll PM, but I?m interested to see what gets said.
I was an auxiliary, a ward clerk(due to what I thought was a temp back injury)and then a HCA through the introduction of Project 2000 (met a man, got silly didn?t use my exam results, though possibly a good thing as I would have flunked my first year in uni, went wild living in hospital residences (killed at least half my liver in the social club)rather than in uni ones, no way I would have studied) Anyway, met a better man screwed that up, met the best one, but don?t tell him that I?m annoyed with him right now bought a house had a mortgage was saving to go to uni, and was then offered secondment
Did my training, and to be honest I enjoyed it but then I was old enough to be able to see what was useful and what was shit.
And for the first few years I loved it I was a bit of a speciality whore I did Gastro, Endocrinology, Cardio, got lucky and got a funded placement in a Hospice, worked with people with addictions (still freaks OH out, he?s in a profession related to the police, he?ll mention an area and I?ll say oh yea that used to be the best place to get weed, X etc is it still?)
Settled in Endocrinology hence all the IV a/b?s and then over a few years realise that nurses were becoming the whipping dog for everyone, HO?s need short hours (which they did, trust me) so after years of no no no suddenly we were all been trained to place cannula?s and male catheters etc.
And writing wasn?t good enough anymore it all had to be computerised, fine by me, but a fair few of my colleagues were older and not so happy. Oh and the biggie shift rotation, for years you had a set of nurses who only did nights and some who only did days and the rest of us did a bit of both. Then all of a sudden this was no longer acceptable. Not a biggie for me. Huge for the parents who managed their childcare this way, DP worked days, Mum/Dad slept while DC?s at school then came to work. Or one of my colleagues who couldn?t sleep in the day and by 3:30am of night 2 was vomiting from sheer exhaustion.
And you as the senior nurse could no longer tell your junior staff off.
If I as an aux/ HCA was asked to wash Mrs Aaa and get her sat in a chair, that?s what happened. Or I explained why not and it better be a good explanation.
If Mrs Aaa, said oh no I don?t need a wash I encouraged, just hands and face (few refuse that)
Oh while we?re here shall I do your back?
Isn?t it lovely to have someone wash your back?
Shall I just do your legs, oh I have an idea, lets help you out of bed, just for 5 minutes and then you can soak your feet and I?ll give them a scrub and a bit of cream, you?d have to pay a chiropodist serious money to do that.
Oh and while you?re out I?ll change the bed, and check your bum, (for sores)
Oh look you?re out of bed, and here?s the mid-morning coffee, yes it is easier to drink sat up isn?t it I?d never thought of that.
Tell you what I?ll leave the bed for a minute, don?t want all that flying around while you?re drinking your tea/coffee.
And on to next patient usually with Mrs Aaa calling out encouragement, oh she gives a lovely back rub, get her to do your feet (I fucking hate feet, really they make me sick, working in Endocrinology the amount of toes I found in beds uuuuuuuuuuuggggggggg)
When I was the nurse in charge I?d ask HCA/ Student to get Mrs Aaa washed and out of bed
HCA/ Student N-Mrs Aaa, you need a wash
No I don?t, how dare you
HCA/ Student N-Can you get out of bed
No
HCA/ Student N-Mrs Aaa doesn?t want a wash
Me: Mrs Aaa has dementia, and to be nice has clearly from the smell wet the bed, she needs to be washed before the ammonia from her urine starts to eat away her skin and she needs fresh bedding.
HCA/ Student N- well I can?t force her can I? That would be against her human rights.
Me: persuade her?
HCA/ Student N-that?s morally wrong!!!
Me: head explodes! Blood, grey matter everywhere, the little bit of me left thinks oh shit I?m going to have to clean that ?cause the private out sourced cleaning company won?t touch anything that could be biological matter. FFS they?re a hospital cleaning company. . . Dies
And gets written up for being a bully and accused of being a racist.