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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to think that Cameron is telling nurses to do things that they already do?

692 replies

MyNameIsNotNurse · 06/01/2012 21:01

Or aim to do given the oppertunity.
Link

David Cameron's 'ideas'
Hourly checks on patients to make sure they have had enought to eat/drink and are comefortable.
Isn't this just basic care?
Also to have members of the public doing spot checks on their local hospitals, isn't this just going a bit too far?

I would really like him to do a 12 hour shift on a busy ward, with sick people needing more than just the hourly walk around to make sure that things are ok.
What about the patients who are in need of 15 minute observations. Patients with poor mobility who take more than 30 seconds to get to the toilet and needs assistance every step of the way. What about the drug rounds? Then multiply that by 30 pateints for 2 staff nurses (some with little experiance) If 1 patient is really ill thats 1 nurse down so 30 patients beeing looked after by 1 nurse, and maybe 1 or 2 HCA.

Why does he not discuss the staffing issues, which most wards have the mountains of paper work which each and every nurse has to get through every shift which takes away from the care of patients.
Most nurses I know stay behind to finish paperwork, turn into work when they or their family is not well, go without breaks, work 12hours a shift, do extra shifts and Given up our measily 3% payrise over 3 years.

He's just making a lot of noise saying we should do things we already do in order that the public think we're not doing them and we lose support?

OP posts:
Sirzy · 07/01/2012 21:55

Kellamity - I think that is part of the problem, the patients/relatives on the ward who forget that other patients may have more urgent needs than them and who don't have the patience to wait. When DS was being put onto CPAP he had at one point 3 Drs, 4 nurses and the HCA who was comforting me and passing the things that where needed. An irrate man burst into the room complaining because he couldn't find anyone to warm his babies bottle of milk Shock

Last week when DS was in a woman complained when she was brought to the ward that her daughter would have to wait about half a hour for the dr to arrive as he was doing an emergency operation!

boglach · 07/01/2012 21:59

The real gem makes cups of tea even when the patient next door is turning blue and has sats of 50%

MrsHeffley · 07/01/2012 22:01

No the real gems just ask the patient if they're ok or need anything at regular intervals.

boglach · 07/01/2012 22:03

Ah that made me a gem then, when i was nursing

glad about that Grin

MrsHeffley · 07/01/2012 22:04

I've not been on a ward where there aren't facilities for tea making so not sure why you experience all these relatives asking for tea. Whenever I've been visiting a lo I'm more interested in the care my lo is getting than tea for me as I suspect are most relatives.

hiddenhome · 07/01/2012 22:04

No, the 'real gem' resucitates the patient, makes tea, answers the phone, talks to the doctor and writes her notes all at the same time Grin She does this on a 16 hour shift, with no food or tea and only 3 hours sleep the night before. After she finishes, she goes to her MILs to cook and clean, then returns home to make dinner, run the kids to ballet and pops the cat's piles back in Grin

Kellamity · 07/01/2012 22:06

Really MrsH? I have never worked on a ward with tea and coffee making facilities but I've been out of it for a while.

agedknees · 07/01/2012 22:07

No ward I have ever worked on has tea making facilities. But I do not work on paeds wards.

And it was not all these relatives, it was one

Please read the posts more carefully.

ReindeerBollocks · 07/01/2012 22:08

How about giving IVs three hours late?

Or not attending a patient who has had an allergic reaction to an IV drug for over an hour?

Or how about a catheter which has got back flow into a newly transplanted kidney which could have preventing it from taking - being left for two days!

I'm sorry but not all patients are just waiting to complain over trivial issues, there are some genuinely shockingly bad nurses out there whose standards aren't what they should be for the treatments they are providing.

It's not always about sodding cups of tea.

boglach · 07/01/2012 22:08

And don't forget to look pretty and neat as well

and smile, even though a much cared for patient had just died

boglach · 07/01/2012 22:13

I once gave an iv late because another patient arrested

oops no it was because i sat about gossiping for hours

neverever · 07/01/2012 22:14

I know there are nurses that give us a bad name, I have worked with a few, but thankfully ime they have been a minority, seriously would like to see call me dave do a few days in a nurses shoes though. See if he manages to get through all the paperwork and hourly check, drug admin, iv drug admin, pre and post op checks, admissions, discharges, patients falling, ward rounds, meal times, speaking to patients who are anxious or relatives who would like to know whats happening with their loved one, dressing changes and any other thing that crops up, try and fit a tea break in and you know your gonna finish your shift late. I am not feeling sorry for us nurses it's just the reality. I hate the paperwork I really do but unfortunately it needs done as if it's not recorded it's not done and it's a legal document so it it's important.
Sorry am repeating what other people have said but it's true, I hope anyone who has had complaints have put them in writing as it's the only way that management know there are problems.

hiddenhome · 07/01/2012 22:15

Obviously, that's shocking and totally unacceptable Reindeer. Bad nurses should be sacked, but some nurses are just struggling on badly run, understaffed wards and simply can't get round to attend to everyone. It's not always down to malice or laziness when these things don't get done.

agedknees · 07/01/2012 22:17

Too true, I used to put incident forms in after nearly every shift because of staffing levels.

I was really popular.

You should have heard the cheers when I left.

LeQueen · 07/01/2012 22:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ReindeerBollocks · 07/01/2012 22:17

See I am not a nasty out to get nurses type of person, and I would be more than ok with IVs being late once, but this was a regular thing. They were specifically timed IVs and i doubt they always had a patient arresting every single time.

hiddenhome · 07/01/2012 22:19

I finished training in 1993 and I honestly can't remember wards being so hectic and understaffed. Busy, yes, but not so bad that important things were left, forgotten about or overlooked. We always got our breaks and I still got time to chat to patients and take enough time to do everything properly. I went back to try on a surgical bank a few years ago and it was crazy. I couldn't cope with it because I didn't feel confident enough. The staff were run ragged, it really put me off and I haven't been back since. There's much higher turnover of patients and much shorter hospital stays now. Everything's so rushed.

Bluestocking · 07/01/2012 22:20

Cameron is playing to the gallery, as he always does - he's a PR man through and through and he knows what people want to hear. What I don't understand about his "hourly rounds" is that surely they'll generate more paperwork, because the only way for the nurses to prove that they did them is to complete some sort of written record that can be checked later when a patient complains that they were left alone for hours?

OhDoAdmitMrsDeVere · 07/01/2012 22:21

I have no beef with nurses. There are a couple that I would like to punch hard in the face but that is only two or three out of hundreds.

But I think it should be reconized that for every one person making a complaint, spurious or serious, there are hundreds who do not have the time or energy to do so.

When you have a chronically, seriously sick child you lurch from crisis to crisis and when a nurse or doctor or HCP does something fucking awful you rarely get the chance to debrief and sort it out.

You get through that crisis and you get you child home and you try and get on until the next horrible thing happens.

Then, as in my case, you are too emeshed in grief and trauma to contemplate doing anything but try and get out of bed.

Quite a few people 'got away' with some horrible, negligent or just plain unkind things because I was too distressed/busy/tired/terrified to do anything about it.
The guilt haunts me now.

sofadweller · 07/01/2012 22:21

When I had my hospital stay, other patients in my bay told me which nurses were good, which ones would come in, check we were all okay and sort out any problems. And these nurses were appreciated and respected. And if they chose to have cups of tea at their desk once their patients had been made comfortable, well good for them. I can't see a problem there.

But as for the others, the brusque, uncaring ones, the ones who would not speak to the patients in their care, not offer basic nursing care even when it should have been obvious that a person was struggling, not ask why a patient was upset......there were too many of these.

The real issue on this admittedly busy ward was, why did some staff do this but not others? it got to the point where if we knew particular staff were on duty the next day, we knew the care would be poor. And I could also see how the good staff had a heavier workload because of the lazy, uncaring ones.

And its the good ones who i guess, end up leaving......

ReduceRecycleRegift · 07/01/2012 22:22

"people are just never happy and expect something for nothing"

NHS care is not something for nothing, we pay for it just not so directly! But paitents are treated like they should quietly take what they get and like it too because it's "free" - it is not!

and then they're barked at that they should understand that there are other patients to look after. Sad there are so many nicer ways to say I am doing a task right now but I have heard you and will get to you as a priority once I'm finished

Heard it today from an otherwise good nurse on an otherwise good ward "you'll have to wait there are a lot of other patients here" - noone bats an eye because its a standard statement you hear on most wards. It doesn't take any longer to say it in a way that makes the patient feel more human. Its poor customer care again and it doesn't take more time to change that!

all this talk about patients/relative complaining about "trivial" things, consider if it was more to do with the WAY they were told to wait than what they were waiting for!

boglach · 07/01/2012 22:23

That is sad lequeen

and i am sorry for the instances of bad nursing described

sometimes it is genuine malpractice but often it is circumstances

i find it hard to imagine a ward of cackling, lazy nurses sat around the station doing nothing. all of them, every shift whilst the patients soil their beds and starve. and all because the nurses just don't give a shit. none of them

hiddenhome · 07/01/2012 22:23

I had to have a shower alone post c-section too. They didn't have time to bath ds2 either and I had to beg them for a bath full of water so I could do it myself as he had a superficial skin infection. They didn't have time to show me how to latch him on either. They were just manically busy, so I left them alone.

ReindeerBollocks · 07/01/2012 22:25

Hidden I absolutely agree with you, I spend a lot of time in hospital and have seen all types of care.

There are some fundamental flaws but understaffing is a major problem. I have met so many nurses and there are some amazing nurses who are constantly going above and beyond. I wish they would provide more money so that the wards a predominately staffed with nurses, who are assisted by a couple of HCAs, that would ensure proper care is given, rather than it being the other way around, like it is at the moment.

It's just a shame there isn't the money to do so.

ReindeerBollocks · 07/01/2012 22:29

MrsDeVere, dont ever feel guilty about your role, you were Billies mum not HCP. It is horrid when they get it wrong, but that is not our faults as parents, we trust doctors to do the right thing.

I always complain, and our assigned nurse was amazing at helping us do so, and telling us which terms to write and who to address it too. Had it not been for her support we would never have complained. As it was it never made a difference the truly negligent are still working on our ward, but we just refuse to let them treat us.