Nurses eating on shift...

[PatsyAndEddy]

Just back from hospital visiting a friend who had her tonsils out today. She had to fast from 10 pm last night and didn't get taken for her op until 2pm, that's a long time without food for anyone!

She missed dinner on the ward but they got her a sandwich but she's really sore and hungry!

On the ward her bed is right next to the nurses station. She said they were sitting munching on a large bag of kettle chips in front of her between the three of them. She commented on how she thought that was a but mean, they snapped back saying 'well we have to eat' at which point my friend reminded them that's what they're breaks were for.

I don't think she's flavour of the month in the ward! She can be a bit of a grump at the best of times but starving, sore and groggy I think she reached her limit!

We're the nurses being unreasonable, eating on shift?

Scottishmummy - of course we need managers but these mangers don't work unsocial hours routinely and certainly ensure to

Sorry phone keeps posting early

Managers get lunch breaks. Nurses don't moan so nothing will change but it would be good for senior non-clinical mangers to see how few breaks actually get taken due to work levels/staff levels at night

Nurses: crisp eating bastards.

To the begrudgers get this : I ate a nectarine the other night, at the desk, with a plate and a knife!!!!

I am a senior nurse in a clinical and management role. I don't get breaks, I grab a sandwich at my desk if I have time, and I do loads of admin stuff on my day off.

I fact, most of today will be spent rewriting a training protocol for clinical nurse specialists. In fact I must get off here and get on with it, it needs to be done by Monday (which is also my day off, but I have to present it at a meeting).

I am a little bit fat, but not a fat cat.

Arrggh - too many "in facts".

sagfold - this is for you

as uncomfortable reading as it is,married et al are recalling care below expected standard
instead of berating them,more important is to read it,think how can that be addressed what doe system need to do to avoid/minimise poor care episode
staff do work exceptionally hard,under gruelling conditions.poor care is not the norm.but it need acknowledged and talked about

marriedin white, i am sorry to read the care and engagement with staff was poor, and that it caused you such upset and anxiety. i do hope you felt able to complain

Scottish mummy - what HCP role is this that you do? I'd be more prepared to listen to your homilies, if you were willing to disclose what your job is, instead of just dropping current jargon.

Also, no one disputed that married had seen poor care, just that it was wrong of her to extrapolate this to the entire nursing profession.

DH has recently come out of hospital after being an in-patient for 5 weeks. His care was excellent and the nurses were great. I think it is so amazing that he can be brought in after an accident and have his leg reassembled for free!

We gave cake and chocolates to the nurses on his birthday and when he was discharged. I hope people didn't make snarky judgments about them eating it.

MammaTJ, good luck with your training, you're going in with your eyes open so you'll be fine. You've already experienced one of the more challenging areas, so a lot of places will seem like a breeze compared to care of the elderly with mental health problems.

Several years ago when I first joined MN I had not long left the NHS and there was a thread a bit like this. Myself and another Staff Nurse gave a break down of a typical day/night shift. I was very careful to give a 'average' night no Cardiac Arrests no Hypos no aggressive patients.

I was accused of lying, no 3 people could do that much in one shift. . . .

Nurses , you have my sympathy . I know how overworked , under resourced , pressurised job you have , yet it seems to be one that everyone thinks they could do better than you, despite having NO concept at all of how much your job entails . Whoever said about one incidents being merely a snapshot , is bang on the money . We were once sent to a disturbance at a Macdonalds . Male kicking off wholesale , armed with an unknown weapon , screaming abuse at all and sundry and trashing the place on a Saturday evening in the town centre on a summers evening. We go there as an emergency response , he gets arrested and put in the van . Whilst there , bearing in mind we know we're going to be straight back into custody for the next 5 hours , with no eating facilities at all , we buy a value meal each , get in the car , and go back and deal with the prisoner . Two days later , we get a complaint and a photograph of us walking out of McD's with the food ,with the car parked on a yellow line . Quite apart from the fact that the restrictions weren't in force , what were we supposed to do ? Park it in the multistorey and run , whilst he's potentially attacking the public ? The complaint went nowhere in the end.

But looking at the picture alone , gave a much better headline for the press .

Every nurse I know only does 3 of these 12 hour days a week as well. Come on people!

OP, your friend sounds like a rude, entitled cunt.

HTH.

Oh and I hope she enjoys her crisps and dry toast for the next two weeks Maybe it tastes like humble pie? :)

Thank you to the amazing nurses out there and on here, the level of emotional care you have provided me and my DS through his various needs for help cannot be faked.

to you. xx

Every nurse I know only does 3 of these 12 hour days a week as well. Come on people!

Ha ha ha!! Too funny! ONLY!!! That is 36 paid hours, plus they do a 'short' shift too, plus the times they stay over their shift.

Eh no they don't, 3 big days is a full week.

This forum is supposed to be a supportive on-line community, it's a shame rampant misogyny is a nasty undercurrent here. I really don't think that it is a coincidence that nursing is bashed and judged so harshly and that is also a heavily female dominated profession.

Also, I object to being judged by people who don't know me just because of the job I do, just as much as I object to being judged by my nationality or my skin colour. A lot of ill informed prejudice here.

DH should have been home at 08.00 hours having been at work since 6pm yesterday. He has just phoned to say that he is still there because a patient arrested and he can't leave till they get him to ITU. That is another few hours he won't get back or paid for.

Weekends are always understaffed.

Misogyny?

Who had mentioned the gender of nurses?

Every nurse I know only does 3 of these 12 hour days a week as well. Come on people!

So you're not counting the 4th shift they do every 4 weeks to take their hours to an average of 37.5 per week? Or the hours we don't get paid for.. you know when you can't leave as someone has called in sick and you need to stay until cover can be found? Or when you stay late to finish the mountain of paper work that you don't have time to do during your shift as it was horrendously busy?
Or when you have to stay late as you are the only nurse qualified to collect a patient with an epidural from theatre that isn't in with a patient giving urgent care?

So now nurses should stay at the hospital 24/7 and not eat at all? Then when all those over worked nurses leave the NHS and no one signs up for training where will you be in an emergency?

Patsy you don't need to mention gender we all know nursing is around 90% female. What is it about our attitude to nursing that means these working conditions are tolerated when in other professions it would not be. I think for all the 'nurses are angels' comments you hear in the media and in society nurses are actually viewed with some contempt. Is this because some see some of the tasks we have to do as didtasteful!

Men don't tend to be described as "gossiping" or "nattering", do they?

And as Cardibach pointed out, there seems to be a far more negative undercurrent when women are described as eating "junk" food.

Sagfold - I think the reason these working conditions are "tolerated" is that nurses won't and can't strike. Teachers see a problem and they strike (and they are well within their rights to do so, just using it as an example), as do many other lines of work.
Nurses on shift will not strike as it would be detrimental to patient care. People would suffer, and possibly even die.

IIRC Nurses in Paris went on strike a few years ago. The hospital was begging them to return to work, and agreed to their requests and within 1 hour they returned to the wards...

Here we seem to hope that our complaint forms will help make changes to staffing levels.