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?

I am stunned at the number of people who think it professional to eat in front of patients on duty on the ward. There may be the occasional exceptional circumstance but as an every day occurrence it should not happen.

If I pay money in at the bank I don't expect the cashier to be eating.
I don't expect the supermarket cashier to eat whilst serving me, nor the teacher at parents' evening or my GP. And none of them do.

I don't see why eating on duty on the wards appears to have become accptable practice as a matter of routine. It is inappropriate and unprofessional and if the people in charge think it's acceptable then they shouldn't be in charge. It seems to me to be part of the erosion in service standards. Further if cover doesn't arrive and causes problems that too is a serious problem. Are there not protocol4 for reporting absence which if breached lead to sanction - there would be where I work?

I think I might print off this thread and send it to the RCN and my local MP and find out what their views are about this - not just the eating on wards but also some of the disgraceful working practices. And finally if there are no staff loos on the wards there are loos for the patients so why can't nurses use those if they are bursting?

Married - Perhaps you should send this thread to the RCN and your local MP.

Perhaps that will be the only way that people will start to sit up and recognise the pressures that staffing shortages is having at ward level.

Send it to the NMC also- They have recently raised our registration fee to over a £100- be good for them to see what 'value for money' they are getting.

Daily Mail might be interested also- they generally write vile crap about lazy bone idle nurses- get your friend to do an interview?

I don't see why eating on duty on the wards appears to have become acceptable practice as a matter of routine

Not after reading all the posts by nurses?? Really? Wow.

No one is saying its professional to eat in front of patients, but a lot are saying they have no choice. Its either that or not eat and drink at all.
So you think nurses should go 12 to 13 and a half hours without eating or drinking then marriedinwhiteagain? just so they dont look unprofessional and sod their own personal health?. I,m sorry I don't get paid enough for that sacrifice.
Nursing is a job,we are entilted by law to breaks but we dont always get them and its becoming more and more frequent as the cuts continue. .

Already of we dont get a break, we are not paid for that time, so that can be an hour a day when we are working and not being paid, not to mention the times you have to stay behind to finish endless paperwork, or because there has been an emergency.
And yet, even though we are treated like this we are expected to be kind and compassionate to others, a great many who are rude and abusive to us.

married you seem resolute in your opinion of nurses as unprofessional lazy sods who are just too thick to think of alternative solutions as to where they should have breaks.

They are not. This is a not ideal solution for them to eat something on a long physically demanding shift but also maintain staff numbers on the ward. Due to short staffing there are often times when there are only two trained nurses on the ward. It takes two nurses to sign for controlled drugs. What do you suggest those nurses do? If one of them goes on a break no patient can have morphine so no strong pain relief. I'm sure you'd be the first one at the nursing station yelling at the remaining nurse.

You seem to be focused on the nurses being the initial problem but they really aren't. There are of course some shitty nurses but the vast majority aren't.

Fwiw I wouldn't undergo any sort of surgery privately. I have to often seen the poor handling of what are relatively common post OP complications being rushed to A&E because there are no contingencies in place out of hours apart from call 999.

Use of patient toilets is not allowed due to infection control, thing with all of those professions you mentioned a GP won't eat at the desk during a consultation but they will have or can engineer time between patients to shove something in their mouth and they're generally sat down all day and regularly have cups of tea or water, supermarket/bank cashier, no one dies if they shut their till or whatever, so your queues might be a bit longer but it doesn't cause the customer physical hardship so staff needs would be prioritised for breaks, the teacher at parents evening, again I see them with cups of tea but they have a regular break time that is adhered to so will not have gone from 6am (when I leave the house) to 5/6/7/8/9pm without food. Nursing staffing levels are abominable and cover is rarely about people just not turning up, more sickness and the fact cover was never arranged in the first place, where I work we survive on overtime, shifts are rarely staffed well enough to begin with so if no one takes the overtime it leaves us very short. And even then we're in an area of the country that is relatively well staffed, I dread to think what it is like elsewhere. I don't know what the answer is but I do know that grabbing a quick bite to eat or drink on the job is often the only thing between me and passing out, I get frequent uni's from holding my bladder full to capacity for hours on end although I suppose if I don't drink it should help in that respect. No it isn't ideal eating at the desk and I'd try and avoid it if possible but sometimes it's either that or I walk off shift leaving everyone else more screwed than usual, the nhs runs on goodwill. Without it it'd be dead already.

I think I said that if eating on dulty is due ti failings in the management of the service then the people in charge, ie, hospital tusts and senior levels of management should not be incharge. I really don't think that the statement vilifies the nurses but rather the poor professional practices brought about by mismanagement that currently prevail.

Perfectluy happy to exert some external pressure about this; ultimately for the benefit of the patients who deserve higher standards of care all round.

*I am stunned at the number of people who think it professional to eat in front of patients on duty on the ward. There may be the occasional exceptional circumstance but as an every day occurrence it should not happen.

If I pay money in at the bank I don't expect the cashier to be eating.
I don't expect the supermarket cashier to eat whilst serving me, nor the teacher at parents' evening or my GP. And none of them do.*

I wish you would stop trying to equate these circumstances. They are simply not the same. The cashiers get breaks, and do not work the same hours. The teacher gets breaks, so does the GP. You are listening or reading extremely selectively to continue to try to insist these are the same.

Bugger. Bold fail.

Marriedinwhite. Good luck with that.

Will you report back to us please?

I pay a fair amount to the RCN every month so I will be delighted to see if they listen to you on my behalf.

married management only seem to care about cost cutting and blaming ward staff if there is a complaint or something goes wrong. There is rarely any help or support.

On a ward I used to work on the sister rarely covered vacant shifts (unless she was on duty and would be personally inconvenienced) so afternoons and weekends were often very low on staff. Which then leads to those on duty having to skip breaks and finish late to ensure that patients are properly cared for and everything gets done.

I fail to see why the media insists on suggesting that all nurses are scum. I no longer like telling people that I'm a nurse if they ask what I do for a living.

Marriedinwhite, are you actually taking in what nurses are saying?
My manager informs her manager if the unit is short staffed on a day to day basis- doesn't mean the powers that be can magically provide a nurse from thin air!

My trust is so short of money that if a ward is short of a nurse, that shift will not be filled by bank or agency staff. If we are short of 2 nurses, another ward will have to send a nurse to cover, then leaving 2 wards short of a nurse. This is condoned and expected by senior managers in charge of the hospital daily.
You really have no clue about the shameful working conditions we have to endure at times.

Try walking a mile in our shoes before judging that which you know so little about!

And thus a kettle chip changed the world.

Methinks many many (certainly not all) people in the wrong job with impure motives...dear old Florence is spinning in her grave.Bowing out with dignity now.

Your friend was being unreasonable...the nurses were not being unreasonable.

Just because she's miserable and hungry does everyone else have to feel the same ? She's an adult and should understand that she needed to fast.

And after reading all or your posts married you're also being unreasonable and bloody silly....

So finding it difficult to go 12/13/14 hours without peeing or taking in fluid makes you impure. I really must be the shit on your shoe. I find it painful going that long without a pee. I must be a pathetic excuse for a human being.

Surely though if the nurses were so unprofessional they'd bigger off the ward to take the breaks their entitled to leaving the patients alone. They'd never do 16-18hr shifts because they wouldn't do unpaid overtime because they wouldn't care no staff had turned up for the next shift.

Can you describe any 'impure motive' from this thread????

Welcome to the real world of NHS cost cutting (or perhaps 'cashflow optimisation' or whatever BS the clever guys are coming up with nowadays). Poor working conditions like these - literally no time for a loo break or going to the vending machine (the canteen is overpriced and shut at unsocial hours anyway), how long before they'll have a real impact on patients? Held together by a lot of staff commitment and goodwill.

But go ahead, it's all about eating crisps, not about cost cutting.

this thread has made me realise i'm very lucky to work on a ward where, if we don't get our breaks then we do have an office or the kitchen to quickly have a drink and a snack in.

Much respect to the rest of you.

Latara - isn't it sad, though, that in a developed country in the 21st century it is considered 'lucky' to get some basic working conditions for one of the most overworked professions.

Actually I think there are many many more people who went into the job for the purest of motives , who have found that since they joined , their career has been changed for them without any consultation , they've been hit with a myriad of different and usually unworkable ideas from a variety of ok to diabolical governments , resulting in a raft of unmatchable targets . Which in turn causes stress , aggravation , and then on top of that, they then get paid less , for doing more work, for longer , and are expected to sacrifice their family life, and their health both physical and mental , and yet be grateful that they have a job at all , and must remain unfailingly caring and polite despite having to deal with an over entitled society that seems to care much more about their rights than their responsibilities .

If people think they can do better , and its such a easy number , then join up ! Nursing numbers are falling , and going to continue to do so . Join the arrays of kettle chip munchers . Do it for a year or two full time . Then come back and tell us how you revolutionised the NHS from within .

Good luck with that.

Well said Plomino.

excellent post plomino.
as an ex nurse this thread has reminded me why i will never go back to nursing.