To be a bit upset with the nurse?

[Dinosaurdrip]

DC3 went for her 13 month injections yesterday, we went into the nurses room and the 3 injections were all ready on her desk. She told me what they were for etc and said if she gets a fever give calpol and if she has any trouble breathing to whip her up to A & E etc etc, everything that is usually said.

I then asked her if due to my dd's allergies would she be more likely to have an allergic reaction? To which nurse replied 'oh no the two aren't normally linked she's no more likely than anyone else, I mean it's not like she has an allergy to egg or anything' (she does and had to be taken to hospital because of breathing difficulties after eating one)

I told the nurse this and she started stuttering about maybe the hospital hadn't sent these notes but then she found them right there on my daughters notes! So we now have to have her MMR jab done at the hospital which is fine but AIBU to think that I shouldn't have had to flag this up and there should have been an alert on DD's file.

I've since read on the internet that infact the MMR isn't that dangerous for egg allergy sufferers but they like to do it in a hospital environment just in case. But had it not been for my innocent question I would never have even known

Why be upset with the nurse? It sounds like she did everything completely correctly.

But should she not have read dd's notes and known she had an allergy to eggs? But for the fact that I asked about the possibilities of dd being more susceptible to an allergic reaction she would have just gone ahead and given the injection

The system just isn't that coordinated or sophisticated to flag up everything. I wonder if it might be hopelessly complicated if it did flag up every possible danger, the nurses would need 10 minutes extra for every appointment to read & consider.

I think I would be upset with her yes, it was her job to read the notes first. And if it was there on her file then she missed it which isn't good.

I think you are right to be upset with a nurse who was quite happy to give your dd a potentially (for her) life threatening treatment because she hadnt done the very basic thing of even reading the notes related to her patient. The whole point if notes is that things like this are written down so that subsequent hcps read them and don't find out the hard way (for your daughter) about allergies.
What would have happened if someone else less savvy had taken your daughter, or you had not been aware that the vaccine contains eggs

You'd think it would be standard to ask if the patient had any allergies before doing the jabs.

The computer system my GP uses would show something like that up clearly.
There's a section for allergies and one for recent problems right at the top of the page.

I would be upset with your drs rather than the nurse. Where I work, on the patient's home page, any allergies are written in red writing. It obviously hasn't been put on her notes properly.

When ds had his the nurse asked me specifically if he was allergic to egg so perhaps she should have done that.

Yanbu. Allergies should be clearly noted and easy to spot on patient notes so the nurse should have known

That's exactly it twatty, I actually didn't know that it did contain egg , if a dr is giving out antibiotics they ask if you are allergic to anything so I would think it would be standard practice to ask in this situation also but obviously not.

I am a nurse and it is standard to ask if a patient has any allergies prior to giving any form of medication.

YANBU.

I would be upset

However I have never been asked myself if and dc have allergies

Was she poised with the needle ready to inject? Yanbu if she was just about to inject, but as a nurse I will always do a last run through the notes just before giving injections in front of my patient, she may have been planning to do that before giving the injection.

I wouldn't be too upset but it has proven a point. You always need to flag allergies to doctors/nurses, they do miss things or sometimes they are not in the correct bit of the patient notes.

I would complain to the surgery. Something in the process has gone wrong and they ought to look at it again to ensure it's safe.

I was asked by the nurse if DS was allergic to egg before his vacs.

I am a nurse. She needs to check allergies before administering any medication, both on the notes and with thd patient/caregiver.

Complain to the surgery so that it can be flagged up to all staff to remember to check allergies. They should have booked you in at the hospital for it from the start.

(I'm a nurse on a children's ward and we do give the routine jabs to children with allergies or previous reactions to jabs there. They almost never react, but they have to stay on the ward for 4-6 hours of observation so be prepared for a boring wait!)

Have you stopped to think that you asked before she asked you? You said she was delivering her lines about temperatures/breathing difficulties which sounds routine to me but then you asked her. How do you know she was not going to start going into questioning you next had you not asked first?

She wasn't poised per say but all of the things were drawn and ready to go! You would think they would find out about allergies (or read notes) before preparation because everything had to go in the sharps bin. Thinking about it I was never asked about allergies with my other 2 either.

I'm a nurse and when I'm giving vaccines the first things I ask are the things that would stop a patient getting the jag so that I'm not wasting time counselling for a treatment the patient won't be getting.
The telling thing here is that the nurse got a bit upset when you let her know about the allergy.

From personal experience of near misses its likely that she will now make the adjustments to her practice to stop this happening again and will have flagged up any institutional things that might have fed into this. However, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have a chat to the practice manager to let her know this had happened.

She could have collarsandcuffs, you're right but the way the conversation went it didn't seem like she was going to ask. I was just shocked that there wasn't an alert or something to say about the allergy.

As a nurse myself i would not give out any medication without checking if the person i am giving it to has any allergies, standard procedure and it is bad practice to not do so before hand.

I give vaccines on a daily basis. We always ask about allergies before giving a vaccine.

I would highlight this to the practice manager for safety reasons.

isitnotknowingyet did you not read the OP correctly?

Or do you genuinely think that the nurse did everything perfectly correctly?

I think she should have ASKED specificially if your dd had an allergy to eggs. I was asked the question when I had both dc immunised. The nurses said it was important as the cultures for some vaccinations are grown on eggs (or something like that )