To feel more than horrified for this 2 year and the treatment by the NHS

[diaimchlo]

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/10691684/Sick-child-on-a-drip-was-forced-to-sleep-on-plastic-hospital-chairs.html

Cannot believe this

And a suitable hospital could be bloody miles away. And te wait for a bed hours.

Giles but you can just stick him on a chair without stabilising him? He's either fit to be on a chair, in which case travelling in an ambulance with a paramedic watching should be fine (assuming there is a hospital somewhere relatively close with a bed. If there isn't then this isn't an isolated problem and we really should be panicking), or he isn't stable and he should be at least on a trolley, not shunted onto a chair.

I repeat my earlier statement that IMO this is a symptom of a structural underfunding or poor management problem, not a frontline nursing problem

Even if he was suspended from the ceiling, if there wasn't the transport or staff available, or a bed at the other hospital or the staff authorised to sign him out weren't available then he couldn't have gone.

Miaow I quite agree, you can tell my strapping 13 year old that too!

im not sure which one im more appalled by a child being left on a chair or the attitude that some people have on here that people are being unreasonable to expect a bed in a hospital sorry but there are always beds somewhere i was put on a mens ward for a couple of hours once hell it was a bed and it was only for a couple of hours what if it had been a child in a car crash parents unavailable due to injury where would they have put the child then? ive seen children put in nurses offices on a camp bed before because the parents need to leave perhaps my hospital is more compassionate than this one

deakymom of course it's not unreasonable to expect a bed in hospital - nobody has said it is.

It is however completely unreasonable to move a patient (adult or child) to any old place that has a bed kicking about. Wards tend to be arranged by specialty - and you cannot have a child placed on an adult ward.

Deakymom - you can't just put a child on an adult ward regardless of how many available beds the adult ward has. There are many reasons for this but the main two being:

1. Children need different care from adults and for that reason we have paediatric nurses and doctors on a children's ward who have specialist knowledge of the care needed for children.
2. Children need to be kept safe as much as possible and placing a child on an adult ward creates all sorts of risks. Those risks are not eliminated entirely an children's ward but they are reduced due to the monitoring of who is coming and going and not having child patients in beds next to adult patients.

I think it is ridiculous that there were camp beds available but he wasn't allowed one because of health and safety since it didn't have sides and staff were worried he might fall off. So he ended up sleeping on chairs that he could easily have fallen off anyway!

If it was as simple as some of you assume it is, don't you think it would be happening?

Or do you all think everyone who works in the health service are thick as shit and don't know anything?

Clearly you have no idea about this sort of stuff because you would not be insisting its as easy as getting a bed elsewhere.

Also, there are specialist nurses who decide where to place a patient. They are called bed management. They would have known if the paediatric ward had beds available later on in the day, that is why he was sent there. If he was too unstable, they would have kept him in A&E.

A&E is not the place to keep patients, adult or child, long term. They have to be admitted to a specialist ward. Not all hospitals have paediatric wards. If they were to find a bed elsewhere, it would most likely be transferring him miles away to another trust.
The professionals know if this decision is warranted. He was discharged the next day after a course of IV antibiotics. Clearly the transfer would have been unnecessary.

But if you insist you are right, by all means go and work in these hospitals in the jobs you seem to think you know so much about.

Topaz That point has been answered, as to why it happened that way. I repeat, his parents put him on the chairs so the hospital wouldn't have been liable. If a nurse had given him a camp bed (and god knows where they'd put it anyway) and he'd fallen off, the hospital would be liable and the nurse could be disciplined.

Agree with Hotdog 100%. The thing with stories like this it creates displaced anger aimed at NHS staff. Admittedly a few people on here have recognised who is actually at fault, but you only need to take to facebook or read comments on news sites and see frontline staff being dragged through the mud. Which incidentally is exactly what the government wants.

They want it so none of you are in uproar about how we're treated. Funny, today they've announced we won't be receiving a 1% pay rise across the board.

Also, who said he received poor care? Yes he had to wait for a bed, which most of us are saying its not right, but there is no mention of other aspects of his care that the NHS failed on.

Oh right, it was the newspaper.

There is no mention, whatsoever, that says he wasn't treated, left to starve or ignored by staff etc.

You do know that not all hospitals get the same funding? Even allowing for different sized hospitals?

I was at a state of the art hospital last week, brand new building, great facilities. Senior staff said there's plenty of money, staff are going on loads of courses, etc.

I work in a 50 year old building which is literally falling down around us. The hospital is nearly £30 million in debt. No funding for courses, equipment. Total spending freeze apart from what's classed as necessary such as drugs, dressings. Recruitment freeze. Stuff which I'd consider essential to effective running of the hospital such as staples, Sellotape are not allowed to be purchased.

Sellotape?!!

We couldn't even buy probe covers for our Ear Thermometers, so had to use the old fashioned mouth ones and disinfect each time. Joke.

Yes, I could add the clinical stuff such as stethoscopes that we have to buy ourselves and always have done.

We need Sellotape to tape blood results into the notes. We stopped having sticky mount sheets as too expensive. So sheet of card and Sellotape results in. Now no Sellotape either.

Ah we aren't allowed tape full stop

There was a point were we weren't allowed to order pens so had to order them in from home.

Now whenever I'm going to an healthcare exhibition I'm a tyrant for collecting pens from everywhere.

Where I work there is limited funding for courses and it's being cut further. And l work somewhere you will have heard of.

Plenty of big hospitals have job freezes and are getting rid of staff. We work on the bare minimum.

I might write in to the Daily Mail about when I was left without pain medication and fluids for over 11 hours because my cannula came out and none of the nurses were able to put another one in. Because of lack of training. Because of lack of funding.

It's only going to get worse. Reading today about people having plastic surgery abroad, coming home to get it fixed. Obesity is going to cripple the NHS within years, already gastric bypasses are costing a fortune and no I'm not saying they don't save money in the long run but then there's skin removal afterwards, people suing for ridiculous things, HOW can it carry on?

Newer drugs being available to cancer patients but at £50,000 a go, or very premature babies, how does anyone make that choice. My very strong feeling is that something should be put in place where unless the person hurt is a wage earner or a child is permanently disabled, financial compensation should not be given - too many people take the piss out of that, with this no win no fee mentality. So more minor cases procedures should be reviewed, and disciplinary action including actually striking off doctors and nurses who made a fatal mistake would happen, but there would be no compensation. As in "it's not the money, I just don't want it to happen to anyone else" kind.

I personally was told my smear test was fine but minor cell changes. I had a 4cm cervical tumour, that if I'd left for six months I'd be dead. Did I sue? No, because I'm okay, I didn't die, and mistakes are made. It was a nurse examining me at my smear who saved my life, and said despite results shed like it looked at further. She got champagne, flowers, and chocolates and a heartfelt card and a cuddle when I took them in.

Do people realise that a paediatric bed might not have been available in any nearby hospitals? I have ended up transferring out children to hospitals over 100 miles away this winter. Also, transport crew have to be available and the family have to agree to the transfer. I have had families refuse and they have spent many hours in A&E waiting for a bed to become available.

There have been times when the nearest PICU (paeds intensive care) bed has been in France.

Take action ...join us in our bid to get the govt to put the nhs back on the agenda instead of undermining it, reducing funding, encouraging blame towards the staff who work there when the govt have intentionally reduced beds and given all the power to managers instead of the clinicians.

The govt don't know what they are doing ( We do !!) and they are trying to undermine us to get their own way without public outcry. They are trying to reduce hospital provision for community provision atm but there isn't any community provision and sick patients will always need hospital care ( they seem to forget that)

Support the nhs, have a look at the nhs action party for example.