To think NHS do gooders need to realise that the patient is not always right

[oggieogggie]

I've had a right few weeks of it. I'm an auxilliary nurse and my morning normally starts by taking breakfasts around the ward. Picture the scene if you will - a trolley full of cereal, bowls and milk and a pot of hot porridge.

I walk into room one = "would you like breakfast this morning?" patient (full mental capacity) says "well before all that I'd like you to fix my TV. I cant get the channel to turn over." I say "well I'll see to that after breakfast, would you like some cereal?" he says "not until my TV is fixed ... can't you just do it, it will only take a minute (so everyone else should wait until YOUR TV is functioning before they get their breakfast and you don't see that as selfish at all?) I don't say this - I remain professional.

Imagine a few more patients who decide that their TV/Slippers/Laptop chargers etc are more important and then the unfortunate patients who receive cold porridge as a result -

Next I take a tray of hot toast around = One patient demands "I want it buttering and cutting into thin strips." I explain that she will either have to press the buzzer for someone else to come and do it or wait until I have finished delivering toast before it gets cold. "But I want it NOW!" she demands. Ok, so it's fine that everyone else will receive cold toast? that's ok with you is it?

Imagine more of the same throughout the day

"I can't get my phone working!" = well I'm taking care of a rather ill patient at the moment, it will have to wait." "that's it!! I'm making a complaint!!"

"I want you to wash me." = "I will help you but you have to wash what you can yourself." = "why?? its what you get paid for!!!" no actually - I get paid to help people back to independence and to care for those who genuinely can't do it themselves ... " - "Ive had no sleep!! I want you to wash me! I can barely move I'm in so much pain!!" (well walking down the stairs for a fag 10 minutes ago must have been agony then eh?)

I'm sorry, but could it not be said that sometimes, just sometimes certain patients are not always right and that as staff members we should not live in fear of one of these people complaining that we're not jumping through hoops to keep them happy? And no I've never had a complaint against me - I do that nursey thing of taking the abuse and maintaining a smile. Just lately I can't quite shake the notion that the NHS (and Britain in general) is so bothered about political correctness and ultimate customer satisfaction that it's actually counter productive. Why are we all so polite??!

An aside
Why don't we have special scrubs for patients in the NHS, rather than relying on gowns, which are really only designed for having operations in?
Just a thought.

I think it's the minority of patients that want the NHS to provide their hospital attire. They should only have gowns for operations.

Horsetowater - Your posts are some of the most frustrating and naive posts on this thread.

You, for some reason, seem to think you know how to run a ward or hospital. You seem to think we need your advice on how to tackle these issues.

We have gone over and over this, throughout the thread, but you are insisting we need to do more.

Might I suggest, as I did upthread, you go off and do your training and get a job in the NHS? If you seem to think we can't be bothered, or we're not doing enough, maybe you try it? You seem to think you know better

And, yes, your posts are pissing me off.

You try getting these ideas passed by senior management. You try getting them to spend money on orientation boards, changing uniforms etc. You try telling them 'oh Mrs X fell out of her bed because I decided to fix a TV instead of reporting it to maintenance.

There has to be clear boundaries for us as staff. Whether you like it or not, we have to refuse to fetch a chair at times. What if a patient is about to arrest, and you see a concerned nurse dashing up the ward to see to that patient? Can you imagine telling the relatives 'oh sorry, I knew the patient arrested but someone asked me to find a chair for them, so I prioritized that because I didn't want a complaint'

Most patients or relatives accept your answer when explaining to them who is responsible for certain jobs and they will have to wait. Some just don't like it, they want it now.

You can say we should just get on with it and do as we're told/asked until you are blue in the face, but if we took your advice, hospital wards would be even more dangerous than they currently are.

Care of the elderly wards usually have laundry facilities, also a limited stock of spare clothes kindly donated by relatives or members of staff.

We try to save them for the patients with no visitors, but occasionally we run out as we have to discharge them in the clothes and we don't get them back.

IME, residential homes or nursing homes fail to send the patients clothing in when they are admitted. Countless times I've phoned and asked them to send someone with clothing and toiletries.

We are allowed to order a small amount of toiletries, and on special occasions, like christmas, easter and birthdays, the staff chip in and buy all the patients a box of toiletries.

Those hospital gowns are awful. We try to avoid those as much as possible so we ring round other wards to ask if they have any spare.
We only use them as a last resort.

Also, I'll give you an example of nursing staff getting the blame with everything-

Today, a relative of a lovely gentleman with dementia, who flushed his dentures down the toilet, threatened my colleague with going to the press and a formal complaint because he didn't have his teeth.

This is despite the nurse telling the relative that a referral to the dental hospital was made within the hour, and we were waiting for them to see him on the ward as they are based in another hospital.

We have to wait for them for an appointment. We are making sure he can still eat certain foods. He isn't distressed by it.

But it's not good enough according to the relative. He should have them now. So she is writing a formal complaint and going to the local press, because we are 'failing' his care.

As we are saying, it's always the nursing staff who get the brunt of it.

Truffle, if you go in via A and E you can have quite a few problems getting hold of stuff in a timely manner. Being able to borrow patient scrubs, even at a voluntary cost, would be incredibly helpful. Last week I had to stay overnight with my DS and we had nothing at all with us. Obviously it's not life and death but many of us would appreciate being able to access that.

The defensive and dismissive attitude of staff on here towards someone like me who is asking genuine questions is really sad. Don't you see what you are doing? YOU are in the system, not me. If you're not even listening to 'us' patients (you are too) how do you expect management to listen to us? It might help if you tried passing the buck up the management structure where you say it belongs, instead of downward toward patients, most of whom know absolutely nothing about healthcare or your jobs. They may have expectations and demands but that's not the problem, the problem is the system - blame that, not people who complain.

And if management are still not listening you have to use the whisleblowing system.

See, there you go. Won't listen.

Patients might be annoying you but the system is shockingly, unforgiveably wrong. You have to admit that and if you keep blaming patients for complaining you are simply shooting the messenger.

And if people want to make pointless complaints, let them, they only make themselves look stupid. The press won't touch the dentures story anyway.

And if care staff aren't doing their jobs properly and not supplying clothing, don't use their services or charge them for new clothes for the patients. But don't ignore deal with it yourselves out of your own pockets.

Often as an NHS nurse we tried to make management aware of things patients are unhappy about. Total and epic fail. Management don't care. They set the staff up to fail and let the staff get all the shit from patients. Nursing is hell anymore. You can barely keep your patients alive and the ones that aren't that sick are demanding and stupid about stupid crap.

One of the last shifts I worked as a nurse in the NHS I had a brittle diabetic post MI on Cardizem and insulin drips that needed frequent titration. She was really deterioriating and there were no beds in ITU so she was left on the ward in my care. I was also the only RN for 20 other patients with only two auxillaries to help simultaneously. Just managing her drips, airway and her pain kept me in her room 40 minutes out of every hour at least. That meant the rest of the patients on the ward were going without their meds, treatments etc. Of course management would not allow me to have another RN to help because they were trying to get in line with budget and look good. Plus, they don't get the blame and shit from the patients and visitors. EVER.

As I am running to this patients room with another bag of Cardizem, a dinamap and a non rebreather a visitor gets in front of me bitching about the fact that his mother didn't have enough blankets. Told him quickly and politely that we will get there when we can. He starts pissing and moaning about the nurses not being bothered to help. What a dick. Of course he has no fucking idea what is going on yet he thought he was right. He actually stepped in front of me and kept trying to step in front of me while I tried to get into that room. I really thought she was going to die because of him

I literally wanted to kill that sick twisted fucker. I wanted to strangle him. Visitors are so dangerous because they are so ignorant and selfish. They don't want to pay for safe staffing levels and then they have an all out tantrum when they cannot get what they want when they want it. And most of the complaints boil down to (I couldn't have what I wanted when I wanted it).

You absolutely cannot have what you want when you want it in a hospital where you are sharing your nurse and doctor with too many other patients. We are triaging and prioritizing constantly, and how much time we spend with you is not a controllable factor. It is going to depend what is happening with our patients, and there is no way to plan for it and we ARE NOT allowed to have extra staff when acuity increases.

I hope someday that visitor is a patient in a hospital and I hope he starts choking to death and I hope his nurse misses it because a visitor is in her face about stupid shit.

I used to have so much compassion for these people, being sick or being a relative and being worried about their loved one, not having any idea how hospitals work and how chaotic it all is. The fear, the stress etc.

But they kicked it all out of me and I realized they are all crazy, selfish crazy cheap fuckers from hell.

Pay for safe staffing levels (you don't. believe me, your taxes are not going to cover the cost of treating your fat non compliant diabetic ass let alone pay for safe staffing) or shut the fuck up.

Everyone is in the same boat, it's not about them and us - we should all, public/patients and all staff be saying it's not good enough.

I completely agree GirlsTimesThree but

Can you explain more how are salaries decided? Does your dh make those decisions? Is there an unfair balance between what nurses get paid and what consultants get paid? I thought as a senior consultant he would actually have some clout with the management - is that not the case?

and you can bet your ass that if something had happened to that woman I would have been shit canned. The visitor would have not got the blame and neither would managers who INTENTIONALLY short staff the place. and leave the few ward staff to get kicked around by visitor.

doctors and nurses have no clout with management whatsoever. What planet are you from horsetowater?

WOW Newjob

But they kicked it all out of me and I realized they are all crazy, selfish crazy cheap fuckers from hell.

Pay for safe staffing levels (you don't. believe me, your taxes are not going to cover the cost of treating your fat non compliant diabetic ass let alone pay for safe staffing) or shut the fuck up.

Glad you're not in the system any more. Taxpayers are not to blame for this mess. The government and the NHS bosses are.

horse there are multiple posts on this thread explaining just how hard (impossible) it is for anyone to get management to listen. At times even they have their hands tied by those above them.
There are those who will try, but they just get told to get on with it or find somewhere else to work. Increasing numbers are doing just that, but some are stuck and have to keep their heads down because otherwise they could become the victims of bullying from above. It happens and has happened to friends of mine.

No one has said all patients (or relatives) are a problem, far from it. Most are lovely, but there is a growing minority who are abusive. As with every part of society there is an awareness of rights, but no acceptance of responsibility for behaviour.

WRT to what some regard as a lack of care, I remember being taught about the 'sick role'. This is something that can happen when people are admitted to hospital. They basically become helpless beings who can do nothing for themselves. Part of the nurses role is to give that responsibility back to the person by encouraging them to do things - washing, feeding, mobilising etc. Sometimes it can look unkind to an outsider, but it is necessary. Obviously neglect is something different and shouldn't happen, but encouraging independence is an important part of a nurses job.

My DH is a consultant. Believe me, they have absolutely no clout whatsoever. Management run roughshod over all clinical staff and clinical decisions and worst of all...THEY DO NOT LISTEN.

The NHS is dangerous due to lack of government funding, people not being taxed enough and the NHs being treated like a business by management who treat clinical staff like the shit on their feet.
In most businesses, the more the clientele, the better...that is the opposite in the NHS!

Until you work on the frontline and deal with these people....you have no idea, believe me, at what goes on.

www.wbhelpline.org.uk/

I posted this upthread, here it is again - for all of you.

Salaries are decided at a national level, nothing to do with drs, nurses or anyone else on the frontline.
No, he has no more clout than you or I. He just gets to see what s**t they're piling out next and try to head it off or manage it, not for himself, but for the teams he works with and the people they look after.

Yep they are to blame (government and management) and the patients and visitors are so goddamn fucktarded that they constantly put other patients in danger too.

I tell my family that when you are in the hospital you are more in danger from another patient and their visitors than you are from a rogue doctor or nurse. All it takes is for one demanding idiot fucker to get in your RN's face wanting to use her as a servant and BOOM, she misses it when you seize, your BP bottoms out trashing your kidneys or your 02 sats drop low enough to damage your brain".

Everyone who works are general wards wants to get the fuck out. Unless they have security on each ward at all times and the visitors are educated a bit and their behavior is tightly controlled I wouldn't go back. None of us would.

The only safe place in a hospital is ITU because there are enough staff on duty to handle the patients, the problems, and the crazy families.

You might wonder if I was a patient in a hospital lying in my own shit would I demand an RN nearby stop what she is doing and change me...ignoring the fact that she was in the middle of setting up a PCA and that my distraction could cause her to make a fatal error?

Of course I wouldn't. Because I am not a selfish whore who thinks it is okay to get other people killed. I would understand that my need (although uncomfortable) could not possibly be prioritized at that time. And I get that managers have not a care in the world about safe staffing and that they really drop the ward staff in it.

@ Girlstimesthree

I said that they are all a problem. And nuts too,

Psychiatric clients do not wear hospital gowns. They wear their won clothing and sometimes they arrive without any clean clothing or toiletries. Staff often have to pick up the slack so to speak as it isn't always possible to use hospital laundry or the ward machines.

claraschu,

We understand the toast thing but do you understand that if an RN missed titrating a cardiac or insulin drip in time because I was buttering someone's toast that he/she would be busted for manslaughter? Same with those other things mentioned. Nurses are not uncaring. They are prioritizing and triaging and making tough decisions about who gets care.

If you think that the reason that they are not helping to butter toast or get a bedpan right away has anything to do with caring YOU ARE CRAZY.

There is no way to control the fact that some patients need bedpans and their toast buttered while other things that are very dangerous are happening with other patients. If I miss getting someone a bedpan in time I can fix that by cleaning them up. If I miss an order or a blood transfusion reaction the patient dies and I cannot take it back or fix it. Ever.

In short, you clearly have some kind of mild cognitive impairment.

they not I