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??!

The difficulty with volunteers is they would need to be vetted, supervised, have some basic training so they dont do stuff like feed betty the diabetic some sweets etc. They would need infection control training so they didnt go from patient to patient cross infecting etc. They would need clearly defined roles, risk assesment etc. Who would take ultimate responsibility for them if they caused or had an accident etc.
In this currently litiginous society I think its just too much hassle for hospitals

Sorry I'm with Birdsgottafly on this one. Also the phone chargers thing - as silly as it appears - actually helps some patients. DM very ill last year with trachy in situ. A certain Nurse had left her buzzer out of reach closed the curtains - only thing my mum could do to get attention was bang her toothbrush on the table. She was ignored. It was only because the night staff had kept her phone charged for her that she was able to text family and friends and tell us that she had been left in her own mess for over an hour. Of course I complained. actually went apeshit at the ward manager first. I understand that it's hard and you all do a fabulous job. I just think patients need to be cut a bit of slack - especially when they've been in a while they will complain about the most monotonous of things. Also agree that patients might not be able to cut toast up etc. Most won't ask for help unless genuinely needed (believe me DM is just like this). So although trivial I can understand and think they must have been genuine reasons for wanting it done. Ie. DM has Muscle wastage in her hand. She physically can't cut simple things like cheesecake up. Or they are too worked up/fed up etc.

(Not a nurse but NHS HCP)

I've treated patients with dementia (mainly in Residential/Nursing Homes) and they ask over and over about going home.
Or when is their husband coming?

I have no idea if they are Respite (so maybe they are going home tomorrow) or if their husband is dead.
But all I can say (over and over) is "It's nearly lunch time/ tea time. Have something to eat first then I'll ask "

But for entitled behaviour? One patient who was enraged because there was a car without a Blue Badge in the BB Parking. And demanded that I find out who and get them moved.
And, yes, they expected me to go round every room in the health centre and GPs surgery to find them

I said "No".

Have to say when i was a patient i found it very interesting . I had a crash section , never had surgery or GA in my life , so it was a whole new experience . What i did notice is the care you recieve following surgery for childbirth and the care you recieve for abdominal surgery on a surgical ward are very different . There definately seemed to be a ' your a mother , get on with it ' attitude . Which is quite difficult when you are struggling to get up from a lying flat on your back to any other position without help in those first few hours following surgery . You cannot reach the call bell because it is attached to the wall behind the bed , to let someone know that whoever put the catheter in forgot to inflate the balloon , so it has fallen out and you are lying in a giant puddle of piss , so you have to shout out to whoever wanders in wearing a uniform , except still woozy from the GA you actually mistake a visitor for a nurse and share your news with them !

In some circumstances patients are right. I've just spent 5 weeks in hospital. During that time I questioned various nursing staff regarding the administration of the many drugs I had to have. Sadly every time I questioned I was told that they had been a nurse for X number of years and knew best even if they were administering the drug in a different way to their colleagues. Even more sadly I was told by the ward matron on each occasion I queried this I was correct. There are some fab nurses who provide excellent care but there are some who should find another way of earning a living.

I don't think anyone is saying the patients who receive poor care shouldn't complain difficultpickle

There are patients who are definitely not right. They are the ones who make the job difficult.

HotDog.
But you either do it or you dont. [a rant is ok every so often]. But this sounds more than a rant.
If it is getting to someone like the op, she could get ill herself.
There are other jobs.
And I dont remember there being a current nurse shortage, so someone else would take her place?

I kind of see where you're coming from OP. Some people have unreasonable, impractical expectations. I had an official complaint made about me because I washed my hands before I got someone some more water. He had been given a drink 30min earlier and had half a glass when I finished washing my hands. I got him another glass as soon as I'd washed my hands so I hardly left him to dehydrate.

Perhaps just more trained staff then, instead of volunteers. They could be paid for by... let me see...

Cutting consultants wages? Surely they can't really be worth £300 an hour?

And I dont remember there being a current nurse shortage,

Eh?

But you either do it or you dont. [a rant is ok every so often]. But this sounds more than a rant.

I think she is just having a rant sorry.

Nursing staff are leaving in droves. So lot's of good nurses don't want to do it anymore, because nursing staff can't nurse properly anymore.

Actually, really, hospitals would be better run by nurses, and they should hire and fire the specialists and consultants. The care staff should be in charge and bring in clinical staff as they see fit.

If she is just having a rant, fair enough ish. Though I think her rant consisted of stuff that must happen daily and has been happening daily for 50 years to nurses up and down the country.

There may well be problems with the system, I dont much doubt that.

So is there a nurse shortage? When there has been one in the past, it normally makes headlines pretty quickly.

Perhaps though, the complaint part is newer.
And that is what may be at the heart of the op's post?
A constant fear of possible reporting?

horse I've no idea what our consultants earn tbh, but they are at breaking point too. They have patients on multiple wards, in A&E, they run outpatient clinics, they do lectures, over see numerous medical students, their own medical teams, attend various meetings throughout the hospital. They are ultimately responsible for the decision making and treatment plans their junior doctors implement, they are involved in research etc. The responsibility is huge.

I have a GP friend, who has sworn never to go back into a hospital.

I don't think I would want that level of responsibility to be honest.

It is about the constant fear of being reported archshoes.

I think it would be easier to ignore if it was just someone having a general moan.

The problem with official complaints, where a complaint is not justified, is that the nurses will then have more form filling to prove they are doing certain jobs.

There has to be proof of doing essential jobs. If it doesn't get documented, it hasn't been done kind of thing, but what happens is that even though someone is just being an arse, it's the nursing staff that get the brunt of it. The workload then increases taking you away from sick patients.

The op has not yet been reported.
But my guess is that most nurses have?
So the op, perhaps, could look at it that way? [not sure if that helps?]

I dont think you're bwing unreasonable op, although I think maybe your thread title doesn't reflect your rant.

I've only had dealings with the nhs when ds was a baby - but saw lots of entitled people.

1 man refused to leave the comfy waiting room next to a&e even though a nurse asked him to so we could wait whilst baby ds had a third attempt at a lumbar punch - they asked us to leave resus. He told the nurse he'd paid his taxes and was there first (waiting for his pissed up mate)

I overhead a mum on the phone in the children's ward arranging to meet her bf in the pub. She was allowed to stay with dd on the ward but tolld her mate she'd say she'd been sick and that the nurses could look after her kid as that's what they were paid for.

My mate was a hostess in a hospital for a while. A bloke in getting something done to his foot shouted her back to stir his tea!

I think that if I was you op, I would have to say to myself, well if I get no more than 5 complaints in my nurse working life, then I have done well.
That way, it means you can phyocologically [sp] breathe iyswim.

No I don't think most nurses have been reported because when someone threatens to report you, you usually just do it what they ask. That's what most HCP complain about. It's doing these trivial things for able patients which can take them away from patients who genuinely need help.

It's not easy to stand your ground with people like that. You do, and then get constant snide remarks whenever you in the room, you get verbally abused even more, making you feel so uncomfortable just trying to do your job.

It's even worse when you don't have the support from senior management. You're just told to get on with it, told to just do whatever they want as they don't have time to deal with them, or IME, the manager just hides in the office because she diesnt want to be shouted at.

I remember one incident about 3 years ago, where my manager called me in the office to ask me to tell a relative to leave the ward because she was scared. All the doctors were there but chose to hide by the nurses station.

I was a HCA.

I was threatened by 2 men and 3 women.

^ that's the problem hotdog.

It's not actually the petty complainers... It's ineffective support.

There needs to be a robust system for dealing with complaints, but if they are totally ridiculous (eg, I'm in for a minor foot operation, but that HCP didn't stir my tea twice, clockwise before fixing my tv quick enough...) then there needs to be proper reassurance for staff that they aren't in trouble with their boss.

Unusually, I have gone from one point of view to another on a thread. Though I dont think the op wrote her op very well.
But we all dont explain things very well every time.

Are minor complaints dealt with the same in every hospital?
Is there a proper procedure that is standard across the NHS for minor matters?
How do other nurses cope with complaints - learn from them if they deal with them well.
How many complaints does the average nurse get?

I've nursed for close to three decades and I've never had a complaint. Many of my colleagues haven't either.

Interesting comments about the post op care on Post Natal wards. I had acted as mentors to a fair few student midwives and this is the comment that quite a few make-

'I'm not sure why we need to do this mental health placement and a surgical/medical placement. We're not nurses'.

I remember the student MWs in my own training cohort saying this repeatedly during the practical classes 'we're not nurses, we don't need to know how to make beds/wash patients/selected other practical bedside actions'

No you aren't nurses but you DO have to provide nursing care. I have been astonished that so many of them cannot quite grasp this. Many women have complex medical and/or surgical needs before, during and after childbirth and to dismiss the requirement for you to develop an understanding of the nursing care that these may well involve might go some way to explain some of the issues posted on here.

Gawd, relatives, and no doubt patients too are awful. But it is hard to get your head round the work done in hospitals or care homes until you are in the position of using them and can think it through.

I assumed my DM would be aided to shower each morning when in hosp or care home, then when I thought about it realized, if allowed to go at her aged speed, it would take prob 40 mins min, x 40 patients in the ward so 26 man hours a day just to do showers for all the patients in the ward, so fat chance of that happening.

One relative was complaining to staff that her confused old DM had cold feet. Confused old DM would kick her slippers off and shake off any blanket put over her feet. So relatives seemed to think nurses should be on permanent guard next to the DM's feet in case her cover came off. In theory not a lot to ask, 'pop a blanket over her feet', but in reality not going to happen.

But staff aren't often kindly imo. More often brusque but if understaffed what can you do (though personally I always felt nurses should strike to get the required staffing levels, a few days striking might change the hospital experience for ever more but they are too caring to do strike supposedly )

We should strike because in reality, after three minutes of a national walk out we'd have what we want . No government could cope with the fall out.

On each wArd should be a poster saying how much their operations costs.

That might shut some of them up !