To get annoyed by this FB status and think that nurses are not angels?

[lougle]

I'm not a big FB user. I tend to scroll through the news feed and rarely post. Today I saw a post about nurses. It basically told off patients for ringing their call buzzer for a cup of tea because nurses are really busy and have very much more important things to do, then sneered about being called stupid 'by someone who didn't even finish 10th grade'.

AIBU to think that nurses choose to work as a nurse and patients shouldn't have to worry about whether a nurse has had his/her break before asking for a cup of tea (when they're not allowed to get it themselves)?

(I'm a nurse).

The 'named nurse' thing is often just for show. We have it in the care home and it's meaningless, but done for the inspectors.

I would love to send that Richard Branson quote to my manager. She treats us like domestic servants and we receive no thanks whatsoever even though we're often pulling her irons out of the fire because she employs dangerous fools

Bapsout "I think nurses are very well paid for a job which isn't particularly intellectually demanding, is relatively stable (far more stable than many many other public sector jobs), and can be as demanding as it's made (i.e. it's easy for a nurse to do very little work on a shift)."

This I disagree with. I worked from 7.15 am until 8.30 pm yesterday in ICU. Our patient had multiple infusions that are so strong that even 0.01 of a microgram difference in rate could have profound consequences. We assess our patient from top to toe, several times per shift. If something changes, we are expected to assess the potential cause of the change. We are expected to auscultate the patient's chest so that we can make comparisons as conditions change. We are expected to assess every part of the patient for signs of skin breakdown and use preventative measures. It takes at least 3 nurses to roll a ventilated patient from one side to the other, and this must be done 4-6 times per shift.

As a new to ICU nurse, I have a competency portfolio that must be signed off before I care for a patient unsupervised. I will then do the Step 1 National Competency framework and do a 6 month Foundations course. After that, I'll (hopefully) do the ICU course.

Nursing is like any other job -you can do it well or do it badly. My issue is not with nurses. It is with statuses that dehumanise patients and make them seem below the nurse and not worthy of their time and energy.

I think nurses are underpaid and understaffed.

Bapsout, I have to disagree that the job is "well paid" and "not intellectually demanding". As for your assertion that it's easy to slack off, don't make me laugh! I am a specialist community nurse with responsibility for a large caseload of children and young people with severe mental health issues, most of whom are at high risk of suicide or are psychotic. I come in an hour early every morning, never leave on time and take work home with me every night just to stay afloat. The concept of breaks does not exist where I work. Most of my kids aren't even seen by a Psychiatrist or any other clinician for that matter, I am the only one holding the clinical responsability and the risk so how exactly is the job "as demanding as I make it"? If I decided to slack of children would die, it is that simple.
Several of the kids I'm working with should really be in hospital but as there are no beds, I'm tasked with the responsibility for keeping them safe in the community. Almost all of them have suffered some degree of trauma, most often sexual abuse. On my caseload I have kids who are gang members, refugees, homeless kids, a child who has witnessed the murder of a family member, FGM survivors, kids who sexually abuse younger children. If a child presents in A&E having taken an overodse or tried to hang themselves they call me, I assess them and I have to decide whether they are safe to go home. If I make the wrong decision I have to live with the consequences. My job has required me to undertake postgraduate training in three different psychological therapies and I am about to start training in a fourth. I make just over £27k a year.
I don't buy into this "nurses are angels bollocks" in any way whatsoever but people like you telling me my job is a walk in the park and trying to make out that my salary is in any way commensurate with the level of responsibility simply do not have a clue. But what would I know, eh? I'm just a Nurse

The starting salary for a qualified nurse is £21,692.

The starting salary for HCAs is £11, 967. They are very underpaid.

Don't forget that it is the nurse who is accountable for their decision to delegate tasks to an HCA.

Yes I know and they should be properly treated by managers. But HCAs are really what used to be called nurses. It is those staff who do the actual nursing.

The best run ward I was in had one HCA who was responsible for meal orders and deliveries and drinks. I was well hydrated. And a ward cleaner who properly cleaned the ward.

HCA's are marvelous, I've been lucky enough to work with some great ones and I agree they are scandalously underpaid. However, anyone who thinks that only HCA's do 'the actual nursing' has a very narrow view of what the role of a nurse actually involves.

I have been on the recieving end of some geat and some appalling treatment from nurses. IT's just like any other profession, some are great, some not so

From being a patient myself, the nurses in hospital wards have rarely done any actual nursing. That is not to blame them. They have been busy setting up drips, giving out medication and similar. It is the HCAs who have always dressed, fed, washed, toileted, fetched for patients. And it has always been the HCAs who have actually talked to me if things are a bit quieter. I am older, when I was young, that was the role of a nurse.

I think some nurses are very smart, very academically and intellectually able and work really, really hard.

There are some who aren't though, depending on the university you go to, sometimes the entry requirements are very low and there aren't actually any exams.I personally know one who did nursing after failing two other (not challenging) degrees.

Same as most degrees really, it varies considerably across the board.

It's also not always the very smart/intellectual ones who turn out to be the best nurses, again - same as in other professions. Some are grossly underpaid and some couldn't hope to get another job that pays as well as nursing does.

cleaty, "setting up drips, giving out medication and similar" is part of "actual nursing"! I think this is part of the problem. Many of those complaining that nurses 'don't do proper nursing anymore' don't actually know what the job involves.

At one time setting up drips was the role of a Junior Dr. The role of nurses has changed massively.

Fairfat40 I obviously have no idea which medication your sister was denied or why . I do know that the bane of my life is getting to a patient during the drug round to discover that their regular meds have not been prescribed , now I can understand this if someone has been admitted unexpectedly but when they are in for elective surgery it is infuriating . It is embarrassing telling the patient that I cannot give them medications that they regularly take because they have not been prescribed by the doctor .

Climbing wow was this person being bankrolled by their parents ? three lots of tuition fee's to pay back on a nurses wage must be crippling them !

I did a eleven hour nighshift last night and got no break. We had 5 agitated confused patients to keep safe and five very ill patients, two of whom died overnight. Also an emergency admission, an elderly confused patient with a huge bleeding tumour. And we made lots of tea not just for patients but for distraught relatives too, it's all part of the job !!

Scotland, Frumpet, so not as bad as it could have been.

But yes, parents a lot more supportive than I'd manage to be in their position!

frumpet that is the point I am making. It wasn't the nurses fault. The doctors 'assumed ' it had been done. The night nurses weren't allowed to administer. It just seemed that nobody was joining the dots and actually communicating. Essentially my sister bedblocked because of this - and her life was put at risk. Meds needed to administered day and night through a drip as she has a mechanical heart valve. An 'old fashioned ward' round where someone is responsible for making sure the message gets through to everyone and can pull the doctors up where is necessary, seems like it could be a good idea. Sorry original OP slightly off point, but as I said I think tea is not the NHS's biggest problem

Nurses are absolutely not underpaid compared with others.

My mum is a home care assistant. She travels around in her own car to people's home in the scummiest areas of the city where she lives. She's been hit, held at knife point, followed, mugged, all sorts both in and out of people's homes.

She washes, dresses, feeds people and gives out medication.

She assess people in the sense that if someone is looking ill she has to make the decision whether to call an ambulance or inform someone. Once she did and nothing was wrong and she a bollocking. Once she didn't and an old man died and she was up in front of a disciplinary panel.

She doesn't get a break in her shifts.

Over the last couple of years her wages have been cut because enhanced pay has been scaled back, her contract has been changed without any consultation moving her from a 2-week to a 3-week rota meaning she works two in every three weekends, often on split shifts.

It's looking like her job will go to the private sector wherein her wages will undoubtedly be cut further.

Last year she took home £12,300, less than half what you are paid yorkshapudding

Yes I know and they should be properly treated by managers. But HCAs are really what used to be called nurses. It is those staff who do the actual nursing.

We do more of what nurses used to do maybe but we don't do most of the 'actual nursing'

I change beds, wash patients, change certain dressings, obs rounds, feeding, hoisting, toileting etc, assisting with certain procedures, some paper work and general ward maintenance.

A nurse does much more. Yes, we do the hands on care so patients see us the most but nurses are doing things like meds, waterlow scores, admissions, discharges, working with SS and so so much more. And yes, it is intellectually demanding.

HCA's are awfully underpaid and we work in very tough conditions. Nurses are underpaid as well and working in even tougher conditions as they have the accountability that we don't.

My point is that nursing has changed enormously. What nurses used to do when I was a child, is what HCAs now do. What nurses now do today, is what junior Drs did when I was a child.

So when old people talk about nurses not doing any or little nursing, they are talking about all the tasks HCAs now do. That is not to blame nurses in hospitals, they have enough to do. But their role is not what nurses used to do. So old people saying that, are simply saying the truth.

IT really shouldn't be about who gets paid more than who. Both health care assistants and nurses are probably underpaid. As a nurse I certainly disagree that my job isn't intellectually demanding. I work in a specialist area where I see, diagnose and treat patients with a particular condition. I also prescribe complex medications. I have a masters degree and have worked bloody hard to get where I am today - academically AND putting in the hours and hours of hard graft on the wards to work my way up.
I was a health care assistant before I did my training. All through my training I worked as an HCA. That was physically demanding, stressful work. But I actually I preferred it to working as a qualified nurse on the ward, there is way to much pressure on ward nurses who carry so much responsibility with so little senior support.
I do agree about the 'nurses are Angels' crap on FB though. Of course we are not Angels. We are normal human beings who get tired, stressed and resentful just like anyone else when we are constantly asked to pull ourselves in 5 directions at the same time.

Cleaty, I agree the roles have changed, and as I said above a retired HCA told me the same recently.

I apologise as I read your tone wrong.

We haven't had a doctor bashing thread in a while. Strange that in the context of their dispute over contracts currently. You never see, for example prison officer bashing threads or firefighter bashing because I presume those professions are less visible. I do think nurses are looked down upon and kept in their place in these threads. I personally have had very poor experiences with solicitors but I think, probably, if I started a thread about them it would not gain traction. I think, partly, it is because of the emotional impact of the fear of the cruel, uncaring nurse looking after you when you are at your most vulnerable but I do feel that nurses are held, often, to unreasonable standards in comparison to other professions.