So I've done nearly 30 years in the NHS as a paediatric nurse but never have I experienced the level and type of complaints that we now receive.
These are some examples:
We feed breast feeding mums, one complained her carrots were mashed (standard food on a children's ward) and not sliced.
Another mum complained that the nurses had not changed her bed sheets every day. We change the sheets in the children's beds daily, we provide sheets for the parents, as many as they want but expect them to change the themselves.
One set of parents complained that the night nurse turned the light on over her child cot in the middle of the night (to count the child's respiration rate) and this woke the parent, not the child, up.
One asked to be moved to another bed because she didn't like the view out of the window when the nurse in charge refused she complained that staff we unhelpful.
Another comlplained she didn't get one of our few. side room when she asked for one, despite not meeting the criteria for one, she said the lights around the bed of another child with complex needs kept her awake.
Parents recently complained they their child had not been reviewed by a doctor for three hours despite the fact that they could clearly see that the doctors were involved with another child who'd stopped breathing.
Parents moan incessantly about waiting even though they can see that there are loads of other children waiting and that staff are rushing around like idiots trying to see everyone. In most cases whilst they wait we feed their children and even them (which we technically aren't allowed to do that if your not a breast feeding mum), provide toys, play staff and beds/cots and chairs.
So please before you trot off to PALS to complain think about the staff. In the vast majority of cases we care passionately about your child, many of us are parents too and we know how worrying it is to have a sick child, we do try to consider parents siblings etc and try and accommodate you where we can, I personally bend over backwards to be nice to parents and their children and provide them with support and information I can as do nearly all I work with, I know there are some exceptions and some complaints are justified but not those I've mentioned above. As nurse we work long hours, my shifts are 13 1/2 hours with 1 hour for break (if im lucky), complaints like those above are very demoralising, it's make us wonder why we bother. We cannot fill our vacancies and so there is a national shortage of paediatric beds at this time of the year so please think; AIBU before complaining?