NHS Ward Staffing Numbers

[TheFuzz]

Bit of a rant.

I usually frequent another part of the forum. I'm a fella btw.

Recently received a broken spine in an RTA (car driver turning across cyclist).

Been here since November so absolutely shit Christmas for me and my my family.

The staff are fabulous. Work their butt off. Lovely folk.

But:

There hasn't been enough staff on the ward. It's a spinal unit with 16 beds. There is a mix of patients. A few younger ones with serious spinal injuries (like me), plenty of elderly with falls, a few cancer patients and FOUR with dementia.

Bear in mind there is some intensive nursing needed in this mix. We've had days where only one qualified Nurse is on, nights where there are just 3 staff.

The big issue is the dementia patients need one to one care. Back injuries and dementia are a bad mix.

Cut to the chase. We have a nice old fella in our ward with Dementia, buy I am absolutely sick and tired of having to keep more or less 24/7 eye on him. I can't get out of bed but I buzz and have had to shout for nurses as the poor man is not aware of his broken back, and his surroundings.

I've been doing this for weeks. I need to get myself better too.

The staff think I'm brilliant but I can't just sit there, watch him spring out of bed and fall over as he is frail.

He has started to come round a bit more recently as we didn't know he had a chest infection. This has cleared but he is now more mobile

The good thing is that I can get him to listen to me and tell me what he needs/wants but it's a battle to keep him still until a nurse is available (sometimes 5 minutes) so you are constantly telling him to please wait and that a nurse is coming.

I'm exhausted and want out but I'm not healed enough.

To top it off I've only once seen him get a visitor. Poor bloke

The NHS seriously needs to look at ward staffing. It's madness that patients have to keep an eye on other patients. It's only because I'm now needing less and less morphine am I awake and not sleeping. My two other room mates are in a similar situation to me but are often out of it as I'm a couple of weeks ahead of them in healing.

It's just not on. I feel so responsible for him.

Helena - appreciate that employment benefit erosion might be a factor for some people. This particular lady had a solicitor, a doctor, and a dentist for kids; she bragged about them so much . One of them (the solicitor) worked about 30mins from the hospital - the lady raised it during the call and he told her to ask the other children. Again the lady wasn't mentally gone, and maybe there were other issues at play, but not to even visit your mum when you live at most 15 miles away is harsh.

It's still not great, breakfast tea and late evening drugs rounds still short.

Still looking after the bloke opposite and now have a foul mouthed old git next to me that will not do anything the nurses say and then swears at them. I politely pulled him up today when he swore, then got 'who asked you' so he got a little foul mouthed word from me about being an f'ing ungrateful git and these people don't need this abuse.

I've already come to blows (verbal) with another abusive guy before Christmas.

Might be out soon as I'm healing ok but my mate isn't and may need surgery. At least with surgery he will be up and out.

I'll tweet the Trust on my departure about how fab their staff are but management can't sort out sufficient staffing. As you say it's dangerous.

Just dropping into this thread, an ex NHS worker, glad to get out.
I hope that it all goes well for you Fuzz, and that your stay in which ever hospital that it is, remains tolerable.

Agree spacey My post was more of a general one.

It is a miserable situation, I am an accountant within the NHS and I am sad/andry etc with the situation. A previous poster got it exactly right, the people at the top have forgotten we are supposed to be looking after patients but every area is being cut right back. It is awful to be part of the NHS at this time.

I work with mental health services and things seem to be getting worse every year!

My only suggestion would be that people need to keep writing complaints/letters regarding their views as they will all need to be investigated or at elast taken into consideration. There are strict safer staffing levels within all residential services so it is a huge issue if these guidelines are not being adhered to within a ward.

I had a 6 day stay following an operation in the summer and it was pretty much as you're describing. The staff were all lovely, caring, dedicated people but they were stretched so thin it was unsafe.

I was in a female side ward of 4 beds but there was an elderly man with dementia who would constantly wander in at night and take his clothes off. Bearing in mind we'd all had major surgery and couldn't move easily or even sit up, this was felt very threatening and it didn't feel safe to actually go to sleep. On the 3rd night myself and one of the other ladies threatened to call 999 and ask for police support as the poor staff (only 4 for the whole wing) were not able to keep him out of our room, and the head nurse for the hospital wouldn't send any extra staff to the ward. After that an additional person was assigned to care specifically for him at night time but obviously that meant somewhere else was then short staffed.

After that I had 2 days of an elderly lady with dementia next to me - she clearly had no idea where she was and was constantly trying to get out of bed. Like you I had to keep an eye on her and call staff before she hurt herself.

I don't envy you a long stay - I hope you're able to leave soon.