To think im being unfairly treated at work? (Nursing)

[BlackAppleCore]

Been in current role (ward nurse) for a few weeks doing one or two shifts a week. This is a totally different role to what I'm used to as I've only ever worked as a community nurse before. The staff on the ward are aware of this. The reason I was supposedly sent to this ward is that they apparently have great teacher trainers and I'd learn lots with lots of support.

I soon learnt that the ward is horrendous. It's massively understaffed, very complex and nobody wants to work there so they struggle to recruit or maintain staff. I now believe this to be the real reason I was sent there.

Anyway I can't do IV medication so the idea was they would train me in this and various other ward related nursing. Since starting however I have been to feel stupid and incompetent from other nurses and auxiliaries. I am constantly given patients on IV treatment and get arsey responses whenever I ask another staff member to help me with this meaning my patients are enduring big delays (hours) in getting their treatment. I've had comments such as "you can't even do IVs? Thought you were qualified?!" Etc.

Yesterday was horrendous. This one male nurse has taken a dislike to me and seemed to be going out of his way to make things difficult. Yesterday I was literally drowning in work, constant phone calls for me, poorly patients, doctors giving me jobs and missing medication. This male nurse was constantly asking why I'd not done this and not done that, huffing and puffing, barking instructions at me and sent me down to ground floor of hospital (from 7th) three times in a row for something I'd been told already was simply not available.

Back on the ward whenever I had an IV to do he barked at me to mix it up so he could administer it but I don't have a fucking clue what I'm doing and it's dangerous. With one particular med he barked at me to mix (for example) 50mls of dextrose with 2g insulinS in phosphate etc etc and I didn't know what he was on about but became too scared to ask him meaning I was stood in the treatment room looking like a moron seriously considering just walking out and giving up my pin. He came back in, asked if I'd be done it and then huffed and puffed saying he'd do it himself and I could "write on the label". Half the time I'm asked to mix stuff up and then nobody checks what I've done, just scribble their signature and then go and administer it. I'm terrified I'm going to kill someone. Yesterday I had two hours left of my shift and I was asked to catheterise someone, do an ECG, had loads of IV treatment left to do, observations on 10 patients, a full drugs round and THEN this bloke threw a load of paperwork at me and told me I needed to do an admission. This takes an hour at least.

I'm drowning and there is no support. Just sighing, dangerous attitudes and off hand comments constantly not to mention the sideways glancing and expectations to "mix up drugs" when I have no idea what I'm doing.

AIBU to go to the manager and tell her this isn't working? I don't want to go back.

I'm actually quite shocked that a nurse could qualify and never have drawn up iv meds or done a drug round. I know in ROI it's different in that we have a paid 4th year internship on the ward floor and get to do everything but I honestly just assumed in the UK people had much the same level of experience.

(I mean freshly qualified nurses that is)

Elspeth I'm in Scotland and throughout training we could do drug rounds under supervision and everything excluding IVs. IM/SC was fine and taught but IVs weren't included and you do that as an additional course when qualified. Not sure if it's like that everywhere though.

Well we had to do an additional course to be signed off but you got to do that in the last weeks of your internship so you were ready to go once your pin came through in the post.

I had to do a drug round as a student and in some universities students are allowed to be second checkers after they've done a maths exam (I'm in paeds).

Elspeth that would be a much better option, I don't know why it's not done here. Maybe because not everyone chooses a job after training that they'd need it so it's cost cutting? Not sure, it could easily be done as a skills lab in uni I think.

We had an exam which included giving medication and we had to be signed off as doing it on the ward and doing a full drug round but we couldn't do it alone, always had to be supervised and countersigned.

Favourite ah really? That's interesting!

Yes it's said that we go out into the world "fully cooked". During out internship we're not supernumary or anything, we're part of the roster and you're paid a salary. So you get a section to yourself with just a HCA, so you have sole responsibility for 12/14 patients. The only thing you don't do is anything with cannulas really, including hooking up IVs. But you're meant to prepare them. Its quite a tough year and its sink or swim as our public health service is a very tough place to work but you come out ready for anything and it's very good that way.

What a horrific ward!

I was on a similar adult one as a student and even I got a hard time when approaching trained staff to say someone's IV was blocked/had run out. As a first year student I wasn't allowed to touch IVs in any context so I don't know what they expected me to do!

Drug round policies vary wildly between hospitals though. I did my paeds training in Dundee so most of my placements were at Ninewells but I also went to Stirling Royal Infirmary and Raigmore in Inverness. Ninewells allowed you to be a second checker once you were in second year but in my final third year placement at Raigmore I had to be a third checker. IIRC Stirling didn't let me have anything to do with the drug round other than watching when in second year.

But you shouldn't be doing anything you're not competent or confident in whether or not a trained nurse "should" be able to do that.

Are you in a union? I'd recommend discussing whistle-blowing with them.

The Ward Manager will keep on booking you as they're no doubt desperate to cover the shifts.

Is there a Matron or Nurse Bank co-ordinator you could discuss your concerns with?

If you're Bank then vote with your feet and don't go back!

You need to raise concerns as you are putting your registration at risk if you fail to do so. Nobody should be administering drugs they do not see prepared (unless pre drawn and labelled by a pharmacist). Drawing up beforehand is very poor practice and is putting patients at risk.
You are required to work within your sphere of competence.

Speak to ward manager or directorate matron - whoever is band 7.

Oh this sounds a lot like the ward I used to work on. Hell on Earth, it got to the point where bank and agency staff would refuse to work on the ward because it was horrendous and toxic. I had to wait ages after qualifying to get the iv training ( our university doesn't teach students about ivs as that is a separate course 6 months after qualification so when we qualify we can't do anything more than actually as hca/csw for the first few months) and i was reliant on other people to do my iv which meant that the iv ran late so I got into more trouble. So I booked myself onto it as I was sick of ending up in trouble for not being able to do them and be supported.

Contact the education department of the hospital and get booked onto the iv course asap. No offense but if you can't do ivs then you will be extreamly unpopular on the wards as tbh that is at least 1/3 of my duties as a ward nurse.

I'll be honest whistle-blowing can come back and bite you in the arse. I whistle blew about lack of training for a specialist area and I have been reprimanded and was denied a ward sisters job due to "making the seniors look like fools" I'd still do it again but then I've got a bloody thick skin now.

Is it bank? If it's bank I expect they have sent you to this ward because no one else will work in it rather than it having good trainers. I've worked in similar places, too much work and not enough staff. Everyone will be working full out with nothing to spare to help anyone else. The male staff nurse sounds like an arse, if he was coordinating he should have been supporting you.

So wrong that you can go into a speciality straight from uni without first having to have general experience

Crash So sorry your son is going through that xxx

You can't expect to be supernumery on a bank shift.perhaps you should volunteer for bank work as a hca on a ward, find one that's good and then go there as a nurse

If it's bank work you can decline to go back to that ward

Sounds awful. If you are not competent in doing it then you shouldn't be asked to do it. Simple as that. This sort of work culture and level of risk is partly why I am trying to get out of nursing.

Well I recently retired after 30 odd years and to me it sounds a bit like 6 of one and half a dozen of the other . Obviously you should be refusing to do things that you are not qualified to do , but if , as it seems , you are being paid to work a bank shift as a trained nurse then the staff on the ward are within their rights to expect a 'trained' nurse to turn up and expect to work and without seeming nasty that's not what they are getting . It sounds like you need to go and arrange some supernumerary shifts i.e. ones where you volunteer and don't get paid so that you can actually shadow a trained nurse and get the experience that way . I don't feel you can expect ward staff , who are already at the limit , to train you whilst you are taking money for the shift and hence making them a nurse short on that shift as it's not fair on them or the patients .

Elspeth, I'm grateful that all the nurses I have ever had to deal with have a kind and sympathetic bedside manner.

It sounds a nightmare, but I agree that you can't go and do bank work and expect to be trained by staff. You are getting paid to work but if you don't have the skills yet to do your job fully then you shouldn't be there.

I don't understand why a clinical educator hasn't trained you up? I was a HCA and the clinical educators were great at my hospital. I doubt very much you would be allowed to be bank staff if you aren't competent with IVs.

People will get arsey when a trained nurse comes to help but can't actually do their job fully. It's no excuse for the rudeness or expecting you to do the things you aren't trained to do but I get their frustration.

I would be talking to the clinical educators or whoever you have in your hospital about training and shadowing as well, before you take on any more paid ward shifts.

It sounds awful for you right now

I wouldn't expect to train a bank nurse, what I do expect is them to turn up and take a work load of patients. And I will do as much as I can to help and make them feel welcome. It sounds like you actually need to get a job on a ward and have a supernumary period to get used to ward work again and do your competency packages.

Find the whistle blowing hotline, tell all and ask to be moved to protect yourself.