To feel sad about the figures on nursing released today

[noodleaddict]

It seems like the crisis in nursing is only going to get worse.

More UK nurses and midwives leaving than joining profession
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40476867

Sad probably doesn't really describe it actually. Patient care is going to suffer. There is no doubt about it. I see a downward spiral happening and I don't know what to do about it.

We need reintroduction of bursaries for training, we need a pay rise, we need better staffing, we need to reduce the reliance on agency.

When is the government going to wake up??

Is water still banned at the nurses stations?

Where I have worked, yes. Even in height of summer. Heavily pregnant staff members haven't even been allowed to break this rule, which is hideous.

When the basic needs of the staff aren't being met, how can that of the patients be met?

A few years ago we were allowed drinks in the office, however, matron received a complaint from a patient's relative saying that the staff were sat around drinking tea so drinks got banned. The fact of the matter was that handover was taking place when he knocked on the office door and those at the end of their shift were having the only drink of tea they'd had all day.
But without the context, what he saw was several staff members sat around talking and drinking tea. It wasn't a social event, it was an essential aspect of the ward's routine and an opportunity for staff to hydrate, but it wasn't good enough for that visitor and all drinks were then banned. To the point that drinks would be thrown in the bin if found anywhere other than staff kitchen which was on another ward area and not easily accessible for a quick drink.

Also re people saying how many applications for nursing its true but it has a huge number of drop outs to. We've already had 6 drop out out of 24. A family member qualified in september 2016 and her class started with 23 and only 9 finished.

Exactly. As PPs have said the issue is retention, not recruitment into the course itself. There seems to be no interest nationally in improving retention. When it is more acceptable for nurses to collapse or get UTIs than it is to get a drink of water then where is the incentive to stay? So many of these posts ring true to me.

A local Trust had a big problem with patients and relatives complaining about nurses having drinks of water. It took a couple of nurses collapsing on duty for the rules to be (only very slightly) relaxed. There are still complaints that nurses are drinking water. The lack of public support makes it a miserable job at times.

I was a band 5 , never wanted to go up the ladder preferred looking after the pts. I did love the pts but the paperwork is getting ridiculous. Also the amount of managers is totally stupid .That used to get to me, so many ppl telling me how to do my job that I could do with my eyes closed , I have forgotten more than they know! Still it is all behind me now, I did have a lovely career and I wouldn't have changed it for anything but it is time for me to let the youngsters have their chance Good luck Monster you sound lovely !

The plan seems to be to have one qualified band 5 in charge of a shift and co-ordinating with band 2-4s doing most of the work.

Yes band 5s are co-ordinating
and band 4s can do oral med rounds. But the coordinator is accountable for "overseeing" what the band 4 is doing, which is TERRIFYING! It's a whole other kettle of fish from co-ordinating where the bays are looked after by registered nurses who are accountable for themselves!

Nurses are not only paid appallingly (which is a hangover from days where the role was very different and more aligned with what would be HCA work nowadays- unfortunately most people don't realise what nurses can do until they become older and unwell) but often treated appallingly by the organisations they work within. I don't know if any other health profession that is treated like children, patronised, ordered about and disempowered in the way nurses are. I am going on a reduced pension at 50 and won't be looking back.

Please please consider Primary Care in GP practices. We need you!!!

I agree, it is sad.

I'm a band 3, already have a degree but not in nursing. I was considering going in to nursing, teaching and midwifery, but was put off by another 3 years training for healthcare professions, or having to find the money to do a PGCE and keep a roof over my head for the one year. Then the starting wage isn't that great and the level of responsibility is so high, and if ŷou make a mistake, you could get chucked out of the profession and have to start again (which is understandable for serious errors, obviously). Dealing with people's well being and lack of resources is stressful.

Three years studying is a long time for some people who have been out of education a while, and it puts people off, not to mention the ridiculous, unjustified debt that goes with it.

That's why I'm starting to consider options outside of the NHS, as I can't go anywhere further without a degree, not clinically anyway. I do wonder what will happen when living wage reaches £10ph and you could make almost the same money in retail or admin and not have a chair thrown at you (this happened to me at work recently)

Why do people in government moan that there are a shortage of nurses and teachers, when the reasons why are so glaringly obvious? Does the government think we all have a bank of mum and dad to help us out during study, and that we would be willing to work in a stressful job for below average pay, which is capped at a certain level?

David Cameron obviously does and he thinks we're 'selfish' for even suggesting we should be paid a little bit more. Maybe 'selfish' is calling a referendum and legging it when you've realised you have massively buggered things up....

Sorry getting a bit political there! Just annoyed at how public sector workers are being treated.

Not being able to have a drink of water during a shift (as some people have said in this thread) is not only shocking, but dangerous. Why was it not explained to the people who complained that it is important for staff to be adequately hydrated to do their job properly?

The general public also assume that every woman in a hospital tunic or dress is a nurse and discount all other healthcare professionals. So when they see a group of staff having a handover they assume they are nurses having a gossip. When an occupational therapist in her green trousers is focusing on her patient and not all the other ward patients buzzing the call bells - she's a lazy nurse ignoring other patients!

The not being able to drink water rule as patients complain is simply ridiculous. Maybe they need to be told that nurses are human beings doing a difficult job who rarely get a proper break. I have no idea why managers side with patients rather than their staff members.

At the Trust I trained at, managers would order free water, tea and coffee for their meetings though. Funny that.

I know three people currently in year 2 of their nursing degrees and they've all suddenly had extra conditions put on them such as extra hours they need to do for placements, two have the uni trying to put them back six months even though they've passed the year (which would mean they lose their bursary). It's as if the uni are trying to sabotage the courses as this is affecting everyone in year two of their training. Budget cuts mean there won't actually be jobs for them so I'm suspicious that they're actually trying to force people to leave the course. It's a complete mess and will be devastating for the NHS.

A friend of mine is a nurse at a large Trust in the south-west. They have 100 RN vacancies which 30 people have applied for and some of those aren't actually qualified nurses!

They are filling the gaps with band 4 assistant practitioners and encouraging band 3s in all department to apply for the foundation degeee course.

We seem to be heading towards the USA model of healthcare where the patient is a customer and nurses are "written up" for not smiling enough or acting as the hired help.

I was a SODP, I started out as an Auxillary nurse and started my student nurse training back in the days of Project 2000, half way through I swapped as I loved theatres and wanted to do anaesthetics so needed the ODP training. I loved my job to begin with, 17 years later and I've left and have no plans to return.

There's a national shortage of ODPs too and the amount of agency staff we used just to run on minimum numbers was huge, I was given my band 6 after being qualified for 18 months as they were desperate to keep staff, looking back now I was no where near ready. I was sent on the ATLS, ALS, IPLS courses within weeks of qualifying as ODP's carried the trauma bleep out of hours, I've never been so scared of making mistakes under the most stressful situations. Our hours were horrendous, rostered overtime to cover nights at weekends, you were the only ODP on site covering trauma theatres and had the trauma bleep covering resus.

We would work Monday to Thursday 3 8-6 shifts and a late, Friday -Sunday night, finish monday morning and back in on a late on Tuesday for your normal working week, this was every 4-6 weeks! I was knackered, stressed and undervalued.

They've removed the bursary for ODP's too, it's so short sighted, I wouldn't recommend nursing or other allied HCP training to anyone, especially now you will graduate with so much debt, face a pay freeze cut and will have to take on even more responsibility under more stressful conditions.

I left after a horrendous injury and I'm still paying the price of years of lifting and wearing lead gowns for hours at a time. I'm currently 4 weeks post op Laminectomy and spinal decompression, my back is knackered and Im only 40.

I think the crisis will get worse before they will finally listen.

Why was it not explained to the people who complained that it is important for staff to be adequately hydrated to do their job properly?

Because hospitals don't ever respond in favour of the staff.

I would love to know on what basis the people complained about nurses having a drink.

TheSlowLoris, it is a very common complaint. The reasons given include (absolutely not my opinion):-
It looks unprofessional
Infection control concerns
Nurses sitting down / standing 'chatting' when they should be doing visible 'tasks'
Patients and relatives are thirsty / need a cup of tea and nurses should be sorting hat out not getting drinks themselves
Nursing is a vocation and so nurses should not require food, drink, sleep or a salary and should do it for the love.

I could go on... and it is not only directed at nurses.

The 'not allowed to drink' and people complaining when an overworked nurse who has had no break grabs a quick swig of water at the nurses station, I mean how dare they keep hydrated!! really annoys me.

There's a reason why HCP's are more likely to need treatment after developing kidney stones...

Chronic dehydration.

Please please consider Primary Care in GP practices. We need you!!
The talk of massive merging is a big put-off, plus the hours are getting less regular

IFartGlitter I do think that ODPs have it worse! I wanted to do ODP but glad I didn't. They have masses of responsibility for very little recognition - bottom of the heap! I know an excellent theatres band 2 who had glowing references from theatres and lots of experience who couldn't get on the access course because she let it slip that she wanted to use it for ODP not nursing and the big drive was to get people onto access who wanted to apply for general nursing. ODP recruitment is not a priority, its just not on the radar at all! but they're such an important link in the chain!

Hmm. Yes I do think nurses benefit from degree education.
I wonder why we don't argue for doctors to be just caring people who pick it up on the job?

Nurses have never 'just picked it up on the job'. Before degrees there was still a formal training process within the school of nursing with practical and written assessments and examinations to pass. It lead to enrolment or registration rather than a degree and I needed A levels to access the combined 4 year course I did. Many of the experienced nurses who are leaving now will have done this type of training.

Yes

diploma nurses did three years at uni too, they just didn't do a dissertation module - but many topped up to that post-grad!

Prior to that nurses didn't attend university, but did attend specialised nursing campuses/nursing schools for classroom based learning.

It's important that nurses train away from the wards as well as on them for standardisation and whistleblowing purposes as well as all of the other benefits of a degree.

I worry that the apprentiship will be as much work as a degree, but with assessors coming to you and "on the job" learning, there won't be that fresh perspective that you get from students who are not particularly tied to the department/ward/hospital.

Students who are separate are a vital source of whistleblowing! They have been instrumental in bringing down/exposing institutional problems/abuse in the past that they workers either couldn't or wouldn't testify about.

On the Daily Mail site, any articles about nurses have stupid comments like:
"bring back matron!"
"Get nurses training on wards again like the good old days"
"Nurses are too uppity these days"
"Nurses drink tea all day"

There is no respect for nurses and this is reflected in how some patients and relatives speak to nurses like the hired help.

On one placement we were allowed to drink tea at the nurses station whilst doing notes / referrals. This was stopped because relatives complained that nurses were slacking off drinking tea rather than caring for patients. Another time, a complaint was that staff were gossiping and ignoring patients and eating cake. They were in fact on handover in the staff room.

I think it's actually an insult to the old style ENs and diploma nurses to say that the current degree route would have excluded them, as if they were thick but nice. They were for the most part just as bright except they didn't have as much academic recognition for it.

Lots of diploma nurses would have been well able for the degree if that had been the normal route at the time when they trained

Degree nurses aren't some other species who are book-smart but cold and uncaring.

The "academic OR caring" mutually exclusive thing is a real bug-bear of mine!

"bring back matron!"

I'ld love to put those journalists on a simulated old nightingale ward with an old style matron.

And see how they liked being bed bathed at 5.30am whether they liked it or not. Being forced fed and told to "be a good boy/girl". Given meds to take without being told what the meds are. Being left in pain because matron declared it "dusting hour" and everyone had to polish stuff while you waited in agony because "it's not medication time dear!". Having no privacy, dignity, and being spoken to like a baby.

The old days were so awesome

This standing chatting at the nurses station complaint, most of the time we are writing notes, handing something over, discussing something, trying to work out the sodding computer system, finding a phone number, looking for notes, the list goes on. Rarely do we stand and chat without doing something else at the same time.

But if you don't "chat" and communicate then people (rightly) get upset that we're not communicating with each other about their/their relative's plans and needs.

You get relatives who come in looking for problems, like the visitors who press call bells just to time you. They don't need anything, they're taking you away from patients who need you, but they read so much about how families have to check up on nurses otherwise nobody will care for their relatives.

One paper did a big spread a while back about patients being deprived water and then for weeks after we had huge problems with relatives force-feeding NBM and thicked fluids patients bottled water.

I think it'ld be interesting if someone studied the trends in complaint themes against newspaper reports

(of course there are lots of genuine complaints too!)