To think this nurse didn’t do anything wrong?

[WeirdHandDryers]

Situation - nurse working night shift on hospital ward.
One elderly patient with dementia thinks she’s also a nurse and spends all night trying to see to the other patients. If staff try to get her into bed she becomes distressed. All night she’s wandering around the ward. All the staff at wits end with her.
So this one nurse gets a bag of dressings and tells the lady that she’s hurt herself. She then sits there writing her care plans with this elderly lady in the office whilst the lady ‘bandages’ various parts of her body (including her head!). The woman was occupied for hours and for the first time, all staff had a decent night, no chasing her around, no distressed old lady, no angry patients getting poked and prodded ...
did she do anything wrong? Someone has let it ‘leak’ to manager and she’s been told off. I thought it was a decent solution!? (No it wasn’t me).

I also work with people with dementia and this sounds like the perfect solution. She should be applauded for what she did not criticised!

My mum has Alzheimer’s and if a nurse had carried on like that for my mum I’d be over the moon.
Who the hell told her off for that?! Arse hole!

She sounds wonderful, this is how I would like a member of my family to be treated.

I think this is truly lovely and that this nurse is clearly the type of person who is destined for that line of work. I hope she is applauded.

This has made me a bit emotional actually - I can only hope somebody would do this for my lovely grandad who suffers from this awful disease ❤️

If info is that confidential then it should be out of view and in a locked cupboard. Relatives and visitors are often taken into nurses offices. I assume the notes trolleys are always locked, notes are never left out and no patient information is displayed anywhere including names. Who reported it. Petty. What did they suggest the nurse should have done.

She sounds like a wonderful nurse (and person)

Sometimes I really do wonder where 'common sense' has gone!!
Sounds like it was a great solution for all that did no harm

I know nothing about nursing or dementia care but it sounds ideal to me.

If there are inflexible rules about confidential documents (which I can understand; the rules probably weren’t written with this kind of situation in mind) then whoever is tasked with enforcing these rules needs to work with the staff to find another appropriate location/situation for this kind of double-duty nursing (which is what it is - excellent multitasking IMO!)

NOT by disciplining the nurse in a ‘can’t do right for doing wrong’ situation

How ridiculous and what a splendid nurse. Can you get people to contact the hospital to support her, I would hate to think that she’d get into trouble or not be able to be so create in her nursing.

Creative!

Validating someone's reality is a well known strategy for managing behaviours in people with dementia. In this case the nurse validated the patients reality and managed her disruptive behaviour without the use of antipsychotics which are so often given when a strategy like this could be used instead.

No wonder good people are leaving caring professions in their droves. She should be held up as an example of excellent care, not only for the patient with dementia but the others on the ward too. For the nurse to have been spoken to about "confidentiality" shows a severe lack of understanding of dementia from the reporter & the manager.

I am a nurse, and a manager, with around 15 years experience in care of older adults, mental health and dementia so feel relatively qualified to say the nurse deserves a pat on the back for thinking outside the box and finding something to make this patient feel valued as a person with unique skills!

If it is due to the confidential info thats a shame as it wouldn't mean much to a patient with dementia.

I thought maybe it would be a moan about wasting resources using the bandages as they couldn't be reused.

I know opinions about managing patients with dementia change but I personally think doing these past tasks should be encouraged and it sounded an ideal way for the patient to be occupied. I'm not a nurse but I would do similar. When patients come to me with their dolls or teddies that they treat like their baby I do the same as them and treat it like a baby too. I don't understand how it would be considered wrong to do this, I shall read a bit more about collusion as a pp mentioned but I don't think the nurse did anything wrong and I hope the student had a valuable lesson too

Sounds like excellent nursing care to me.

Sounds like a nurse who takes her s20 Equality Act 2010 obligations seriously.

What reasonable adjustments had the hospital made to protect this patient from becoming distressed until the nurse took the initiative? If the answer is, predictably, none at all, then she protected the hospital from being taken to court for unlawful discrimination. She also protected her patient from harm, as the law obliges.

If the hospital would have - because of their failures to make reasonable adjustments - let the patient's distress build to levels where they were considering or using restraint to contain her then they would also have breached the Human Rights Act 1998 - the patient's distress would have been the direct result of their failure to comply with their legal duty to make reasonable adjustments, which is disability discrimination, and they would have restricted her liberty and subjected her to degrading treatment. Articles 3, 5 and 14 breaches.

So, really, this nurse did the hospital a massive favour and protected it from being sued for its negligence and discriminatory practices. Perhaps they should reflect upon that instead.

Dementia strips its sufferers of dignity and this nurse gave the patient some back for a few hours.

What was the supposed problem? Even if you don't care about the poor lady with dementia or the peace and quiet of other patients it sounds like an efficient use of resources. It would have taken more than one nurse to keep the lady away from the other patients and would have caused more disruption.

I think I've got something in my eye...

This sounds like an example of excellent care and ridiculous management. Confidentiality in the office? I thought they were going to say it was a waste of resources!

We had a patient once who was restless and muddled, she was roped into helping the housekeepers cleaning up after the meals and serving tea, she was really happy then!

it's heartbreaking to think that anyone could think this nurse did anything wrong - she found a creative solution which made the elderly lady feel happy and useful, and most importantly - for the benefit of other patients and staff - calm. Wish someone could have done something like this for my DM who died on Nov 1, very distressed.

this is an excellent idea from the nurse. Dementia is awful and anything that helps a patient is good nursing in my book.

on a short staffed ward though (because they are always short staffed) maybe some colleagues were a bit pissed off at her sat down all night getting her admin done while they were left with everything else?

It is a genius idea, but does staffing allow to have that member of staff taken out of action all shift? Does this lady on her own require 1:1 regardless?

Even better might be to rota in admin breaks so everyone gets an hour sit down and catch up on paperwork while playing patient :).

Oh, and I also think she sounds like a wonderful nurse delivering excellent care. If you're her colleague feel free to tell her that from the random internet person that I am.

The nurse has not done anything wrong. That is person centred care is about- caring about the feelings of someone who is suffering from dementia. Every person want to do meaningful activities. Feelings matters most than logic.

These are just a few examples of meaningful activities that can be done in dementia care setting.

-helping me fold towels and pillows

• cutting bananas

-spreadinh butter and jam in sandwiches

• giving them them a piece of pen and paper to write on
• giving a doll to "look after". One lady with dementia got tearful as she remembered her own children as babies.

The one who reported it to the ward manager is a shit stirrer and if the ward manager does not see through this is also a shit ward manager.