Nurses watching tv/surfing the internet

[UB40fan]

My daughter was recently in hospital. While there we witnessed nurses watching an hour long tv show and surfing the internet. It was quiet in the hospital at the time. I was stunned by this. The nurses were quite open about this, as in this was obviously allowed. Am i the one behind the times or is this now normal?

there is nothing wrong with wanting to watch a bit of telly or surf the net

But there is - that's the whole point.

People have reported neglect and cruelty on this thread and still it comes down to
"You have no idea what the job entails"
There is never any excuse whatsoever to treat a vulnerable person with disdain.

@Thuglife and if it’s covered in piss, shit or blood ? Point is you won’t know unless you make it will you

Of course vulnerable & sick patients shouldn’t be treated with disdain- I haven’t seen any nurses on this thread defending poor practice but in all honesty no you don’t have any idea of what the job entails unless you’ve done it. Some wards might be quiet enough to allow this wanton magazine flicking & TV watching- I’ve never had the good fortune to work on one.

@inliverpool
Don’t be silly of course dirty beds are changed but if a bed is clean but unmade it’s not my priority I’m sorry.

You won’t know if an unmade bed is dirty or not unless you check though will you and whilst I actually don’t expect degree educated professionals to make a bed, I’d expect them to organise it

I wouldn't give a damn about TV watching as long as duties were performed and bells were answered.

1. Poor care must be challenged-even if anonymously
2. Each ward is very different-good management is key
3. There are some truly crap nurses (lazy, institutionalised and burnt out, definitely entrenched)
4. There are some amazing nurses and mediocre ones
5. Most HCAs work bloody hard but they do not do all the work (as a PP has said)-this is very much ward/environment dependent

@inliverpool1
I think we’re going round in circles Beds are checked as you go round . Dirty beds changed, clean beds can wait.
It saddens me that people have had so many negative experiences in hospital- I have a chronic illness and ended up as a patient on my own hospital; one ward was great the other awful.
If people feel they’ve had poor care complain please- good nurses will encourage that.

I retired two years ago, but the nurses in my hospitals were regularly run off their feet for the whole shift, dealing with endless phone calls (and complaints) from patients’ relatives, filling in mountains of bureaucratic checklists, trying to stop demented patients from falling out of bed, administering up to 15 different tablets per patient on drug rounds, admitting emergency cases, doing routine obs, attending ward rounds for up to five different consultants, doing complex dressings on leg ulcers or post op wounds... if any of them found a few minutes to surf the net, I think they earned it.
I asked one ward sister how they coped and she laughed and said “Alcohol!” over her shoulder as she rushed to deal with yet another crisis. I used to offer to install a gin dispenser in her office, and I was only half joking...! In 36 years, I never worked in a hospital like the one OP describes.

You know nhs staff are worked to the bone. If they find time to decompress when it's quiet then I have no issue. You said in your OP that it wasn't busy so why are you surprised they are taking a break? YABU

So general consensus- as usual- is that nurses are lazy, neglectful and a waste of time, wasting everyone else's time and 'your' hard earned tax money. Righto then. Standard operating procedure and nurse bashing maintained. Why don't we juts sack the whole profession (if they can even be called professionals) and start again as obviously they add nothing of any import to patient care.

My elderly aunt has been on a geriatric ward for the last eight weeks. She is fortunate as family visit every day. Yesterday, for the second time ever I saw a nurse actually interacting with the four patients in her bay. When we walked in she updated us on our relative, who is actually slowly dying, had a friendly chat and then moved around her other three patients, talking softly to them and ensuring they were comfortable.

Nurse told us she had worked in Oncology for 20 years and was now doing bank nursing. It was obvious that she was a very competent and caring person and she said she enjoyed her job.

Sadly, our usual experience on this ward has been an absence of nursing staff, indeed any staff and a feeling of abandonment. Staff encountered usually wander around, occasionally checking charts but generally not interacting with patients, most of which seem not to have many visitors. So sad.

DH and DS have both spent a good chunk of the last 15 or so years in and out of hospital, in that time we've seen excellent nurses as well as some less excellent and a (very) few dreadful ones.

That said, as long as patient care comes first, I really can't get too worked up over a nurse browsing their phone, reading a book, doing a crossword etc etc in quieter periods - especially on nightshift.

Yes why not put in a load of complaints and getting the nurses in trouble. I'm sure they love doing endless 12 hour shifts. We seem to live in a society where people just whinge and complain constantly about everything. I can't bear it.

Why is it that when someone has a bad encounter with a rude waitress it’s “they were probably having a bad day, understaffed, they’re paid crap, give them a break”; but when someone has a bad encounter with a nurse it’s “all nurses are heartless/lazy/incompetent”.

Not saying one or the other is right; but I am amazed at how many people are certain that absolutely NO work is being done or that ALL nurses are heartless cows.

The fact that a lot of posters on here seem to think that all nurses are responsible for is chatting to patients, making beds, and feeding people, speaks volumes...

When I had my baby and was on the recovery ward 4 nurses/midwives would sit chatting very loudly all through the night... but I kept getting told they didn't have time to help me breastfeed. It was really strange.

I wouldn't have put in a complaint though... ultimately it's a free service and I don't know the story. Maybe they were chatting doing admin? It's hard to know

People have reported neglect and cruelty on this thread and still it comes down to
"You have no idea what the job entails"
There is never any excuse whatsoever to treat a vulnerable person with disdain.

There is not one single post on this thread from an HCP excusing or justifying disdain, neglect or cruelty towards patients. There are posts from HCP's justifying taking a break on the rare occasions it's quiet enough but apparently even that is beyond the pale
I'm afraid you don't know what the job entails unless you've done it, that's the reality for most professions. I was in hospital for almost two weeks after having my DD but I wouldn't assume that I know what it's like to be a Midwife or a CSW on a postnatal ward simply from being in that environment.

It's not free!!
Why do people roll that out?
We are paying for a service and if a waitress treated me shittily I would complain.
A bad waitress couldn't result in my death or discomfort though

@Dyrne the thing is that waswhat they used to do, now nurses are mini doctors without the salary, but the public’s perception hasn’t changed.

So general consensus- as usual- is that nurses are lazy, neglectful and a waste of time, wasting everyone else's time and 'your' hard earned tax money. Righto then. Standard operating procedure and nurse bashing maintained

This thread has reminded me why I left Nursing. That feeling of having given your all, to the detriment of your family life, your own physical and mental health and it's still never good enough. It's soul destroying.

So were the medications late because they were watching tv op?

You are drip feeding op.

Did the staff do any anything good?

And wtf haven't you worked for over 30 years? Unless of course you're 90 years old.

Quite Minister, when I was a nurse I was often the only nurse in charge of a 13 hr shift, s lot of my time was taken up by paperwork and endless phonecalls, so the actual nursing care was left to health care assistants ,it wasent uncommon not to get a break in 13_hrs, breaks were unpaid and you were supposed to be off the ward but because there was no cover, I couldn't leave the ward if I say down you could guarantee visitors and relatives would make comments about me having nothing to do, as for whoever mentioned Matrons, "Modern Matrons " were introduced about 15,16 years ago ,just another tier of management ime .

It is a truth universally acknowledged that anyone on Mumsnet can nurse or teach much better than the people who actually do it!

Well I'd never roll my eyes at someone crying in fear and pain so I'm already ahead of some shrug