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?

The general public think they own healthcare staff. Another reason why I quit the hell of nursing!

This thread makes a fairly depressing but not unexpected read. The expectations on nurses are phenomenal; our job has changed massively over the last 10years and senior nurses like myself end up taking on many of what would previously have been the role of the F1/House Officer.
In most acute areas we don’t trundle round with the drug trolley acting as doctors hand maidens; electronic prescribing is the norm now but causes huge problems for the nurses dispensing the meds if something is not prescribed etc.
It’s impossible to explain our job - we’re not just there to sooth fevered brows & make tea.
I love nursing and genuinely enjoy people generally but fuck me we get a bashing from the public. Interestingly male nurses don’t seem to attract such venom.

The general public don't really understand the routines of the wards , my mums in hospital at the moment on a rehab unit, my dad was complaining there was no staff around when we visited yesterday at 2pm I explained they were probably in handover, to the public it might look like all the staff are in the office doing nothing but handover of shifts are essential, it might also of been time to do the meds round, or getting ready for a Dr,s review, there are loads of things the nursing staff might have to do which doesn't involve direct patient care .

If medicines were genuinely late or care was missed this isn't on. If bells or rewuests for help were ignored this is both neglectful and you should complain. I'm not convinced this is the case though.

I'm a ward manager and I'd be find it unacceptable if TV was watched whdn there is something to do. If it's a rare occassion that there wasn't anything to do I'd probably turn a blind eye. Nurses and HCAs often do hundreds of hours of unpaid work a year (I certainly do), so rarely get breaks and cope with huge amounts of stress and (sad to say) frequent abuse from patients. Tired, burnt out staff make mistakes and ime when staff are knackered and stressed this is when they can be short with patients. Rudeness isn't on but nurses are human and need breaks, and in lots of settings breaks do not happen.

The 'I need something but nurses are drinking coffee and chatting' is a common perception. Often the only chance nursing staff get to have a drink is when we are doing admin tasks.

Of course all nurses aren't angels, we're fallible people. Most professions will have high performers and people that coast. If someone is rude or you feel that care suffered from this it's worth complaining about, but if your objection is more about professionalism I'd personally let it go. If a TV is in the nursing station I'd wager their seniors already know it gets watched.

APart from watching the Melbourne Cup, a horse race that runs for approximately 3 minutes, I have never watched TV or computer at work.
Only computer stuff is mandatory learning set by the hospital.
I work in a private hospital in Australia.
I want to know where I can work where I have time for a toilet break, let alone a half hour lunch break.

It really annoys me when HCPs come onto these threads and disbelieve patients. I’ve been in multiple hospitals for relatively long stays and there are absolutely some very quiet times in the dead of the night on wards, especially some surgical wards. I would say 99% of the care I’ve received has been excellent and I am not complaining but wards can be very quiet at night, so a nurse would easily have time to watch TV, if they do desired. I was recently on a surgical ward in a big London university hospital (as there were no beds on the ward I needed) and the night was eerily quiet. I know it was quiet because I barely slept and paced the entire ward in the wee hours every single night!

That's nothing. They used to make up a bed on the floor and go to sleep for several hours at night where I worked. I've seen staff on their.phones.feeding and.washing.patients. I've.seen nurses playing solitaire on the desk computer during.all times of shifts then.pretending to.be looking up results or training courses when asked what are they doing. I was shouted at for disturbing a sleeping nurse by using.the.bedpan washer.
I know nurses are.busy but some things I've seen really surprise and disappointment me these days. We always been busy, worked long hours for little pay.

I think you are being very unfair towards a profession that we all know are overworked, undervalued and generally very stressed. I would allow them their time watching TV as long as all patients needs are met and everyone is happy. Imagine if someone reported you for enjoying your brew a bit too long or flicking through mumsnet in a quiet moment.

Nurse here (paediatric too) and I agree it doesn’t look great to be sat on your phone in the middle of the ward at all, lest of all if patients require help/meds are due.

I work on a general ward and we’ve been fairly busy recently but nothing to the winter where we don’t stop for 13 hours and are lucky to get our breaks to sit/eat/pee as it’s so busy so summer can provide us with a little time to sit at the nurses station if nothing needs done, our manager likes us to clean so most likely won’t happen anyway when things calm down. But phOnes should be on silent and not used in front of patients/parents.

We do get complaints re late meds but as in 10/15 mins as drug round starts at 8am so we can’t give all meds at 8am. Drugs require 2 nurses to check and some patients have many complex meds at a time to administer so more complex than putting in a pot and handing out, same with iv antibiotics which take 2 nurses of the floor to check dose/weight etc then make up and administer so if only 3 iv trained nurses on that day it takes a bit of time to do all but we do do our very Best But rushing or being distracted can cause errors which we do not want.

Are you sure it's TV? Or Computer?

Most Mandatory Trainings have been made e-learnings.

I dont think it's acceptable. I was given the wrong anaesthetic when I was in hospital due to many small mistakes which meant that nobody picked up on it. Last chance to do so was the anaesethist who took my history while chatting on the phone to someone else and missed off vital information that could have been very serious. As it was it took months to sort out and do a risk assessment. There is no excuse for phones at work but they have become normalised. Even our lifeguards at the pool are always on them.

Oh, I do remember watching TV with the patients. It was during the London Olympics when Mo Farah crossed the finished line. All the people in the patient lounge were very happy.

Best times indeed.

Thuglife I absolutely agree that male nurses, doctors of either sex, physios etc don't attract the same level of vitriol.

When I was in labour with my second, I asked for pain relief (didn't use any with my first but it was so much worse!). She told me that giving diamorphine at that stage would slow the labour down, but it was already dragging on and I felt like I couldn't take it anymore. She went away... And an hour later hadn't come back (another midwife had been checking on me every so often but wouldn't answer me about pain relief). My mum went out to find my actual midwife and she was sitting watching a reality show. She was very angry when asked what she was doing and where was my pain relief.

And regarding late medication when I worked in Dementia care, I was the only nurse doing medication for upwards of 25 patients (often the only nurse on duty) so the morning medication round could take all morning, most patients were on several different medications, if some were controlled,I would have to ask a nurse from another ward to check the medication with me which could take time, not to mention the constant interruptions from the phone, Dr,Physios ,OT,s etc wanting a handover, eventually the made the medication round protected so that whoever was doing medication couldn't be interrupted be some people ie other professionals, didn't like that you couldn't win!

OP complain to the charge nurse, they shouldn't be watching tv/be on their phone in front of patients. They can do it somewhere more discreet. It's unprofessional and it makes all healthcare staff look lazy.

I've worked as an HCA for 5 years and bank for another 2 years on top. Some nurses on this thread are saying they regularly have 13 hours shifts without having enough time to go for a pee. In my experience the no breaks happened sometimes (typically in winter), but i've never had 13 hours without a bathroom break. Honestly if this is going on regularly, patients are being put at risk if your ward is always that manic and there's not enough staff to cover 1 person going to the bathroom, you need to take it higher up.

I massively agree with this
"Holding neglectful and abusive nurses to account instead of closing ranks is precisely how you can prevent "all" nurses being blamed for the conduct of the terrible ones.

Abuse flourishes in a culture that silences complaints about poor practice."

With all due respect byteme, health care assistants ime did tend to get their breaks as there were more of them than registered nurses. I was a RMN so I can't speak for general wards but it wasent uncommon on mental health wards (both elderly and acute) to have just one trained nurse per shift .

Well if you don’t get time to pee, I’m not sure how that matters three weeks later watching TV .... I mean either make the time at the time or the moment is lost. You can’t bank time in any profession

Complain op. The computers available in clinical areas should have blocks on them so the only sites accessible are essential work related ones. Managers should enforce a no phones rule in clinical areas too.

I've known anesthetists have patients under a GA and be distracted booking their holidays. There needs to be zero tolerance to surfing the internet whilst at work.

The old 'nurses work hard' defense is of course true, that however does not mean they can sit on their arses on the internet. They should go and talk to the patients fgs.

YABU, if they have done all they need to do and are not neglecting any patients I don't see what the problem is tbh. What if that nurse was on his/her break and decided to have it on the ward. Unless of course they were ignoring patients while surfing.

OP, what is the point of this post? Are you hoping to create a divide between us and the incredibly stretched nurses and doctors in the NHS?

If it bothered you, go to PALS- I have worked in the NHS and the nurses and doctors work incredibly hard and I would feel happy that they were getting some respite actually!