Nurses and colds

[HelloHelloHelloHelloHelloHello]

So my elderly mum is really poorly with a bad heart and lungs. The nurse who came to take her blood tonight had a bad cold - she was trying to hide it, but it was quite obvious.

Part of me wanted to shout - "do you realise if my mum catches that, it could kill her?" And part of me felt really angry

But another part of me knows that taking time off for every cold is not realistic. I have two kids and therefore catch a cold every few weeks - I know people can't take a week off every few weeks, the management would go crazy.

So what's the answer? Acknowledge that medical staff come to work ill sometimes, and try and give them protective clothing - make them wear masks for example? But that would surely make the patients really anxious?

What do you think is the solution?

Sadly there isnt a solution. Im sorry to hear about your dm. As you said people cant take time off for common things like colds. In november i was rushed to hospital and waited 6 hours to go onto a high risk ward because according to the dr who told my paramedic 38 members of staff had called in sick that day! 38! In that hospital. Corridors were choka full of desperatly ill people who needed care. In dms case could you insist on precautions like they must wash their hands and put on gloves before entering her cubicle or ward? Maybe putting on a mask as she approaches the bed and explains why?

The NHS actually tells staff to come to work with a cold, we are subject to many reminders on the intranet that the common cold is no reason not to be at work. Plus if you have three episodes of illness in a 12 month period you can be subject to consequences so few people go off unless it's unavoidable. This is in addition to knowing you will leave people short.

As above, we're heavily penalised for taking short periods of sickness due to the formula they use so just have 3 odd days off in a 12 month period would lead me to being banned from training courses (I kid you not!) and promotion.

So basically everyone comes to work with chest infections, vomiting bugs etc and just tries to get on with it. Last week my colleague had observations that flagged sepsis markers and if he were a patient there would have be no chance of referring to a GP, as it was he was driving! There's a running joke on ambulance service that the staff are normally sicker then the patients we attend! Then if you are really unwell or so stressed that you can't bare it anymore you can't just take a day or 2, you need to take 2 weeks to make it worthwhile as you're punished the same. Management and their clever plans always destroy work ethic and staff moral.

Interesting....I'm a nurse who looks after people with long term conditions (mainly COPD). I'm currently laid in bed with some sort of chest / cold / sore throat thing. Had to ring in sick yesterday and probably will for Monday / Tuesday. Problem is you feel under pressure to go in as your work falls to others.

Sorry to answer the question a better sickness policy would help staff take time away when infectious. But otherwise just have to hope they're good with hand hygiene and using tissues! (again not so easy in my place of work (ambulance service) as we wear jackets and it's not practical to goto a sink and wash hands in patients house before beginning treatment!

The difficulty is there aren’t enough staff to pick up the slack if people are off sick all the time. I’m a GP, if I take a day off sick then all 38 patients with prebooked appointments will be cancelled (never mind the extra emergency load that day). How would you feel after waiting 2-3 weeks for an appointment, for it to be cancelled, and we won’t be able to squeeze them in anytime soon as all the appointments are already booked. I only take days off in dire emergencies.

I used work in the NHS, I got sick a lot. On occasion I had flu and they still expected me to come in. Another occasion I got punched in the navel by a detoxing patient when I had just had a laparoscopy just a week before, they were horrified when I demanded to go home.

Yeah I used to work with doctors in a&e. The number who had to come in with D&V in the winter months was terrifying.

Unfortunately as an immunocompromised patient myself, I can totally understand where you are coming from. Most nurses who work in a ward setting on a hospital will have other nurses who can deal with taking bloods etc, but community based nurses are often on their own, literally. It's not an ideal situation for either the patient or the nurse, but I would imagine the benefits of getting the blood work results outweigh the risks of your mum catching the cold.

I get where you are coming from. I work as a nurse on work with mainly elderly frail patients. But we are under heavy pressure not to call in sick and sickness absences can get very scrutinised, so the majority of staff will come in with a cold and just deal with it as best we can. Realistically as well it's impossible to protect patients from standard cold bugs. If staff don't bring them in then the visitors do.

@Herbalteahippie it's awful that you were physically assaulted at work! I cannot understand the mentality of people who abuse front line professionals, either verbally or physically! But for the staff to be horrified that you wanted to go home, it really does show how broken the system is! Yes, the patient who was detoxing needed care and attention, but so do the staff... You should have the right to go to work and not be assaulted, and if you are, then your care should be put ahead of staffing needs...

As others have said it's frowned upon for not coming in because of a cold because the NHS is so short staffed. Also when I worked it was 3 strikes then you got put on report. One of my colleagues was always ill but she just used to work through it. The 72 hour rule for D and V I was told I had to come in after 24 hours.
I didn't agree with it as a nurse, putting patients at risk, but the NHS doesn't like staff having time off sick.

Regardless if the company policy is to come in to work with a cold, common sense should come in to play here. This elderly ladies life could be at risk and they should have managed this a lot better.

I’d be annoyed too

Lots of people can't afford to be off sick either. In lots of companies, the first three days are unpaid and lots of people can't afford to lose that much money.

Plus SSP is a pittance too.

Three separate occasions of sickness in my last job would get you a first stage warning and then no being off sick for a year. One incidence then in the year would have you on a second stage where you have to do another year with no sickness
Stage 4 and you're losing your job

I bet those up in arms saying they’d be annoyed about being exposed to a bug would also be the first to be furious if their hospital appointment or care was cancelled....

Can’t have it both ways, there isn’t the extra staff!

It’s a tricky one. I remember my friend being upset when a nurse with a heavy cold was caring for her extremely premature DD in NICU. But what choice did the nurse have?

So if the nurse is sick, who looks after their patients? Do people honestly believe there is just a cupboard of spare nurses ready to be deployed to wherever a cold virus has touched? The more specialised the clinical area the harder it is to get suitable cover.
Can you imagine the number of (arguably justifiable) complaints from patients who had had procedures or admissions cancelled, visits not made or medications missed because nurses or others professionals were ill with a cold

Nurses on my ward with colds will have their workload adjusted so they avoid babies or immunosuppressed patients.

Unfortunately @GrandmaSharksDentures the nurses who are "spare" for lack of another word, often work (sometimes on the ward where they usually worked prior to "retirement") as "Bank" nurses, whereby the already grossly underfunded NHS, pay these "agency" nurses up to 4 times as much as their full-time colleagues. It's a completely separate argument, but I don't think it's appropriate use of NHS funds to be honest.

Having a list of nurses who would be happy to be placed within "x" miles of a postal code could perhaps help with cover for community nurses if they are sick, however even this wouldn't be an ideal solution, as it could lead to even more pressure being put on those in the community to treat and travel within unreasonable time periods.

There unfortunately isn't an ideal solution...

@bobbypinseverywhere you sound like a lovely GP. Thank you for caring for people but you are important too don’t get burnt out!

It’s a tough one, knowing people who work in a care home they do get in trouble if they are off sick too much, even if it’s following policy for example a d and v bug so I’d imagine many don’t have a choice but to go in

Well unfortunately, due to the shortage of nurses, the options are that your mum has a nurse with a cold or no nurse at all, which would you prefer?

NHS sickness policy is too strict to take time off work for a cold. If I rang in sick for a cold I’d get destroyed by my manager.

God. A day off for a cold. I was able to take two days off sick for my miscarriage before being fucked over by sickness policy.
The NHS doesn’t care about its fucking staff. We are just numbers, arse wipers, drip putter uppers, bed pan washers.
It’s fucking abhorrent that we come into work suck. But it’s that it we lose our jobs.

Typos.