AIBU to wonder WTF has happened to nursing “care” in our NHS?

[AnnieGetYourPun]

And don’t tell me it’s all Covid/staff shortages/staff illness related.

My niece was eventually admitted to hospital after being sent home twice from A&E (in agony) and is now on a gynae ward. It’s just her and an elderly lady on the ward. The elderly lady was getting agitated as she needed the toilet. The nurse came and said, and I quote “it’s alright, use your pad and we’ll come and sort you out later”. This has really upset my niece who’s dodging sepsis now, on the ward, on massive IV antibiotics/anti-emetics and IV analgesia. She has narrowly avoided a ruptured uterus as there was no one to do a scan on her, after a 12 hr wait in A&E. She is 32.

Nurses now... all of ‘em have degrees. All dead clever. Very few of them have an ounce of “caring” in them.

Fry me on here. I’m past fucking caring.

Should add. I trained in the NHS. Was a student/junior staff nurse/senior staff nurse/junior sister and G grade senior sister before retirement. Never, in my f***g life have I seen such lack of basic care and maintenance of human dignity than I have witnessed in NHS hospitals, in the past two years.

Shove your clapping and rainbows.

I’m not that nurse so can’t comment on them. But I’ve been caring my socks of for the past 7 hours, Thankyou very much.

Degrees don’t make nurses less caring. No one says degree educated OT’s, SALT’s or PT’s are less caring, only ever nurses. Degree educated nurses reduce overall death rates on wards.

I’m sorry your niece and the other patient received poor care.

YANBU it's been going down hill for years. My dad died 8 years ago and the care he received was extremely poor. We had to make sure he was fed, watered and cleaned. If he'd had no family support he'd have been in a bad way. In the end they woke him up at 3.00 am as they needed the bed so needed to send him home. Stuck a frail old man with Parkinson's and dementia in a taxi and washed their hands of him. First my mum knew about it was the local postie knocking on her door and waking her up having found my dad wandering aimlessly on the estate.

I’ve sat next to a lady holding her hand so she will not die alone this morning.
Plus given IV antibiotics on time, emptied 2 wound drainage bags , cleaned & redressed a weeping wound, taken blood gasses, replaced potassium, put up new infusions, rolled 6 patients and bed bathed 2 today including a wet shave because the patient asked me to shave him, anything to make him feel better.
Don’t tell me we are not caring. We are.

Nurses now... all of ‘em have degrees. All dead clever. Very few of them have an ounce of “caring” in them.

How offensive can one person be ?
I'm not a nurse.
I'm not related to any nurses but that has made me incredibly angry.

I've heard nothing but praise for the way EVERY SINGLE NURSE has gone above and beyond to care for people over this last year, when people have been in hospital, afraid and alone without being able to have visitors.
Unfortunately I've known quite a few people who have had to be in hospital (different hospitals, not just our massive hospital local to me) and the one thing EVERYONE agrees with is what marvellous individual care and support they have had.

I don't know what has gone wrong in this one example, but there is NO WAY you can extrapolate from that that nurses don't care. I don't think you could be more offensive.

I’ve also been horrified by some of the nursing care I’ve both received and witnessed ( also a former nurse myself) but to be fair I’ve also seen some excellent care.

I think a lot of the basic care is now provided by HCAs and trained nurses don’t consider toileting to be their job.

I’ve worked 50 hours this week in my usual nursing job, and do an extra shift on my day off in another dept because staffing numbers are so poor, that’s because I care about patient care.

YABU . I trained in the 80s before it was all degree and witnessed shocking care as both a student, a staff nurse and a nurse specialist. I now support student nurses on placements (degree nurses) and some of them are the most compassionate, caring people you could meet. They tell me about poor care they witness in nurses and HCSWs. There is good and bad everywhere. Your niece witnessed poor care. Nothing to do with having degrees or not. I would also add that there is a link between intelligence and empathy so what you are saying is tosh frankly.

I agree with you OP its disgusting

I hope what you’ve seen is an isolated incident.

My dad died in hospital 5 years ago and I’ll never ever forget the amazing nurse who stayed on way past her shift end to hold his hand and let him think his mum was there with him, and then to comfort and reassure us when we arrived.

I had my dd 4 years ago and everything that could go wrong did. The care we both received was exemplary and I’ll be forever grateful to ever single nurse doctor and midwife.

There’s good and bad, I received excellent care on the ward I was on, a friend on another ward was treated horrendously. I don’t think it’s fair to tarnish them all.

I was in hospital for a week recently (on a gynae ward as it happens) and would say it wasn’t that the nurses didn’t care, it was that they couldn’t care. Or at least they couldn’t care to the standard they wanted to. They were constantly rushed off their feet/understaffed and trying to juggle the varying need of the six patients in my room alone. Yes, there were times when I had to buzz more than once for help to go to the toilet or to refill my water jug but I never felt anything other than warmth and care from them.

I’m not excusing poor care at all. However I started with NHS 9 years ago and things have changed dramatically the need for beds and the pressure coming from site matrons is immense they don’t care how bed capacity is created. Just as long as beds are made available.

Many people seem to think that the NHS is 'free' therefore we have no right to complain when it is shit.

I completely agree with you OP, I recieved shocking care several years ago when I had DC1, I wouldn't treat my worst enemy the way a some HCP treated me. The nurses and HCP who are good really are worth thier weight in gold, but sadly they seem to be in the minority.

Yup. I lost faith last year after the 'treatment' my mother (ex nurse) received.

YANBU at all, in your situation I agree with you 100%, but I would like to say that the situation has been getting bad for decades. The worst moment of my life was in November 1989 when a bunch of 'caring sharing' nurses in 'wonderful Great Ormond Street' children's cancer ward summoned me from the rat-infested basement to which my husband and I had been sent saying: "Your child needs you NOW" (he was on heavy chemo and had an extremely low white blood count, and was fighting an infection) ... as I ran up the stairs and along the corridor, I didn't think he would be alive. He was actually OK, he had been awoken by the noisy racket of the nurses watching a war film on the TV. Yes, at 3am in GOSH Oncology Ward. This was one of many shocking experiences we had in that place which was characterised by shockingly low standards of care, particularly nursing. I don't believe ALL nurses don't care about their patients and behave badly, but IME far too many do not meet the standards they should.

Like many things there is great variation- some nurses are very good, and quite a few are lazy and dismissive.

There's a lot of hiding at a desk, fiddling with a computer screen, while patients lie neglected.

Poor communication, with the patient and relatives, and other medical staff is also the norm.

They are not angels, just people doing a job- some much better than others.

I saw some pretty shocking nursing care 30 years ago when I started my training so I dont think it's the degree course that is to blame, some nurses are just shit and dont deserve any respect, in those days many poor performing nurses were moved sideways into other areas or management.
Did you hear the nurse speak to the patient that way, you can always flag it up with the ward manager.

@Daphnise

Like many things there is great variation- some nurses are very good, and quite a few are lazy and dismissive.

There's a lot of hiding at a desk, fiddling with a computer screen, while patients lie neglected.

Poor communication, with the patient and relatives, and other medical staff is also the norm.

They are not angels, just people doing a job- some much better than others.

I distinctly remember the computer desk lurking when my mother was in hospital. We used to call the nurses the biscuit eaters. And my god the evils they'd give you if you asked them to like you know do something Then mum came home with hospital acquired c diff infection. That was horrific

It's like any job, there will be good ones and bad ones, rude ones, lovely ones, downright incompetent ones. Management culture will have an impact too, if you've got bad managers in place it will create a toxic culture - that's no different to any workplace, public or private sector.

I am sorry your niece and the elderly lady are having such a tough time. That’s not been my experience. I spent a long time in hosptal a couple of years ago, and I found the staff very caring, very hardworking and friendly. From the most senior to the most junior.
They were always understaffed and either pulling extra shifts or relying on bank staff some of whom were unfamiliar with the ward. But they gave me excellent care.

And her bed with dried blood on rails from last occupant or maybe one before who knows....

I think there’s something fundamentally wrong with how hospitals are run.

I’ve spent some time on a variety of respiratory wards (several years pre covid).

My time in hospital has left me with no confidence with the ability nurses have to observe patients. Nobody comes when monitoring machines beep, I’ve had to rely on other patients rushing to alert staff that I had very suddenly stopped being able to breathe (the reason why I was in hospital) I’ve also been placed on a bed bay that didn’t have an oxygen feed so when I did have difficulty breathing they had to swap my bed into a different empty bay before I could have oxygen.

I don’t think the above is nurses being uncaring but having too many patients. The layout of wards doesn’t help. I’m a firm believer that there should be someone stationed in view of every row of beds at all times.

I have also seen a student nurse laugh at a very elderly lady who was choking on her own lung fluid. The lady was too frail to stay sat up and the nurse just laughed as she struggled. It was horrific. But also isolated, the vast majority of NHS staff I imagine would be appalled at such behaviour.

To be honest how people in these roles maintain their compassion is a bit of a mystery to me rather than the other way around. It must be exhausting to work under constant pressure and traumatic to witness what is thrown at them. I wish they were better recognised for what they do and their well being looked after more so they can carry on performing their roles well. Really not a nice post op generalising from one incident.

Nurses now... all of ‘em have degrees. All dead clever. Very few of them have an ounce of “caring” in them

My 23 year old is just about to get ready for her two 13 hour nightshifts on ITU, she'll be delighted to know how little you think of her profession. There's good and bad in every profession. I'm not sure what you do but I'm sure not everyone is fabulously amazing at their job in your field. To tar 'most' nurses because of one ward in one hospital is ridiculous.

And it's goady, but you knew that when you wrote it