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.

Don't be sorry bun, it's not your fault. Just become a nurse who'll deign to pass a few words with a mere mental every so often and we're grand.

Obviously there are some amazing nurses and some that are not so great. My husband had excellent nurses when he was dying, however my dad with advanced dementia was not so well taken care of when admitted with a uti. Left without water to drink and ended up dehydrated and even more confused.
I'm hoping it was just a one off.

AnnieGetYourPun I know we're meant to kow-tow, let nurses jump supermarket queues, excuse some of them surfing the net, eating biscuits and gossiping while patients 'in their care' are suffering ... but unless people are prepared to speak out, as you and others on this thread have done, the situation will continue and deteriorate even further. A light MUST be shone.

@albertcamus

PopperPet I am so sorry you experienced this. My son survived despite (not because of) the 'care' he received in 'wonderful' GOSH, but I still, 33 years later, have PTSD at what we experienced there, I can remember it all as if it were yesterday. Despite many positive experiences in various hospitals since, I have never got over it or had my faith restored. I believe that the trauma caused to relatives in these situations should be taken much more seriously, and the policy of denial should be stopped immediately. to you and your family

This reminded me of my son's stay, not GOSH but another well respected children's hospital. I got friendly with another mum and she said would I keep an eye on her little one as she had to go home and see her other child. So little one is upset and I get her out of the cot and comfort her, no one interested that I could be a nutter, my son wakes and then I put her in her cot to sort him out. Two student nurses standing talking (flirting) with a doctor. Little girl is hysterical and I'm getting worried she is going to damage herself as only a day after surgery. I approach the group and ask if they can look after little one, I'm asked what's wrong, and I say she is upset as her mum isn't here, she just needs some comfort. Students look at each other and then at me and say, in unison, "We are second years, we haven't done emotional development yet." I said, "pick her up and talk to her." These two were training for paediatric nursing. Oh yes it was all very caring before degrees. This was 1978. They were clueless and not caring at all.

Nursing wasn't more caring before the degree, there were good and bad just like now.

I don't agree that people in the NHS don't care. My youngest had surgery in 2000, growth removed and surgeon was all gowned up and waiting for me to come out as I was with her till she was asleep. He said, "Don't worry, I know it is scary but we will look after her." The next day he said all went well and they'd let us know the results. I was very nervous when we received an appointment. Went in and surgeon, his junior doctor and theatre sister had a chat with DD and wished well. I asked if everything was OK, surgeon said, "Oh yes it's fine we just wanted to see her to check she was OK and say good bye." They were lovely, very caring, even the student nurse on the ward who remove her iv.

I I did 20 months SRN training back in the late 80s, I left because I realised that whilst i was very good at the caring and medical aspects , I became ham fisted when it came to injections or dressings or IVs etc. Strange job, actually loved certain aspects but I do think the nature of it can make some nurses quite ‘hard’ after a while —-I think the system needs a proper rethink

@albertcamus. That’s so true.

Years ago, my whistle blow (as it were) centred around the death of an elderly lady. There were times, as the process dragged on when I wished I’d just kept my head down. What saddens me deeply is that poor standards of care are not only still happening but are pretty commonplace. And defended.

There’s not much I can do now but this thread shows that much of the problem is a lack of objectivity and denial.

We are all at risk.

As in all jobs there are the excellent, truly professional who will exhaust themselves to do the best for all patients, the average, who are good enough and get the job done with a reasonable amount of care and the truly terrible.
When my 87 year old mother was admitted for an emergency bowel op, the care she received, from scans at 10 o'clock at night, to emergency surgery the next morning and care in icu was the best that could be had anywhere and saved her life. Will be 90 next month and is still active and drives her own little car.
In comparison, when my mil was having a long stay on a geriatric ward the care was very mediocre. She was lucky enough to have visitors everyday, so plenty of people to advocate for her, but we witnessed many times, old people ringing for assistance and being ignored. We would sometimes go looking for help for them, thinking that all the nurses must be busy at the other end of the ward. Often they were all together at the nurses station. Yes we know the paper work has to be done, but when my friends were nursing it was always impressed upon them that the paper work was secondary to patients practical needs and had to be fitted around the patients.

Going back to my original point, we found that when we did go looking for help it was often the same lovely nurses who obliged. Nurses are run off their feet these days and I wouldn't like to be very old with no-one to advocate for me.
I have personally received excellent care from nhs from surgeon, to nursing staff and everybody I saw. A massive thankyou for all that most of you do, especially on a day to day basis during this Covid crisis

@Cinderellashoes

I’m sorry about the care on that ward, but I’m a nurse and I’m more caring than most. I’ve cried lots over patients I was unable to save. You’re so offensive and rude.

That last part really doesn't make you sound caring, compassionate or empathetic in the slightest to be honest.

Many people have posted here about the quite frankly shit care they've experienced in the NHS. My family has gone through it several times as well, as have I. You acknowledged it yourself, that others aren't as caring.

So how exactly is the op offensive and rude? She, like us, are being truthful about how the NHS actually runs. It feels like these days that you're lucky if you get a caring person in one of these hospitals. Least you are in the ones near me. I've been in to visit someone in wards for quite a long time and saw no nurse come in to check on anyone. Sat outside, drinking tea though so not busy.

If anyone is offensive and rude, it's your colleagues that can't do their job. Being NHS doesn't make them angels, they are still shit.

If someone is outside drinking tea they are most likely on their break though. The NHS is in trouble , I agree and poor care is common. It’s not because the nhs front line staff are horrible people though if that was the case we wouldn’t have risks are lives this year for the general public. It is mainly lack of resources/ staff , it really is. You’d have to actually do the job these days to realise this and not just experience this as a relative or patient.

Slightly off topic but as a HCP on an emergency gynae unit I'm intrigued how your niece narrowly avoided a ruptured uterus due to a 12hr delay for a scan in ED? Thats not exactly a common presentation...

I do know what you mean, I think, OP.

These was certainly my experience with my dd on the children’s ward local to us a few years ago. Although I’d put it down to underfunding.

Basically the nurses’ job was to dispense the prescribed medicines and give them to the children when required. This seemed to be the whole of it. Everything else was down to the parents.

There was a very little baby in the bed beside dd on one occasion, and sadly his parents weren’t allowed to be with him as they were suspected of causing his injuries. The nurses had no time to spend with him at all. I had to take care of him at one point!

** You’d have to actually do the job these days to realise this and not just experience this as a relative or patient.

Absolutely

^^ but I’m not blaming the nurses for this. I’d say it was down to there simply not being enough hands on deck, either at doctor or nursing level. The nurses were basically doing a junior doctor’s job, and the parents were the nurses.

My Dd was sick in the bed once - suddenly, she was 1 or 2 - and basically we were told off for it! While I was cleaning up dd in the bathroom someone grudgingly changed the sheets and threw her cuddly toy away with them

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

I do know what you mean, I think, OP.

These was certainly my experience with my dd on the children’s ward local to us a few years ago. Although I’d put it down to underfunding.

Basically the nurses’ job was to dispense the prescribed medicines and give them to the children when required. This seemed to be the whole of it. Everything else was down to the parents.

There was a very little baby in the bed beside dd on one occasion, and sadly his parents weren’t allowed to be with him as they were suspected of causing his injuries. The nurses had no time to spend with him at all. I had to take care of him at one point!

So you was touching some else’s baby? Why didn’t you flag it up to the senior sister on duty? Because you should not be touching a baby that is not yours in hospital!

@FatCatThinCat

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.

Oh my god that's fucking horrendous. My heart goes out to all of you.

Did you complain?

I shall never forget the A&E sister yelling down the ED at me that "I was obstructing my dd's care". Because I didn't want her admitted after a teeny overdose (and hardly the first) when CAMHS on the NHS had already refused their services and dd was well safety netted by a private consultant psychiatrist. It would have been helpful if the hospital had called me 4 hours earlier. It would have been helpful if the consultant paed had told the truth. It would have been helpful if the bed manager hadn't screamed I my face when I tried to see what her name was but instead she pushed her pass in my face and yelled "why don't you write it down and add it to your complaint". I should have!.

Not one member of staff knew a 17 year old could be assessed in A&E by a MH liaison nurse situated on their own premises from 8am until 2am every day. But they had £1000 to pass up the wall on an unnecessary A&E admission and it was most interesting that the bank MH nurse sat on her backside for 4 hours while it was sorted out. You would have thought she could have done some useful things as a fully qualified nurse in an undrresourced NHS really. You know, got her finger out and made some tea for some elderly rellies or made some elderly patients more comfy while on full pay. But nah! Sat on botty.

Epsom Hospital 2016. Shocking and despicable in equal measure.

@Holirem2 that’s seriously what you took away from my post?

So you was touching some else’s baby? Why didn’t you flag it up to the senior sister on duty? Because you should not be touching a baby that is not yours in hospital!

^^
They asked me to! I didn’t have to pick him up, just do one or two little things, but it was a sign of how massively stretched they were that they asked this. Would you have said, no sorry, I’m going to leave that little baby crying?

@Holirem2 are you a nurse? I think you have been rather rude to a previous poster.

Update.

So, niece has been told this evening that the IV antibiotics aren’t working as expected but that the swab sent on Friday morning of her infection was sent to the lab in the wrong container so they need to start over, do another swab and it’ll be 72hrs to wait for a result. Then it’s likely the IV antibiotics will be changed.

Great.

And a uterus full of rupturing abscesses could burst and cause septicaemia. There is, apparently bowel involvement also. Surgery is out of the question until infection under control. @Bluetonic41, if you’re a gynae dr please, feel free to enlighten me. I’ll try to reassure her.

And seriously the three nurses who were involved all had open Facebook accounts. None of which were edifying.

[quote RosesAndHellebores]@Holirem2 are you a nurse? I think you have been rather rude to a previous poster.[/quote]
I’m sorry you didn’t like what I wrote. I was not rude. It’s not the norm for nurses to ask patients to see to babies is it? I would personally report a crying baby if I couldn’t see anybody free to attend to the baby. I would not take it upon myself to see to a random baby in a hospital.. would you?

@Holirem2 Come ON. You’re making a show of yourself.

[quote GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing]@Holirem2 that’s seriously what you took away from my post?

So you was touching some else’s baby? Why didn’t you flag it up to the senior sister on duty? Because you should not be touching a baby that is not yours in hospital!

^^
They asked me to! I didn’t have to pick him up, just do one or two little things, but it was a sign of how massively stretched they were that they asked this. Would you have said, no sorry, I’m going to leave that little baby crying?[/quote]
The way you put “I had to look after the baby at one point”. To be honest I wouldn’t go and attend to a crying baby in a hospital no. It’s not because I’m cruel I just wouldn’t want to intrude I would tell a staff member..

[quote AnnieGetYourPun]@Holirem2 Come ON. You’re making a show of yourself.[/quote]
You have a chip on your shoulder OP.

@holirem2, when dd was in hospital with a badly broken leg, I did look after the girl who came in in the middle of the night after her operation. Because frankly the nurses couldn't be arsed and I wasn't going to ask twice.

Also it's you were touching someone else's baby. But no I couldn't personally hold myself accountable for allowing a young person to sob and not deal with the matter - as a human being!