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 never said I was a doctor, there are many professions working on a ward other than medics. It is an unusual presentation regardless, Its rare that a scan would be performed in ED anyway, usually gynae that would do that so an understandable wait unfortunately. Your nurse bashing is unpleasant however, as others have said, thank goodness you are retired!

All the great nurses defending, I'd ask whether, if you have been in the job a long time, you can honestly say you haven't seen some dreadful examples, regardless of your own or the majority's efforts. For the person on the receiving end of the worst, and their family, it unfortunately (and it genuinely is a shame but just reality) means nothing at all to people suffering as a result.

Honestly, when it's life and death and you've had some genuinely awful treatment, how do you actually expect people to react?

To note, I've experienced both ends of the spectrum, that's for sure. I don't put everyone in the same basket, but I would have at the time of suffering.

Yes...it must be the degree that makes them less caring, it couldn't possibly be anything else. I've never even heard of poor care being given by unqualified care staff...

@crabbyboot You are in denial, I suspect. Have you read this thread? 🙄

@Doublevodka

I'm an NHS nurse. With a degree. I've been a nurse for 27 years. I work with some wonderful, hardworking and extremely caring nurses. I also work with some lazy, uncaring nurses who don't seem to like people at all. I imagine this is the case in most jobs.

Yes I’d agree with you.

I work on the wards (not a nurse) and some are brilliant, helpful, hardworking and caring.

Others are the opposite and begrudge doing anything to help us and the patients. They also complain if patients ring their buzzers too often. These give the others a bad name.

Bluetonic41 as far as I am concerned, people like yourself are a significant part of the problem in the NHS generally today; you have had limited medical training for a hands-on support role presumably delivering basic personal care in order to free up those above you in terms of qualifications, skills and knowledge to use these. Yet you appear to think it is your place to pass opinion to AnnieGetYourPun on the specifics of a patient's treatment as if you are fully cognizant of, in this case, gynaecology and nursing. That is not just arrogant and inappropriate, it is downright dangerous. You need to get back into your lane.

Some nurses are fantastic
Some are appalling

Your poor niece. I hope she gets better soon.

but he died slowly & wretchedly and all the nurses wanted to do was get us to agree to more morphine to smother his breathing & hasten him on
I know this is about your dad dying, and I'm so sorry for your loss, my dad also died of lung cancer, but there's no way I would have refused morphine if he was dying slowly and wretchedly. Why did you not want him to have adequate pain relief, even if it had shortened his life by a few hours?

@albertcamus

Bluetonic41 as far as I am concerned, people like yourself are a significant part of the problem in the NHS generally today; you have had limited medical training for a hands-on support role presumably delivering basic personal care in order to free up those above you in terms of qualifications, skills and knowledge to use these. Yet you appear to think it is your place to pass opinion to AnnieGetYourPun on the specifics of a patient's treatment as if you are fully cognizant of, in this case, gynaecology and nursing. That is not just arrogant and inappropriate, it is downright dangerous. You need to get back into your lane.

Bluetonic said she's a hcp but not a doctor that in no way makes her 'limited in medical training' or ' downright dangerous' she may well be an advanced nurse practitioner or specialist gynae physio for all you know.

Sometimes people present with rare diagnoses or atypical presentations of common diagnoses. Medical staff are only human and stretched as well. Meaning these uncommon cases do get missed, delayed or incorrect diagnosis.

However, there is a really easy way to avoid medical errors and substandard care....Don't access health care, see where that gets you across a lifetime!

Nurses have saved my Mum's and my Dad's lives over the last couple of years. They are truly angels.

Oh my goodness. As a previous poster said, clap and applaud all those health care workers when you’re scared, as soon as the threat is lessening pound them into the ground.
There will always be poor examples of care, but as I said previously @AnnieGetYourPun there are ways and means of raising a complaint or reporting an example of bad care. If you’ve not had the result you would like, as a previous ward manager you should know how to escalate that. Mumsnet really is not that forum. If you don’t know how to and need help with that please pm me. Have you heard the phrase negativity is contagious? I’m not sure what you’re aiming to achieve from this thread.

I hate to agree with you but I do. I worked in the NHS and have also been cared for there and although there are still some wonderful nurses I think the lack of dignity and care is horrendous. And it is NOT due to understaffing.

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

It’s to see you pop up on a NHS thread without banging on about being “Mrs RosesAndHellebores”, but massive WTF at this. Having another completely normal one, are you? 😂

Annie and Albert, thank you. Sorry that was such a rant. I don’t talk about this with anyone outside my immediate family, even then not much as it isn’t something my mum wants to be reminded of. Your post struck such a raw nerve, Annie. I really hope your niece gets treated, soon, and gets out & home safe and well. And I hope this thread isn’t stressing you more.

@MonkeyNotOrgangrinder - of course he was getting morphine, what the fuck kind of people do you think my family are? The point was, lungs apart, he was in great physical health generally - his lungs were failing but his heart was strong, his other organs were strong. The ward sister or doctor - I honestly don’t know who was in charge - wanted to push up the morphine because she said it would slow his respiration and suffocate him. He wasn’t conscious at this point and we were told he wasn’t in pain. They just wanted to get it over, and they wanted us to make that decision - to tell them to go ahead, up the dose, snuff him out. And here’s the great thing: we did. We agreed to what they were pressing us for, so in the end he took only a couple of hours. Wouldn’t have made any difference in the end if he’d survived longer and passed away in his own time, but it turns out knowing you hastened your dad’s death so everything could be tidied away before the evening shift is a decision that is kind of hard to bear.

So fuck your presumption and fuck you to hell and back.

Yes thank you @YouAlreadyKnow. Merely speaking the truth and I am sorry if you have an issue with that.

I think it’s ward, and sometimes hospital culture maybe - combined with burnout, compassion fatigue and a few people being awful at what they do. I do not think it is degrees at all!

I have seen some terrible nursing in my work as a student nurse/HCA but also - mainly - excellent nursing.

No one should be told to “just do it in the pad” that is appalling. The hospital I work at now would not tolerate that at all unless it’s a genuine emergency - trying to imagine a situation! Sometimes catheterised patients need reminding that they are catheterised though.

Of course nurses aren’t angels - I hated the clap thing and lionising - there can be some shit care - and and I think it is a point of huge focus of ongoing training and trying to encourage staff to raise concerns.

Some of these stories on this thread are so grim and so shameful. I don’t know what the answer is to stop it but genuinely, I think the care given at in the hospital I work at now is better than the care when I did my training in 20 years ago. I can not think easily of any examples of poor care I’ve seen in the past year.

You are right that poor care should be called out but I feel pretty defensive of my colleagues when you basically say that few of those with a degree have an ounce of compassion. It is patently not true and designed to be insulting. A better question would be “AIBU to think that whilst some people working in the NHS do a good job, some people still receive terrible care? If you agree what can be done about it?”

Bit more info needed than in your post... can the lady mobilise? Safe to transfer with/without assistance? Any fractures preventing hoisting? Not safe to balance on commode due to injury? Post operative? Not excusing it but sometimes not all the information is fully there for you to see...

@Murphs1. That’s kind of you.

My experience of “escalating” has seen my family wait since Oct 2019 to get a reply to a complaint which was processed through all of the correct channels. We’re still waiting. If we all waited forever for change to roll around, it’d be even more dire. Speak out. Tell it like it is. Many have done just that, over the past 16 pages of this thread. Thank you.

When you are ignored, I find it best to call it out.

As @PopperPet says, this thread has touched a raw nerve for many. It should.

@Cyw2018 and thank you... you’ve brought us full circle to the “take it or leave it/other countries don’t even HAVE an NHS/be grateful and shut up” attitude where poor care breeds and thrives. And you’re not yet fully qualified are you? Apologies if I confuse you with someone else, but as I remember you’re still training.

Dear me.

There are always going to be individuals who fail to meet the needs of patients, but the fact that the incidents happen so frequently speaks to a larger issue. I think that larger issue is that hospitals don’t operate from a place of patient centered care to begin with. Sure, things have gotten better than they used to be, but most of the structure is still for the convenience and efficiency or the staff, not for the best interest of the patient.

I spend quite a lot of time in hospital due to ongoing issues my (young adult) daughter has - I completely agree with you OP. Obviously not all, but sadly in my local hospital I would say the majority of medical staff that have 'cared' for my DD really haven't given a shit. Quite a few times I've pushed for her to be discharged because I could do a better job looking after her at home.

She's been left in (her own) bloody bedsheets for days, despite asking them to change them numerous times. She's had a dr grog up a load of phlegm in her sink making no attempt at all to clean up after himself. Once whilst I was visiting I noticed she was getting a rash; I alerted the nurse who said she would get the dr to check on her. I was worried she had sepsis as she already had an infection - 5 hours later nobody had checked on her. They mostly congregate around the nurses station and there they'll stay and seem most put out if you actually ask them for help.

I could whinge for hours about the care she's received - but, she's also had some lovely nurses too, and god do they stand out, if she's lucky enough to get a decent one I dread them going off shift.

I hate her going into hospital, when her symptoms start which normally indicate a stay is on the cards it's really disheartening because I know what is coming. luckily she's not had to be admitted whilst covid has been going on, at least in normal times we can take turns visiting to make sure she's looked after, I dread to think what it's like on the wards now with no visitors looking on.

So fuck your presumption and fuck you to hell and back

Not presuming anything, just going off what you actually put in your previous post. Fuck me to hell and back though, wow!
Obviously I'm way out of line with what I'm about to say, but blaming yourself for your dad's death isn't doing anyone any good and won't bring him back. Sounds like be wasn't in any pain amd had his family with him, which is all anyone can ask.

Absolutely agree Lemmein. Under no circumstances would I allow a relative of mine to have to rely on hospital staff for their non clinical care. It beggars belief.

So what’s the answer ? Huge thread. No solutions. 40,000 nurse shortfall. Has that any bearing or none at all ? You don’t think that an extra 2 nurses would ease the pressure of work somewhat and energise staff ?
I don’t think most nurses on here are denying there’s a problem. Clearly is but the job is more complex than it ever was, nurses require a greater depth of knowledge than ever before, patients are sicker, relatives are prepared to challenge. Even something like the med round can be a potential minefield of errors.
Years ago I nursed a lovely elderly chap. He’d been incontinent. We freshened him up and then it was time for tea. HCA fed him whilst I did the drug round. I tidied up round the 6 bedded bay before visiting time and noticed that this man’s pyjama top was stained again. I changed it and 10 mins later was then confronted by an irate relative because he had spilt some of a beaker of tea on himself. The HCA had left it within reach on his table and intended going back to give him it. In the meantime he had attempted to have a drink himself spilling it in the process. This woman was furious, quite clearly didn't believe my explanation. She accused me of neglecting her father and stormed off. I’d not done anything of the kind. No doubt she later told others how lazy and neglectful we all were

Why was it left within reach of him? Would a paediatric nurse leave a hot drink in reach of an infant. Probably. Would the same paediatric nurse speak to a mother like shit about the dangers of a hot drink when the mother was caring for her child and had herself between child and drink? Oh yes.