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 was in a few months ago and elderly people in my bay being left on bedpans for up to an hour at a time was very much the norm. I remember one lady crying because she needed to go but also knew the HCP would 'just go off to do something ' and she'd be left. The smell when one had had a poo was horrific and humiliating for that person.

The ward was busy, there's no denying that but I wouldn't have said it was leaving elderly people balancing on a bedpan busy.........also I couldn't help but notice that they were very attentive towards one lady whose daughter had permission to come in each day and do some care due to her mum's dementia........this lady was very vocal about her mum's care needs and what she expected. She also wasn't shy about making complaints. Make of that what you will.

Dreadful older people.......

Ageist comment. Change older for black.

Bollocks is it ageist - I am decribing a particular type whose mind and worldview narrows rather than widens as they age. We all know and recognise it, sticking an 'ism' on it doesn't stop them exsiting. I am no spring chicken myself and it makes me sad when my generation start becoming all 'what is wrong with the youth of today'.

Old people putting down the younger generation is a tale as old as time and the OP matches that trope to a T.

@PinkPlantCase

There is no doubt that in an organisation as large as the NHS there is poor practice, this will be from the most senior consultant to the hospital porters and everyone in between including both degree and 'old school' nurses.

However, this is not what op thread is about, it is about her appalling attitude towards all current staff trained and qualified under the university system.

Also OP examples of poor care just don't hold up to scrutiny and if she is the experienced skilled nurse she says she is she will know this.

Many of the other examples of poor practice given by concerned relatives/ex patients on here also at best demonstrate a lack of knowledge and understanding of modern healthcare and in the worst cases totally unrealistic expectations, and this thread does not help educated or adjust expectations of healthcare.

Hi OP, thanks for sharing your thoughts about my personal suitability for nursing. It's pretty ironic actually, because as it happens I've outlasted several of my most experienced colleagues, who left specifically to avoid the winter wave that I spent nursing suffocating patients in covid ITU.

Maybe if they'd had degrees, they'd have been as resilient as me. We can only speculate.

There’s a theme running through this thread. I don’t mean the abuse I’ve gotten for speaking the truth...

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

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

Seems it’s the basic nursing care (which was mostly given by hands on qualified nursing staff, back in the “bad old days”).

I’m not able to fully read the two pages added after 10pm last night. I’m off to work (I’m actually not that old - some on here seem to think I trained with Florence Nightingale herself) but when I get back I’ll reply.

@wewillmeetagain so do you have an issue with OTs, physios and social workers having degrees ? You want to return to a time when nurses were just
the doctor's handmaiden, there to mop fevered brows and remove bedpans ?
The fact that nurses are now more educated is surely a good thing ?
My 13 year old son was in hospital recently with appendicitis. The care on the whole was fine. One nurse in particular was very thoughtful and clinically spot on. A HCA made sure we were fed and watered as we couldn't leave the room due to us awaiting our covid status. Another s/n had to be prompted to tell us about post op aftercare and yet another allowed the obs machine to alarm incessantly for hours after the op. I think with some they just don't have much common sense, they are young and inexperienced, they are busy.
In my experience good communication is vital. That's when issues occur and patients become rightfully disgruntled. I've received poor treatment myself but mainly from medics rather than nursing staff. Again it was a case of not communicating or explaining things.

.

There is good and bad in every area of life.

I'm a student nurse and see it all, all the time. And I challenge bad practice, I'm proud of that.
But I think the good far far outweighs the bad.
My mum died very suddenly on Friday night and when I arrived at a and e to see her the consultant made me a cup of tea and biscuits and sat and comforted me until I'd stopped crying, the consultant!! The nurses who washed and dressed my mum did the most impeccable job and I'll always be grateful for how peaceful and dignified they made her look. Even the receptionist who let me in genuinely cared. None of them got anything extra for going the extra mile, every single one of them did it because they are compassionate people doing the job for the right reasons.
I think a lot of the time the bad comes out when people have been in the job for too long and are burnt out.

There will always be people unhappy with care, some justified some not. The ridiculous thing about the OP is saying this is because nurses have degrees. There were good and bad experiences long before nurses had degrees, she probably had patients who were unhappy at times but obviously she isn't going to admit that.

@tigerbread20

There is good and bad in every area of life.

I'm a student nurse and see it all, all the time. And I challenge bad practice, I'm proud of that.
But I think the good far far outweighs the bad.
My mum died very suddenly on Friday night and when I arrived at a and e to see her the consultant made me a cup of tea and biscuits and sat and comforted me until I'd stopped crying, the consultant!! The nurses who washed and dressed my mum did the most impeccable job and I'll always be grateful for how peaceful and dignified they made her look. Even the receptionist who let me in genuinely cared. None of them got anything extra for going the extra mile, every single one of them did it because they are compassionate people doing the job for the right reasons.
I think a lot of the time the bad comes out when people have been in the job for too long and are burnt out.

I'm sorry for your loss, it is hard to lose your mum. I am pleased you got such good support and of course that is how it should be.

So sorry for your loss tigerbread20. I am glad that your mum got good care

Well this is an awful thread. Being a nurse is very complex, patient's have multiple complex needs and are living longer we are having to battle the effects of diabetes and dementia.
My drug round often takes 1-2 hours because I have 9 patients who may require cardiac drugs or insulin that is time sensitive but also requires me to access separate systems to check blood glucose/blood pressure etc. This is so I can justify every act or omission, this is all on me. Often my amazing HCA will therefore be the one trying to wash all 9 dependent patient's. I often have to help patient's take drugs which can require time and patience or thickening drinks. It is not uncommon during a drug round to have to see to a deteriorating patient. If I am in charge that day and caring for patient's (because we are short) I have to leave my drug round to hand over to AHP otherwise we can't plan discharges. I am also called to manage beds/sick patient's or deal with relatives.

I do wash and toilet patient's it gives me a chance to really know them but, often don't get the chance due to taking on Drs role's. I cannulate/take bloods/do VBG/.

I am exhausted by this pandemic wearing PPE dealing with angry relatives which I feel is mainly due to no visiting. I feel like I let my patient's down we rarely have enough staff due to isolation/positive for covid and the fact staff don't want to do extra. I often go without my breaks as my paperwork is always left until last. I have to access about 6 different systems to get all my patient's info and complete multiple pieces of paperwork. If a patient falls we have to complete 4 seperate pieces of paperwork and complete a datix. This takes so long and takes me away from observing my patient's. Care is not what it should be, I am devastated about this, this is not what I came into nursing to provide but,aa I have to choose which of my tasks is most important at that minute.

I am often going over shifts in my head and reflecting what I could have done better but unless we have more staff or longer shifts it is not possible. I am Caring for dying patient's and when relatives find it to hard to come in I try to stay with that patient as much as possible and inform the relative of the patient's condition, it breaks my heart that could be my dad.

As a ward manager I also have to worry about the offduty and caring for my staff who are at breaking point. There are some interesting articles related to caring fatigue which I am sure is affecting some staff. There are bad professionals in every job, I have come across some in all professions but I do not believe it is as wide spread as is suggested on this thread. We often have multiple siblings to deal with and sometimes one can be very difficult no matter what we do, the others often apologize and say they are just worried. I do understand but there is no need to swear at me.

Threads like this make me wonder why I stay in nursing, we are not angels, didn't ask to be clapped but, of course the clapping was covering up a much more fundamental issue - lack of adequate PPE we were put at so much risk at the beginning of the pandemic, lack of funds, dismantling of the NHS has gone on for years, nurses having to pay to study. The word nurse does not mean all we do is personal care and yes that is our role but we have multiple other roles, we may act as a physio (especially at weekends) drs because there are not enough. It has been proven time and time again that the risk of mortality goes down substantially when being cared for by a trained nurse. we have multiple roles that have removed us from providing personal care. My role was much easier before we took on drs role's.

So how about a thread describing good episodes of care? No I thought not. Makes great click bate. Thanks for adding to my already low morale.

What I don’t understand OP is, why does it matter that more personal care in hospitals is now carried out by people called Healthcare assistants and not nurses. Why is a job name so important? It is much cheaper to train and employ people to do most of basic care work and then have fewer people to do the more complex work that requires degree level knowledge. Nurses should of course help out with all work when needed which most do when they have the time. Where I work everyone chips in, even the receptionist has helped feed patients when we have been overwhelmed. It is much nicer working on a ward without a blame culture where everyone helps each other out. Typically though it’s the bad wards where the good staff will leave because the working conditions are appalling.

CYW2018 and HeadNorth you both sound like the sort of nurses whose attitudes cause the hurt, fear and disgust voiced by the vast majority of posters on this thread.

Describing the thread as 'vile' is ridiculous; there is ample anecdotal evidence of a significant systemic problem with the standard of care given by SOME (probably the minority of) nurses in the NHS today. People like yourselves just do not like your own deficiencies and contemptuous, self-serving attitudes being highlighted and called out.

Patients and their families are not stupid; everybody who has to use publicly-funded services understands and accepts the resource constraints inevitably placed on them.

However, the recurring issue throughout this thread is the impact of the choice made by nurses like yourselves to not give adequate care to your vulnerable patients, and probably your colleagues, along with your foul-mouthed and defiant attitudes showing that you couldn't care less that the public's perception of the integrity of your 'profession' is diminishing rapidly, and IMO and IME, deservedly.

@albertcamus

CYW2018 and HeadNorth you both sound like the sort of nurses whose attitudes cause the hurt, fear and disgust voiced by the vast majority of posters on this thread.

Describing the thread as 'vile' is ridiculous; there is ample anecdotal evidence of a significant systemic problem with the standard of care given by SOME (probably the minority of) nurses in the NHS today. People like yourselves just do not like your own deficiencies and contemptuous, self-serving attitudes being highlighted and called out.

Patients and their families are not stupid; everybody who has to use publicly-funded services understands and accepts the resource constraints inevitably placed on them.

However, the recurring issue throughout this thread is the impact of the choice made by nurses like yourselves to not give adequate care to your vulnerable patients, and probably your colleagues, along with your foul-mouthed and defiant attitudes showing that you couldn't care less that the public's perception of the integrity of your 'profession' is diminishing rapidly, and IMO and IME, deservedly.

Can you explain where having a degree has anything to do with it? I can tell you from personal experience there were uncaring nurses long before nurses all had to have degrees. Talking about some nurses being uncaring is fair enough, pretending there was a golden time when all nurses were angels is just ridiculous.

ancientgran I have not mentioned degrees; having worked for 28 years as a teacher, I am well aware that many totally unqualified people have more common sense, ability and knowledge than those with PhDs.

As I have mentioned earlier on this thread, my son nearly lost his life in 'wonderful' GOSH in 1989 while being treated for leukaemia due to uncaring, unprofessional, dirty, lazy and contemptuous nurses. I don't know or care whether they had degrees or not; almost all of them were not fit for their jobs.

Sadly, the situation appears to have deteriorated in the interim, which is an unnecessary and unacceptable state of affairs which needs to be addressed urgently.

Many of the responses from those employed as nurses, HCPs, call them what you like on this thread simply underline the OP's point that it is not just the lack of care, but the disgusting attitudes which are so hurtful for patients and their families.

Please check your facts before posting directly at me in future.

Albertcamus, 1989 is a very long time to harbour resentment for all healthcare staff, many were not even born then! I understand traumatic experiences can lead to this. It’s like me saying I had a callous , horrible teacher when growing up, reading some of these threads now reinstates my belief that all or most teachers are cruel, horrible people except a few nice ones of course.

stairway Did you miss this part of my post?

Sadly, the situation appears to have deteriorated in the interim, which is an unnecessary and unacceptable state of affairs which needs to be addressed urgently.

I don't think it's unreasonable to have concerns about medical care standards, I do think it's a bit unreasonable to focus it solely on nurses - or make it have anything to do with degrees.

The whole system is pretty fucked up, in many areas very efficiency focused and many other things that can make it very difficult to be properly caring. Many medical professionals still manage to do a great job, everyone has their off days but they are consistently doing good work, there are those so ground down in the system of this is what it is that it gets worse, and then yes, there are assholes who either never should have been in medical care or should have left much sooner, and it can be really difficult - particularly if you've a place that is known for circling around or fobbing people off when there are complaints - to do anything about the tiny minority of HCP who seem to enjoy the power they have over vulnerable people that tend to stick in people's minds far more and have such a major impact than the many people are doing things well and are very caring even in trying times in a system that doesn't properly support them to do that.

CYW2018 and HeadNorth you both sound like the sort of nurses whose attitudes cause the hurt, fear and disgust voiced by the vast majority of posters on this thread.

Where on earth did you get the notion that I am a nurse? I certainly am not, I do a far easier and better paid job, thanks. I am someone who is fed up of hearing constant whinges about how it 'was all better in their day'. Well, no it wasn't. A better educated work force is a positive and it take a special sort of stupid to decry any profession being upskilled.

And for the nurses on this thread - I take my hat off to you. My daughter has received excellent and literally life saving care from the NHS. How wearying it must be to have to nurse some of the posters on this thread and I salute your professionalism.

Albertcamus, I have no idea about the issues with healthcare in 1989, so can’t comment on what you went through. There are issues with the NHS currently I totally agree. My opinion having worked there is it has nothing to do with qualifications. There are issues with management, staffing and resources. There is also according to this thread an issue with investigating and acting on complaints. Again more funding and resources are needed for that. It will get worse with the financial crisis and after effects of the pandemic. We need politicians and senior people high up to think of solutions or we really will end up with third world healthcare. I don’t really see how slagging off a whole profession helps tbh although I understand people need somewhere to let go of their grievances and doing it in here is preferable to releasing them onto the newly qualified nurse on her first night shift.

IME the best care is on paeds wards where parents are available to do feeding/toileting/washing and monitoring their dcs general condition.

Emergency care is good

The biggest problem is on very understaffed wards with patients on observation. If you are responsible for 10+ patients, observation is taking temp/bp once or twice a day and handing out meds. There is no communication with the patient to see how they are feeling or if there have been any changes. Shift handovers take a very long time considering how little they know about the condition of their patients. If you are going 8hrs+ without any contact with nursing staff there is no meaningful observation going on. It would be far better just to send patients home with a list of things to watch out for that would warrant readmission.

@albertcamus

ancientgran I have not mentioned degrees; having worked for 28 years as a teacher, I am well aware that many totally unqualified people have more common sense, ability and knowledge than those with PhDs.

As I have mentioned earlier on this thread, my son nearly lost his life in 'wonderful' GOSH in 1989 while being treated for leukaemia due to uncaring, unprofessional, dirty, lazy and contemptuous nurses. I don't know or care whether they had degrees or not; almost all of them were not fit for their jobs.

Sadly, the situation appears to have deteriorated in the interim, which is an unnecessary and unacceptable state of affairs which needs to be addressed urgently.

Many of the responses from those employed as nurses, HCPs, call them what you like on this thread simply underline the OP's point that it is not just the lack of care, but the disgusting attitudes which are so hurtful for patients and their families.

Please check your facts before posting directly at me in future.

Please check the OP, the point of this thread seems to be to say nurses now are worse than nurses were because they have degrees. If you have a look I have commented on nurses in another well known children's hospital refusing to comfort a crying toddler as they hadn't done emotional development yet and that was in the 70s. There has always been good and bad care, to pretend this is new or because of degrees is ridiculous.

Did your son get treated by anyone other than a nurse? Maybe a doctor, maybe a senior doctor, maybe a radiographer, an OT? No it was all nurses wasn't it. They really should know their place, handmaidens to doctors only fit to wipe bottoms and make beds.

@ElphabaTheGreen

I’m an OT - I’ve worked with ward nurses for almost 20 years.

You get great nurses, you get not so great nurses, I’ve worked with three nurses who I’ve reported for shocking care (the one who put soup into a large syringe for a confused patient refusing food and told an HCA to pull his head back while she squirted it in saying, ‘He’ll have to swallow now or he’ll drown’ got deregistered, I hope). But it’s the same for all health care professionals. I’ve worked with some awful OTs.

The not so great nurses have very, very common themes which drive me batshit every day:

• they treat their printed handovers as the font of all information about the patient, even if it hasn’t been updated for days. Reading the medical notes is only for the doctors, apparently
• what they see on the day must be what the patient is forever and ever and they exist in a vacuum. Making contact with the family to find out what this patient’s ‘normal’ is is everybody else’s job but theirs. If we ask, ‘who have they got at home?’ we get ‘I don’t know, it hasn’t been handed over to me’. Well fucking ASK YOUR PATIENT.
• communication is awful. Awful. They are the staff on the ward all the time so are in the best position to pass on information to the medical team or families from us when we’re not around to do it. They don’t. And if a family asks them a question about what therapists are doing they make zero effort to read our notes to let them know on the spot - we’re then left playing phone tig with family for days when they had that information in front of them to pass on straight away
• if it’s slightly awkward or difficult it’s not their job and must be for a specialist nurse or doctor. A patient’s mother died while he was an inpatient with us. The B6 ward sister called the medical team to the ward to get them to tell him. She was a senior nurse and the most familiar face to that patient on the ward - there was zero reason to delegate that job other than can’t-be-arsedness.
• sitting patients out. Getting some nurses to sit patients out when therapists aren’t about is like pulling teeth. Getting catheters taken out of less mobile patients who really no longer need them is also impossible as it saves them having to walk patients to the toilet. If I had a pound for every time I’ve gently reminded nurses about the role these things have in prevention of chest infections and UTIs, which would ultimately take more of their time and effort than taking the preventative actions in the first place, I could retire. Or do they really prefer the reduced physical effort in putting up IV antibiotics to hoisting out? Or delegating an HCA to 1:1 a patient out of their tree with UTI delirium to save a walk to the loo?

Completely agree, I am in a very similar role to you.

A good ward ward, with staff who communicate well and get on with the work is great to work on.

When working with the staff that you describe, and yes there are many people like this that I have come across in my career, it is a nightmare.

I worked last weekend, and there were a few “lazy” nurses on who basically prioritised their breaks and chatting and eating together over getting the patients up and washed. It was lunchtime before they finally got going, beyond the basic drugs rounds etc. I know there is a lot of paperwork, but spending all morning doing it is ridiculous.

@AnnieGetYourPun

I agree. My Aunty was in hospital a few years ago after sustaining a head injury from dally down the stairs.

She had a catheter in and had messed herself. I kept ringing the bell and trying to find someone to sort her out, they were dismissive and kept telling me to go away.

She kept getting agitated and trying to pull the catheter out again I kept trying to find someone and was dismissed.

Finally she yanked it out and at last they came running, but they were awful she didn’t get any care at all.

Leaving people in their own filth is not acceptable and they didn’t give a shit.

When my Mum was being treated for lung cancer she was stuck on a respiratory ward that looked like something out of the 1940s (except it wasn't nearly as clean or orderly). The noise level was dreadful thanks to there usually being 3-4 visitors at each bed, despite signs saying no more than 2 allowed. It was grubby. A pair of used gloves and a dirty tissue remained under her bed for 3 days until I removed them.

After my Mum used a commode I witnessed the 2 auxiliary nurses who removed it, wafting their hands infront of their noses and remarking on the smell. My poor Mum was mortified as she had always been fastidious about personal hygiene and was never seen without her hair styled and lipstick on. If I hadn't been so drained and low I would have roasted them both alive for such cruel, unprofessional behaviour. Later, when I complained via email I was told they couldn't comment on specific members of staff.

My Mum's cousin (retired matron) visited and was shocked and upset at the scruffy appearance of both the ward and its staff. It was all I could do to stop her tearing a strip off the staff, but I was scared that my Mum's care would just get worse as a result.

The only time there was a calm, professional atmosphere on the ward was if the Sister was on duty, but it wasn't often. Otherwise staff seemed to gather around the desk most of the time.

One night an agency nurse (male, Spanish) came on duty as I was leaving Mum and he was amazing so warm and kind to her. He squeezed her hand, tidied her bed and joked with her, all the whole discreetly checking her notes etc. I could see how Mum relaxed and responded to him. When I left them I cried in the car because it was the one and only time I felt I had left Mum with someone who genuinely cared.