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.

There certainly is a problem with preserving dignity and continence. it happens time and time again that older people go into hospital, get catheterised or are compelled to use pads and then when it is time for them to go home they have become incontinent, with all that entails in leading a normal life. All nursing and care staff should have it ingrained in their training that preserving continence will make a huge difference to how someone lives their last few years. Perhaps ;before they tell people to "use a pad" they should try it themselves, totally repugnant if not already necessary.

There's good and bad in every profession. I work in care and have seen good and bad care.

Our hospital isn't good for care to be honest. I had no food or pain relief after having my first baby. I took it with me for my second. With my second they told me I couldn't possibly be close to delivering then was rushed to the delivery room. Then I got told I wasn't trying hard enough to push the placenta out. They ended up giving me an epidural and had to manually rip it away as it was stuck.

When I was told I was having a miscarriage the woman told my partner and I there was no heartbeat and then immediately said I needed to make sure I looked after my partner as he would be very upset.

When I visited my grandma in hospital no one had emptied her catheter for over 12 hours so I did it.

Retired nurse here . My daughter is also a nurse . When I gave birth to her in 1973 the majority of the staff on the ward were absolutely horrible to me . Why? Because I was on bed rest for 2 weeks before she was born and there was no sign of my husband . They assumed that I was a single mother and judged me for it . I was 20 at the time and my husband was abroad with the army. 3 days after her birth he walked onto the ward and asked for me . The nurses had a complete change of mind laughing and joking . I signed myself out of the hospital later that day . They wouldn't let me off the ward to use the phone on the corridor to phone home for someone to come for me but one of the cleaners got the phone number from me and called on my behalf . Then as I was getting ready an auxiliary nurse shouted at me , 'you can't go , don't you know your baby has a heart murmur'?
Actually I didn't know this , because nobody had told me . I left with the baby anyway and had our family doctor check her over .

About 10 years ago I was in hospital on a general ward (although fully of elderly) and the bed I was in was next to a broken window and it was snowing outside. I was freezing and begged them to let me move beds. The nurses weren't great and I really noticed the difference when I was moved to another bay on the same ward, different nurses and wow, what a change in care!

I think, unfortunately, that it's often a case of some people just shouldn't be in a caring profession when they don't care. I don't think it can be blamed on covid, of course it's not helped, but it's been going on for ages.

There are good and back in all professions.

To improve people need to challenge bad care in a calm and correct way. Raise with the person running the ward or in writing so it is recorded.

My baby was in special care as he was 6 weeks early. I was on the post delivery ward without my baby as there was no room for me in special care and I was recovering from preeclampsia. It was hell anyway but made worse by the midwifes constantly asking me to keep an eye on the other babies in the ward whilst their mothers went to make a phone call or a smoke.

I think like everything there is good & bad. I witnessed an elderly lady left on a commode for 45 mins & had to get a nurse to get her off as she’d been there so long. I’ve witnessed my auntie dying of cancer begging & crying for pain relief for it to take 45 mins to give her 2pills.

Then when I had my baby my care was amazing. My midwife was absolutely incredible, my aftercare was incredible

Thank you all for the replies.

It seems the poor experiences are now outweighing the good. So many distressing incidents. Some have rightly said that it can put a person off having any form of treatment or cause great anxiety, should a loved one need care.

I don’t know how to respond anymore. I’ve offended a lot of people. I don’t take my comments back. My “and they’ve all got degrees now” was a reference to the fact that when I was a kid, people who went to University were immensely clever. Most people went into office work or factory work where I grew up. A neighbour’s son went to University and I was totally in awe of him. It was a big deal. My point is that with better education standards ought to rise. For those who insist they have, massively, I think you cannot deny the many people on here who’ve backed up what I’ve said.

I don’t have a problem with HCA. My friend is ine and a bloody good one. If I went into hospital ive told her she has to drop everything and look after me! No, my bugbear is that in my experience the qualified staff have moved further and further away from the actual physical patient. As I said, my mums “named nurse” had no clue who I was talking about when I arrived on the ward, having been called in because she’d gone from (by the nursing assessment in admission) self caring to dying. She’d only been in a week. Sitting at a desk, delegating care, IMO does lessen contact and there is often a lack of connection between nurse and patient/family.

I’m thinking close to 500 posts, back and forth, is enough. For those who’ve shared their stories, thank you.

So what was the point ? However many pages and mostly negative. But then the premise was 'nursing care nowadays is shit ' so those are the stories you will get. Maybe next time to counterbalance this 'the nhs saved my life' ?
You didn't come up with any solutions and presumably you'd be quite happy to return to the good old days. Sadly the nature of medical care and the expectations of it's users would make that impossible.

Just watching Dispatches on channel 4. You should be bloody ashamed of yourself.

[quote AnnieGetYourPun]@crabbyboot You are in denial, I suspect. Have you read this thread? 🙄[/quote]
No not in denial, just being very sarcastic!

Didn't have a good experience in the maternity area of our hospital when I was having ds but other areas over the years have been great so I do think it's pot luck what type of person is caring for you at that time but on the whole the nurses I've had have been good.
The best treatment I've ever had was when I went private for an elected procedure but of course the hospital was much smaller so the staff seemed much more relaxed and happy tbh.

@WhoWants2Know

It's quite common for a person to need two people to assist them to the toilet if they are unsteady on their feet. It's also common for people with a UTI to have a constant feeling of urgently needing to urinate, even if their bladder is empty.

It's a shame if your niece was upset, but she has no idea about the woman's needs or why the nurse didn't immediately assist her to the toilet.

With a nursing background, I would have thought you would understand that. But instead you decide to start a nurse bashing, goady thread...🤔

Absolutely this.

@AnnieGetYourPun

I didn’t say ALL NURSES didn’t care. Clearly some do. Read what I said in the OP. The training now requires a degree.

However, for all that study and high achievement, you can’t “teach” caring.

That is of course the debate. As you are aware lots and lots of the "day to day" care is left to HCAs now because nurses priorities and roles have changed. But... you can't recruit or retain good staff anywhere in healthcare. (i work in a hospice FWIW) Training is poor because the more experienced HCAs are burnt out, and as the old saying goes, if you pay peanuts you attract monkies!

I reckon the answer is some nurses are incredibly caring. Some are awful. I've come across both.. Sometimes it's just your luck. I had a nurse drag me across a ward after a c-section for a walk saying 'I've not had kids but it can't be that hard' when I'd just had major surgery, my blood pressure was so low the alarms kept going off, I bled all over the floor and nearly passed out in the bathroom.. Other nurses have been lovely though. I intensely dislike the ones that should about how caring they are though

I think a lot of the basic care is now provided by HCAs

This. I was in hospital for three weeks four years ago and definitely received care from HCAs as I got to know them and talked about their work. Things like taking my readings etc.

There were bits and bobs- being observed by student nurses when I felt they should have held my hand, delays in pain relief, but on the whole I have NO IDEA how they do it - 12 hour shifts etc. and am incredibly grateful.

There are channels to make a complaint which do work e.g. Patient Liaison.

ancientgran One of the biggest reasons why many of the inappropriate, wasteful, uncaring, dangerous and incompetent practices which unnecessarily ruin the UK's NHS, as described by hundreds of posters on this thread, is the prevalence of ill-informed, judgemental, ignorant people such as yourself.

Who the hell do you think you are, after the OP (who was entirely justified in her disgust and concern about the appalling practice she has witnessed) has posted a reasoned, polite and balanced summary of the thread, to tell her she should be ashamed of herself?

Are you professionally qualified and experienced like her? Why do you object to her grieving over the state of the profession she served, which all of us rely on, pay for, deserve to be treated with dignity by, but cannot have confidence in.

You are clearly the kind of fool who thinks that banging a wooden spoon on a saucepan is helpful to the NHS.

Please realise how people of your level of ignorance and judgementalism of those who dare to challenge unacceptably low standards of 'care' are a large part of the problem.

albertcamus - True, it’s easy to carry on providing poor care when no one complains. The NHS is supporting compassionate care through it’s values but in my experience and research shows that good care occurs when compassion is shown to patients and staff themselves. You can’t give when you are empty.

@albertcamus

ancientgran One of the biggest reasons why many of the inappropriate, wasteful, uncaring, dangerous and incompetent practices which unnecessarily ruin the UK's NHS, as described by hundreds of posters on this thread, is the prevalence of ill-informed, judgemental, ignorant people such as yourself.

Who the hell do you think you are, after the OP (who was entirely justified in her disgust and concern about the appalling practice she has witnessed) has posted a reasoned, polite and balanced summary of the thread, to tell her she should be ashamed of herself?

Are you professionally qualified and experienced like her? Why do you object to her grieving over the state of the profession she served, which all of us rely on, pay for, deserve to be treated with dignity by, but cannot have confidence in.

You are clearly the kind of fool who thinks that banging a wooden spoon on a saucepan is helpful to the NHS.

Please realise how people of your level of ignorance and judgementalism of those who dare to challenge unacceptably low standards of 'care' are a large part of the problem.

Maybe read her OP where she doesn't fucking care.

In any organisation the size of the NHS there will be good and bad. I've made complaints to hospitals in the past, once about a doctor and once about a physio and that is what people should do if there is a problem.

What they shouldn't do is make allegations about nurses being worse now than in the past, not my experience but it might be for some but as a sweeping statement it isn't anything the oP or anyone else on here can prove. It is particularly unpleasant to make sarky remarks about nurses being worse being connected to them having degrees, shades of having a chip on her shoulder as they are better qualified than she was.

Finally, not that it is any of your business, but I have never clapped or banged saucepans for the NHS, my son is a nurse and hates it and says if you want a better service pay them properly and give them the equipment and facilities they need.

I think if it comes to ignorance you would give anyone a run for their money.

ancientgran what the OP said she 'didn't fucking care' about was what she anticipated would be the self-righteous backlash from people like you who automatically spring to the defence of the (many) highly unprofessional, uncaring, undeserving but publicly-lionised employees of the NHS, she did NOT say she didn't care about patients, so please check your facts before posting.

You have throughout this thread shown an obsession with the mention of 'degree qualified nurses' and now claim that your son is a nurse ... I have repeatedly stated, as has the OP and other posters, that good and bad care are provided by NHS staff regardless of their qualification status. If anyone has a chip on their shoulder about qualifications, it is clearly you.

The atrocious recent and current experiences described on this thread by hundreds of people demonstrate that there is a serious and growing systemic problem within the NHS which has very little to do with funding and resources, and everything to do with SOME (once again, I emphasise, the minimum) staff clearly not caring for patients as they should do, and are supposedly trained and paid to do. This is not getting better, it is getting worse.

You appear to have missed my point that it is people like yourself who automatically defend these staff, and denigrate those who are brave enough to draw attention to them (which the OP is eminently qualified to do) who ARE the problem.

As long as people like yourself kowtow to all NHS staff and choose to live in denial of the unpalatable reality of the selfish, unprofessional and negligent attitudes of too many 'nurses', they will continue to get away with the behaviours amply described on this thread.

If you seriously think that the contemptuous attitudes of nurses described by hundreds of posters on this thread can be changed by an injection of 'resources', I would be fascinated to know how.

You are a naive, self-deluding apologist for a system which is not fit for purpose and fully illustrate why the problem is growing, leading so many people to live in fear of having to go into hospital.

Same situation this week for me apart from the organ did rupture and cause an infection. Sent home from a&e and out of hours drs before being rushed back in and them finding out. Apparently we dealt with a trainee at the weekend who MAY have made a mistake. Fuming.

And this was on a child.

I've been in hospital twice with blood clots, so was on a respiratory ward for a week both times, totally mentally clear and the youngest patient there by a solid 50 years.

My experience both times was a clear "the patients can wait" attitude, in the first few days I genuinely thought I was going to wet myself because I wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom unaided and I had to stay in bed waiting for an hour while I could hear and see the nurses leaning around their desk, chatting away. I genuinely considered using the bell on a timed basis because I knew even though I didn't need to pee, I would by the time someone eventually came over.

In the last night when I was allowed to move around, I physically went over to the station after the woman next to me had been yelling for a nurse for over an hour and pointed out to them someone was waiting - they looked rather surprised to have their chatting and tea interrupted but no-one was getting any sleep!

My newborn baby was told by a nurse, 3 hours after I’d given birth (wasn’t on the maternity ward, had been rushed into theatre straight after giving birth due to massive blood loss without even being able to hold him first) “your mum’s neglecting you already, maybe the nice social work will come and take you”. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even sit up, DS was fast asleep and that comment knocked the wind out of me. I spent the first year of DS’s life floored with depression and anxiety because I thought I’d failed him in his first hours of life and I was convinced the social work were going to turn up and take him away. I ended up with postpartum OCD (that’s still present). I couldn’t even talk to my doctor or health visitor because I was so sure they’d call the social work and have him taken from me thanks to that nurse. I’d quite happily slap her stupid now. I’ll never forgive her the amount of damage she caused and the damage that’s still present because of her.

ChancesWhatChances that is absolutely shocking . I hope you feel more confident now.

This is why I get really angry when people naively say that 'more resources are needed"; what that nurse said to your newborn baby was NOTHING to do with money or resources, and everything to do with ignorant, uncaring and downright frightening individuals being employed by the NHS in power positions over vulnerable patients.

But it's apparently unacceptable for any of us to call this out. Ridiculous.