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.

@albertcamus what's the solution then with this not fit for purpose
institution ? I don't expect an answer from you by the way. Obviously the OP has done a runner now and never engaged in worthwhile discussion regarding solutions anyway, just invited people to come forth with bad experiences and no counterbalance. Most of the nurses I work with are hard working and diligent, we have time to chat to rels and explain things. We have remarkably few complaints and poor practice is challenged quickly. Several staff members have been asked to leave over the >20 years I've worked there.
We have experienced and hands on managers who aren't afraid of making unpopular decisions which may explain why on the whole most are satisfied with our care. It's also a high status technologically advanced area of nursing,
full of life saving drama so has more cachet than a standard medical ward. Sad thing about this thread is the sheer negativity. People bringing up episodes from 20-30 years ago. Nurses seem to attract this weird dislike which other professions don't, apart from teaching, far from the lionisation which is entirely a media thing.

Sadly I think people remember the rudeness and heavy handedness delivered when they are vulnerable and it's hard to let it go. When ds had bronchiolitis as a baby and the staff were excellent I wrote to the CEO and sent biscuits but I haven't held onto it. However, the things that have been inappropriate and unkind have stayed with me. I could give many but for example when dd badly broke her leg in my mother's care (fell off her bicycle) and the ward sister laughed after I'd arrived and said in front of my mother "bet you won't be letting nanny look after her again ". So I had a frightened dd in pain to deal with and a mother with tears pricking in her eyes. How can a professional be so thoughtless and unkind? Regrettably it seems to happen time and time again.

I do think sensitivity and customer care need to start to form part of the training because too often it seems to be missing.

Both my sisters are nurses, and my son is a Doctor. Whilst noting that there are bad practitioners in every profession, I do not recognise your experience as being anything like the general patient experience. I cannot begin to describe how hard my sisters and son have worked over the last year. How emotionally draining it has been and how tired and scarred it has left them. Massive amount of unpaid work, very limited perks, very modest remuneration. All done out of a sense of duty and a real desire to help people. YABVU.

Just like every other public sector employee @brainwave89. Those who work for the NHS render similar levels as everyone else.

@RosesAndHellebores

Just like every other public sector employee *@brainwave89*. Those who work for the NHS render similar levels as everyone else.

Which means what exactly?

^Having been sent home from A&E twice in agony and disbelief they’re now considering emergency hysterectomy and Fallopian tube removal if she does not respond to the antibiotic treatment.

Disgrace^

And that’s the nursing staff’s fault how?

@doccybiscuits There is no link between intelligence and higher empathy as you suggest. Having a degree does not make a person kinder, lol.
What a ridiculous snobbish comment.

@Brainwave89 it means millions of others work every bit as hard as nurses and drs. Often without the overtime/extra shift payments of nurses. 50% of my staff many of whom earn about the same as nurses have had to take a pay cut due to covid. And not all nurses have been at the hard end during Covid. DD had a phone apt with her mh worker today. Our pharmacist took her bp and weight because the mh nurses and their staff are all presently working from home. Many of my staff are not.

It is easy to become disconnected from patients as a nurse. There is a lot of time pressure to complete tasks which is stressful in its own right and not something I have ever experienced to quite the same extent in office jobs. You are constantly interrupted which adds another layer of inefficiency and stress to the situation. You have fairly minimal autonomy and decision making ability but a lot of responsibility which is proven to reduce job satisfaction. The culture in some areas is very poor and no one helps one another/some people collude to undermine one person. The senior nurses in charge belittle inexperienced staff rather than educating them when they do not know or understand something. You often receive a rubbish handover so you are constantly chasing your tail trying to decipher frustratingly illegible hand written chart notes to find out what is going on. Most depressingly though, when you raise clinical concerns about a patient you are dismissed or even ridiculed by doctors/senior nurses. Complaining about these people is pointless. Lots of areas (geriatric, rehab etc) are dull to work in and you deskill there quickly. These are also the areas patients seem to have the most complaints about - I suppose they don’t attract the best staff?

I’d like to think I would never be cruel like some of the nurses described on here but I definitely don’t have the tolerance I used to have. When faced with a stroppy patient or relative I just don’t have it in me to suffer their abuse before we get to the bottom of their issue. Nursing is a hard slog. If care work was rewarding and straightforward we wouldn’t have masses of residential facilities for elderly people.

I forgot to add - probably one of the hardest things I find about nursing is that the general public thinks nurses are all a bit thick. That doesn’t endear patients to you.

If the senior nurses bully the junior nurses and that's widespread, it's hardly surprising the nurses are rude and horrid to the patients really.

[quote Sadsiblingatsea]@doccybiscuits There is no link between intelligence and higher empathy as you suggest. Having a degree does not make a person kinder, lol.
What a ridiculous snobbish comment.[/quote]
Not having a degree doesn't make then kinder either. Why the OP brought that into it is a mystery.

Having or not having a degree doesn't link to kindness, but nurses having degrees is clearly linked to fewer patient deaths and better outcomes.

If the senior nurses bully the junior nurses and that's widespread, it's hardly surprising the nurses are rude and horrid to the patients really.

I mean, wow, what a horrible and biased statement.

VVU to write off a whole profession in this way, definitely says more about you.

Nurses seem to attract this weird dislike which other professions don't, apart from teaching

I agree with this, and I think it's misogyny tbh. There's a perception in female dominated caring professions that anything short of sacrificing your full self to the profession, anything short of perfect feminine self sacrafice is despicable. The same expectations (and levels of denigration when staff are found wanting) aren't applied in other places.

Stompy I think it's more likely to be because we tend to come across nurses when we're particularly vulnerable (or someone we care about is), so any ineptitude, laziness, carelessness or callousness cuts deeper than it ordinarily would.

Crayon but nurses are far from the only profession that people meet at vulnerable times in their lives.

So either nurses are just worst people that other professional groups (which I see people are claiming, but I personally think is rubbish) or there's a reason people are more critical of nurses or expect different (perfect) care (because of misogyny).

I think it's the latter.

It's the same part of misogyny that damns a mother for failing to parent in an adequately self-sacraficing way but doesn't hold fathers to the same standard.

working with nurses, not less caring than 20 y ago. Busier, yes.

@Stompythedinosaur

If the senior nurses bully the junior nurses and that's widespread, it's hardly surprising the nurses are rude and horrid to the patients really.

I mean, wow, what a horrible and biased statement.

VVU to write off a whole profession in this way, definitely says more about you.

she’s not wrong though. nurses are KNOWN for eating their young. I guarantee it happens in every hospital up and down the country

@Stompythedinosaur

Nurses seem to attract this weird dislike which other professions don't, apart from teaching

I agree with this, and I think it's misogyny tbh. There's a perception in female dominated caring professions that anything short of sacrificing your full self to the profession, anything short of perfect feminine self sacrafice is despicable. The same expectations (and levels of denigration when staff are found wanting) aren't applied in other places.

This is such an interesting (and correct IMO) take 🤔

Why do mumsnet let 20 pages bitching about nurses?
Yet say one comment against teaching.....

Just shows what society think of nurses.
The profession that gave their life due to Covid. Work overtime every week. Constantly have jobs ( that belonged to others of Drs and Pharmacists). Yet nobody took jobs off nurses.
Work underpaid and understaffed all the time.

Yet unlike teachers nurses have never had a strike.

Those wanting to be nurses never asked for it to become degree only.
There are many good nurses both degree and non degree trained.

I qualified about 5 years before it became degree only.

After Covid ,and all nurses have been through shame on mumsnet and others who think this post is ok.

I had a horrible experience on a gynae ward. Was admitted after a haemmorhage 10 days after ds was born. I was so upset being away from him. A nurse told me "crying won't do anything"

@Torvean

Why do mumsnet let 20 pages bitching about nurses? Yet say one comment against teaching.....

Just shows what society think of nurses.
The profession that gave their life due to Covid. Work overtime every week. Constantly have jobs ( that belonged to others of Drs and Pharmacists). Yet nobody took jobs off nurses.
Work underpaid and understaffed all the time.

Yet unlike teachers nurses have never had a strike.

Those wanting to be nurses never asked for it to become degree only.
There are many good nurses both degree and non degree trained.

I qualified about 5 years before it became degree only.

After Covid ,and all nurses have been through shame on mumsnet and others who think this post is ok.

Yep. 1 mention of the tadpoles age gap and its deleted, one me tion of Styled by susie or jack Monroe and its gone...yet this has carried on for pages.

The radfords*