Who was in the wrong? Care assistant or relative?

[GingerNinjer]

Relative visiting a patient in hospital (before Covid obviously). Care assistant asks patient if they want a cup of tea. Patient asks if relative can have one too. Care assistant knows she’s not meant to offer refreshments to relatives but thinks “what’s the harm it could do?” And agrees.
Care assistant takes two mugs of tea into patient and relative. Relative says the mug is a little too full. Care assistant says “you don’t have to drink it all”. Relative says “but I might spill it”. Care assistant gets narky, takes the mug to the sink and pours some tea out of the mug. Relative says there is tea dripping off the mug and it might stain her clothes. Care assistant rolls her eyes and cleans mug with a paper towel. Patient asks if they can have some biscuits. Care assistant goes off and returns with 2 packets of biscuits (each containing 3 biscuits). Relative says “there’s too many biscuits”. Care assistant says “leave what you don’t want”. Relative says “but it’s wasteful”. Care assistant says “then share one packet”. Patient says “there isn’t enough in one packet to share”. Care assistant says “the biscuits come in packs of 3, do you want them or not?” Relative says “can you take one biscuit away?” Care assistant says “no I’m busy now, just leave what you don’t want on the table”. Relative says “but it’s messy, crumbs will get everywhere”. Care assistant snaps and says “oh well!” And walks out.

Patient and relative complain about care assistant. Care assistant gets a talking to for a) giving refreshments to relatives and b) being rude to patient and relatives

YABU - care assistant was in the wrong
YANBU - care assistant did nothing wrong

GingerNinjer I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm a nurse in the NHS which is why I got so cross reading your post. I know how hard the health care assistants work and I've also met some awful patients and relatives over the years. Sometimes you just can't win.
EiffelPower Pointless and unhelpful comment there. Op will develop strategies as their career progresses. One of the positives about being a nurse in the NHS is the many different career paths you can take. Op will no doubt find the best niche to suit them.

I am a hospital worker and I can tell you that this kind of belittling behaviour happens to me almost every day. I’ve had to scrape food from patients plates because they said that I put too much. When I say to them it’s okay just eat what you can manage they argue with me. I work in a maternity ward where all of the women are young and capable, and we still get spoken to oddly.

If you give them and their visitors something extra or something you shouldn’t really do to try and be nice, they always want more it’s never good enough. I go out of my way to find women the snacks and food that they want, for them to become even more demanding 😥 sometimes I give them a little extra for example, relatives tea and biscuits, or giving bread with lunch which I'm not allowed. I get partners asking why they can’t eat food and think that I personally make the rules. I get women who specifically choose their food and then come lunch time the husband storms up to me demanding that I change it. Obviously because he wants to eat it and doesn’t like what his wife chose. If there is a busy day sometimes we have to ask them to wait to see how much food is left over and that we will come back to them, it all kicks off.

I’ve had men walking into our staff kitchen helping themselves to the fridge food, tea and coffee. When myself and a colleague tried to explain that number one he can’t do that and two we only provide food and drink for patients, he started screaming and shouting in my face that he’s going to get me fired and then shouting racist comments. Of course the managers never take our side. It’s shocking what we have to put up with and I only get paid £17,000 per year.

I do way way more than my colleagues would ever do for the patients choices, I go above and beyond to get them the specific food that they demand that isn’t on that days menu but I manage to arrange it, only for them to change their mind again at lunchtime. I had a lady last week who specifically ordered chicken and rice, when it came she said that she doesn’t eat rice... argued with the staff and then made a complaint. I don’t think the NHS users realise how close we are to just walking out halfway through a shift and quitting. We are treated like utter shit especially if you are lower paid, I’ve had patients shout at me that they are a lawyer and I am just in food service who do I think I am, all because I wouldn’t give her husband a cup of tea. Il never forget that comment. Im so glad that you are a lawyer clearly that makes you so much better than me 😂🤦🏻‍♀️

The husbands sit in the patients bed relaxing eating and drinking the woman's food and then she says she’s still hungry.... it’s comical how these women choose these arseholes as their life partner. What a disgrace, and we can’t say anything. I’d love to tell him to stop eating her food and then demanding more and using the shared patient bathroom and I’d love to tell him to help clear the mountain of dirty nappies sitting on her food table at lunchtime but I can’t. These are the women who think that their lovely husband is perfect when the rest of the women don’t want to share a bay with him because he is disruptive. Men will always get away with it as long as a woman is there to defend his shitty behaviour.

Relative was being a bawbag.....unfortunately some relatives are often like this and deliberately try to get a reaction from staff, esp the ones that look down on you.....To what end i dont know but it makes a hard job even harder.

You should have refused the drink initially. Relative was rude. But this incident is so minor in scheme of things consider why you are so fixated on it.

@Lotsachocolateplease

Care assistants are hero’s in disguise. This care assistant went above and beyond and it’s shocking she/he were complained about. This is why they’re all loving the ‘no visitor’ rule at the moment, means they can concentrate on their patient without the distraction.

100% this.

YANBU, what a pain in the arse the relative sounds. What a way to treat someone going out of their way for you.

I don’t think you have a problem not getting over things. I think the reason you can’t stop thinking about it is because it’s not the incident itself that bothers you but what it represents. That could be either a pattern of incidents that’s still going happening or maybe you are bothered by the way you dealt with it and that still hasn’t been resolved.

Random events still bug me years later sometimes but once I figure out why they are bugging me and work on resolving the issue it usually puts things to rest.

Work nights, then you don't have to deal with relatives.

Relative was nasty and should have known better. Card would now be marked by me for any return visit

It's exactly the kind of way I would naturally respond tbh OP! I've had counselling and it is much, much better now.

Here's a strategy to think about. To examine the situation from another angle, the visitor sounds like they were a bit fussy, but they were visiting a (presumably very ill) person in a hospital bed so their own anxiety may have been sky high. They can't control anything in the situation other than what they are presented with - it was the patient who asked for the tea and biscuits, not the visitor.

The visitor might have their own reasons why they didn't want three biscuits - medical or mental - and they are taking out their anxieties on you because they can't tell the patient they don't want the biscuits.

After six years you need to get some perspective, but people are sometimes going to be at their very most stressed and not able to hide their frustration and anxiety, the same way you struggle with your own.

I react to things much the same as you I think OP. There’s been times I’ve been in tears over something that sounds so daft and trivial but it’s how it makes you feel isn’t it and you can’t help that. You did a nice thing albeit against the rules and it came back to bite you on the bum. In an ideal world the relative and patient should also have been told their own behaviour was unacceptable as well but we are in a society that panders to these twats.

I love it when these threads pop up. I left the NHS to work in a different sector and sometimes I miss it dreadfully. When I read one of these threads it reminds me why I left. Some people are lovely and a privilege to care for, but dealing with the selfish, whiny, entitled ones (and their relatives) who seem to think that you're a servant, there to cater to their every ridiculous whim grinds you down over time.
OP, your only mistake was to be kind in the first place. Give an inch and some people will take a yard.

Person sounds like they are suffering from the onset of dementia.

You can’t win OP. It isn’t just the healthcare and nursing profession. It’s any profession which includes any sort of customer service. It is frustrating and wearing. You do need to let it go though as it will drag you down. You will always meet these sort of people. But just focus your thoughts on the situations where you know you did something good for someone and made their day better because of your care and attention. The others who cause stress need to become irrelevant to you.

I think this person made you feel powerless in that moment, which is why you can't get over it. Counselling would be really good for working through these feelings and learning better strategies to deal with them.

Like after the first time the relative complained, you could have said, yes you're right I shouldn't have made you a drink because of health and safety and just poured it away and left the situation. By pandering to the relative, you gave them the message that they could manipulate you, which some people love to do.

I remember being on a course, where someone was complaining about the chairs being uncomfortable. The course leader made a number of suggestions to accommodate this person (taking away valuable teaching time from the rest of the group) and each suggestion was batted back. Until finally they said they wouldn't do the last suggestion because 'they didn't want to have special treatment or make a fuss!!!'. This all wasted about ten minutes (similarly at another time, whether the windows should be open or shut 🤬).

People can be arseholes to get special attention and because they don't feel powerful themselves deep down. It's awful though because when you're polite to nursing staff and have genuine requests and ask politely, they often treat you like arseholes because they're ground down by all the unreasonable lot!!!

the relative is so out of order and demanding.

@Shreddiesandmilk120 -I'm so sorry to hear this. xxx

no more offering tea and biscuits to patients relatives.

The relative was at fault, but so too was the manager for giving you even a slight ticking off. They should have stuck up for you. There is too much fear of complaints from relatives at the expense of staff being forced to take shit like this.

I’m also considering counselling (not just for this obviously, but my inability to get over stuff).

You sound kind and generous, OP, and very sensible to be thinking of counselling. A lot of us have to deal with shitty customers -- frontline NHS staff more than most. Do get some help with letting go of these irritations, letting them just flow out of your mind.

Best of luck, and thanks for your caring work.

Next time something like this happens you need to say in a friendly voice ‘sorry I’m not allowed to provide refreshments for visitors but there is a Costa (or whatever) on the ground floor’.

You need to accept that some people are just idiots.

It's not your fault and you can't fix them. They will always be idiots whatever anyone does.

Thankfully the vast majority of people are nice and generally are not idiots. These are the people to focus on.

When you come across an idiot, particularly one that has chosen to waste your time, move on from them as soon as you can. They really aren't worth your time and definitely not worth you leaving any sleep over.

@vodkaredbullgirl

Work nights, then you don't have to deal with relatives.

I had one family turn up at 11pm with a take away and wanted to eat it in the bay with the parents and child who was a patient. I told them to leave and eat it elsewhere. Like hell you’re waking everyone else up.

You will always get people who think it’s a hotel OP. There will always be arseholes. We are also encouraged to reflect about what we would do differently next time. I just point people in the direction of the kitchen now, politely of course. I do make distressed parents cups of tea of course.

We have families wanting us to feed siblings (we aren’t allowed to feed anyone other than the patients, it’s a disciplinary offence). I’ve had patients buzz me to change the tv channel when they have a room full of relatives. I’ve also had one family visit who tried to put their tired children in our empty beds! It goes on and on.

You need to grow a tough skin, even after 20 years I still don’t have one totally and I struggle with it, no one likes confrontation remember that. If you’re a student nurse you should at least when you’re qualified do some conflict resolution training and resilience training. I’m sure there are other training days you can seek out. I recommend you look for counselling though if it’s bothering you still, I’m surprised you didn’t tell the relative to just fuck off (obviously we can’t, but you can think it).

Do you think now you’re qualified you might find it easier to be assertive compared to when you were in the role of a HCSW?

I wasn’t very assertive when I was a student or probably even when NQ. But with a bit more experience I got very good at politely but firmly shutting down such nonsense from relatives and patients.

Did you get any support from the band 6/7 who dealt with the complaint or did you get a bollocking? Because if it was the latter that wasn’t fair. And again maybe being more assertive would help you stick up for yourself? I’ve been in a situation where a band 7 (unfairly imho) tried to bollock me for something ridiculous following a complaint. Apparently writing “knickers” in a patients notes isn’t professional and I should have written “underwear”. That was literally the only thing she could find which I’d “done wrong”. But I stuck up for myself and pointed out if I’d written underwear someone would have said I wasn’t being specific enough. But it rankles when the people who should have your back don’t.

These types of things happen a lot in care work. Some relatives treat carers like the enemy. I was a nurse in elderly care and it happens a fair bit.