Do the general public know how bad the conditions in the NHS are?

[Gakatsbsk]

Hello

Expecting to be roasted.

However, I’m an NHS staff nurse. Qualified almost 2 years. I’ve worked through the pandemic. I initially worked in England and now work in a different UK nation - which is better but only because England was so poor.

My union is about to start a consultative ballot for industrial action in light of the nhs pay offer. I have had two family ‘acquaintances’ (who do not work or have immediate family that work for the nhs) complain in one breath about delayed appointments, delayed A+E waiting times, cancelled surgeries etc but then in another tell me that nurses going on strike is disgusting, lucky to have a job, NHS more secure employment etc. These are of course English Tory voters who said this

For reference, I have never and will never cross a picket line and will be voting in favour of industrial action (whatever form that takes due to emergency cover staffing etc).

When I was a few weeks qualified as a nurse I was looking after double the safe ratio of patients in my speciality. Completely unsupported, me and my (equally junior) colleagues having to consult google for solutions to our patients problem, if a medical emergency occurred (in ICU there should always be medical cover - this isn’t the case) we had to pull a buzzer, put out a page and get on with it until a medic appeared. This has not improved post pandemic.

In my current workplace (same speciality area), different country we are the only part of the hospital that is safe staffed, because of this every single day nurses and HCAs are sent to general wards, A+E and different hospitals often to be the only RN on a ward for 30 patients. There is such a crisis of care home beds, and ward beds that patients are staying in critical Care for weeks waiting on a ward bed. On the wards patients aren’t able to be washed each day as there might only be 1-3 staff members for 30-40 patients, meds rounds take 4 hours and ultimately patients who are sick go unnoticed until they are peri arrest. Nurses from day shift often have to stay on to night shift as there is no night shift nurse available.

I have only had negatives from the general public - it’s our fault for having degrees and being too posh to wash, bring the matrons back, etc etc. our colleagues who trained in the 80s and 90s pre degree say it is the worst it has ever been for safety and staffing. Racism and xenophobia towards our brilliant overseas colleagues is rife when they keep the NHS clinging on by a shoestring.

Four and a half years ago I was a first year student nurse and times were hard for the NHS, it has only got worse and worse for my patients since then. For the sake of my patients I will take industrial action.

However, it is so concerning how anti union, anti public sector and pro Tory the English public seem to have become? The decisions and government of Westminster negatively affect every nhs patient and worker in the UK. Just look at the widespread abuse, disdain and disgust directed at the RMT workers recently. I fear the same or worse for NHS workers.

So, is this NHS worker wrong for not enjoying being told to be grateful to work for the NHS? Is there any future for the public sector of the UK?

I apologise if I seem to have generalised England but I am English and from a northern Tory heartland. An area completely brainwashed.

There was a fabulous programme on Radio 4 today about mean, median and mode averages and what they actually describe, well worth a listen !

@TheSummerPalace

No.

Which is why we're where we are.

The govt (and population) don't want to pay for it either via appropriately funded home care or downstream beds.

And families don't want to or can't provide it and don't want to or can't pay for it.

Good. It's a worthy thing you do. I'm glad you get job satisfaction from it and are able to help people. It's not meant as a criticism.

@RosesAndHellebores

As long as the staff are working with safe staffing levels and are providing good clinical care, I couldn't care less what they sounded like.

@oldageprancer

Its too inaccurate to be taken as a criticism

Glad you feel that way. It's a good job with, it sounds, a lot of job satisfaction and that pays well.

@oldageprancer

Not well enough to retain staff

So back to nurses, again the same, it's an average level job that requires average level skills and intellectual ability, and pays average (well, above average) levels of pay. Where it requires above average skills and intellect, it pays above average.

Utter nonsense.
Even on a drug round nurses are checking the work of both Drs and Pharmacist is correct.
Its highly skilled, requires extensive knowledge and critical thinking.
Then on top of that knowledge of drug administration and preparation, correct assessment and care of lines used, antt and infection control and then therapeutic drug monitoring, monitoring of side effects.
Also good communication skills and emotional intelligence -particularly useful when you have to let the Dr know the dosage of the drug they have prescribed is incorrect!

I have caught more potentially fatal errors than I can count and one in particular still has me sitting bolt up right in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.
The patient would have died instantly if the drug had been given .That was a pharmacy error.
Thats just a drug round
I could talk about complex discharges,skin care, wound care, chemotherapy, inpatient and ambulatory, biologics,dialysis, line insertions, parenteral feeding, ventilation, inotropes, all on a background of the bedrock of nursing, basic care .
I dont think anyone with half a brain would describe any of that as "average"

Don't know how you and all your colleagues keep going.

Rosesandhellebores shows up to every thread like this to express her disdain for the NHS and its workers, and no one is immune, from housekeeping to the senior consultants. Pretty much every action from staff members is a nuanced slight against her from the lowly and uncouth scum that she encounters working in the NHS. Chewing gum, calling her 'lovey', or God forbid her first name, instead of Mrs Hellebores, being a HCA, being a nurse, being a Doctor, pretty much everyone. Also occasionally slips her salary and home in France into her comments several times over throughout the thread. She would DESPISE me, NHS worker, young and female, visible gasp tattoos, and I usually call my patients by their first name, because . . it's their name. Also calling someone Mrs or Mr seems a little formal when they are acutely distressed, crying or in pain. I should be sacked!

@Topgub it was an analogy. Metaphorical. But yes if you want me to be entirely honest I find it hard to view an individual who shouts and is often quite rude to be a professional. On the whole Dr's, regardless of seniority tend not to raise their voices - they may be rude but they don't shout.

@Snoredoeurve

I'll need to remember that I'm just average the next time I find a pt in a major haemorrhage. Need to remember my average skills and intellect cant cope with initiating treatment and CPR.

Having to strip to your knickers to shower off someone else's blood is just an average day at the office

definitely only worth an average wage

@RosesAndHellebores

Lol.

I hope (but know I will be hoping against reality ) that people realise that running down the NHS to the point of incompetence is a CONSERVATIVE ASPIRATION... when it gets so bad then the alternative 'private health' will seem a better option...

This.

Complain bitterly about substandard care. Denigrate the people who carry on regardless despite low staffing levels, high stress and poor working co ditions. Then tell them they're not worth any more money than they're getting, median people, median job, so median wages. It's what you signed up for so suck it up.

As bad as some of the managers I've worked with are, they aren't as bad as this. Evidently management isnt the forte of these ardent NHS decriers. Thank God.

This.... with bells on. Happening before our eyes.

Well I'm in Wales labour run with a smattering of plaid our health service is in trouble our health board been in special measures for seven years only lifted during covid. Can't blame the Tories for our problems.

This isnt metaphorical or an analogy. You, my dear, are deluded. Local to me , one set of GPS ended up having a brawl in their practice. Fists were flung. Gp I worked with couldn't even say good morning without shouting. A female gp used to fling her charts at the nurses I politely asked her to stop , she didnt. I implored a gp to see a young mother with a few weeks old baby who had torticollis that I had experienced myself, she could hardly lift her baby ... , he smiled and just said ....no. I've got on with some nurses and not with others....we might exchange viewpoints quite strongly, some of them are good bad or indifferent, but none of them ever did anything like this. So take your head out of that cloud , remove those rose tinted but warped glasses and smell the roses or are you being intentionally obtuse?

The trouble with private health care, like private education people can be very angry that someone can afford to dodge state run health or education. They're accused of robbing from the poor.

It's very divisive

Glad you feel that way. It's a good job with, it sounds, a lot of job satisfaction and that pays well.

Job satisfaction = massive tick , I bloody love my job.

Pays well ? not entirely sure the level of experience and responsibility could be described as well paid. Top of band 5 means no pay increase unless there is a pay rise, I could go higher but it means a lot less patient contact ( see job satisfaction above ) and more Team's meetings and to be honest I am a bit Teamed out. A band 6 might see one or two patients a week, band 7 none whatsoever in my area. The higher you go the less contact you have with patients. Band 7's in my area are so de-skilled I am not sure how they complete their revalidation ? I imagine the NMC has to have some sort of management pathway for revalidation because their patient contact is nil ?

Think it depends where you work, as a band 7 I had a caseload and one HCA no staff nurses. So only hands on.

The only ‘professionals’ who don’t strike are the police and prison guards because the law prevents them.

Even then, Police Federation Scotland has just effectively declared a work-to-rule.

Complaining about the NHS is not the same as complaining about the staff, it's that us and them mentality that the government are after. Yes I do 100% realise how bad the NHS is and I vote time and time again for parties that support investment in public services but for the past 12 years it's made no difference. What else can I do?

nursingnotes.co.uk/news/workforce/nurses-told-to-stop-overworking-by-staying-late-without-pay/

I read that today, even if it were true that the job were 'average' the working conditions and this kind of stuff make it not average - why should nurses be footing the bill for poor staffing levels created by the conditions they work under and the lack of retention, training and recruitment? Why is it ok for them to subsidise the NHS like this?

Even if they all decide to work to rule, and not strike, so leave when the shift is over, not work overtime, not work for free, then it's going to have a massive impact and it needs to because the government have relied on goodwill and beating people over the head with duty of care for that long it's run out, there's none left.

You're gonna treat people this way and expect them to get on with it then you need to pay them enough to compensate, or bloody well sort the problems out that are making it so bad.

What do you mean by dont want to @Topgub On another thread you were having a go at SAHMS for not working. Yet now you criticize women for not wanting to care for elderly relatives. Like i said you shed your feminist coat when it comes to the NHS.