To be actually really worried about you? NHS related

[Itsonthestairs]

As a highly skilled NHS nurse of 15 years I had to leave my job due to the stress and not being able to provide the care I wanted to, I was burnt out following covid (my mum died), I have definaly save a fair few lifes in my clinical time, I loved my job and I was good at it (emergency department background). Reading the posts on MN has really upset me recently, the disrespect, dislike and darn right hatred for healthcare professionals really worries me. My friends are on their knees and this abuse doesn't help, people are getting crap care because there is no staff and this awful attitude is just adding fuel to the fire. I'm really worried about you, me and our families future healthcare.

I don't think the nhs will be fully privatised, I do think though except for genuine life saving emergency care that everything else will come at a pay as you use it cost with a 2 tier element. Thinking how much everyone moans about having to pay a dentist it should be interesting, but it's what many people voted for.

I agree with this. Knowing you have a safety net of free at point of use care and medication for something like type 2 diabetes makes it less important to individuals to try and protect their health.

@Pussycat22 if you advance search her posts she had a vulva abscess. She wasnt dying.

I had a formal complaint made against me last week because I told a parent I would ask a hca to get his child some water (which she did) and he complained it wasn't done by me personally.

It wasn't because I was in the middle of CPR on another child.

You know... when you're given two appointments when one would do there is something wrong. When your GP refers you to the wrong consultant, and you then have to go back for another GP appointment, another referral and finally to the right consultant there is something wrong.
One of our GP's told me to go away, take the drugs, then book a face to face appointment with him to review. The receptionist refused to book a face to face, even though I explained that the doctor would need to examine me. So I had to go through econsult. Waste a GP's time with a telephone appointment. Then finally get the face to face I needed.
When someone goes for an appointment with an oncologist (with letter in hand). Is seen by a clinical nurse specialist. Shows the letter and asks about the oncology appointment. Is told that they don't need to see the oncologise as well and is sent home only to get a call an hour later because the oncologist was wondering where they were... then has a 2 week delay for another appointment... all the while knowing they have an aggressive form of cancer... The system is broken.

My Dad is currently in hospital, due to horrific neglect and poor care from his GP. He's got rheumatoid arthritis and type 2 diabetes (insulin dependent). He's had no routine bloods or reviews for over 2 years instead of every 3 months like he should. He's now in hospital with suspected liver failure. My sister is insisting she can care for him and wants him to come home, but she's clueless as to his medical needs and that's added to why he's there. His confusion has been accelerating at a rate of knots and the Doctors think he's overdosed on paracetamol and medication because he doesn't remember taking it and the GP told family to do a dosette box, they wouldn't sort one with the pharmacy.

It's like banging your head against a brick wall, honestly. Nurses are the least of the problem.

I for one am VERY grateful to the NHS and always go out of my way to be extra kind to staff to make up for the rudeness they get.

I don't blame you for leaving though, your mental health is important.

I have a long term condition and have been in and out of hospital for years and have really noticed how busy hospitals are. Doesn't help 111 seem to always tell people to go to AnE and that people struggle to get docs appointments. Pressure for people to be well and at work mean they are less patient to wait for GP appts etc. it's just so complex isn't it.

The whole system needs to be re-jigged from the bottom up, the same for the police and social care. It just doesn't work anymore.

If you’re in A&E for 13hrs and still haven’t been seen the chances are you don’t need to be there, patients are triaged and seen in order of acuity.

The care I’ve received has always been great, however friends haven’t been, in one case resulting in death via negligence and an ongoing court case.

As a nurse who worked the wards but now in management I know we don’t always get it right, but every formal complaint is fully investigated and an action plan made to prevent future occurances, so it is so important that complaints are made. Nursing isn’t any different to any other profession, there’s good and bad, some who are better at their jobs than others but in my experience the good massively outweighs the bad.

OP I’m so sorry you had to leave, I see staff burntout, overworked and on the brink daily, the job takes so much from you. My friend had to do the same, she’s haunted by her time in ITU in the pandemic, all the lives lost and trauma of watching families suffer has really impacted her mental health. Look after yourself x

Those who think privatising the NHS is the answer are delusional

I worked for the NHS for 15 years before being retired due to illness so I’ve been both sides. I’ve lived in Ireland and experienced their health service which was costly and inferior to the NHS but the GP shook your hand as they escorted you to their room

I luckily have private health care curtesy of DH but have noticed over the last 20 years the change in attitude towards patients in private settings much like the NHS

The only difference these days is you get seen quicker and if you need treatment you get your own room. Staff are generally still unhelpful and brusque with patients even if you’re paying

There are not 2 separate pots of staff, private and NHS. Staff may work in both settings sometimes for overtime but others will move between the 2 for new job roles

The only difference we’re going to get if the NHS is privatised is that you’re going to pay for it

The NHS needs a clear out of management, the coal face workers have been to hell and back these last 3 years and deserve the utmost respect AND reward they can be offered

Training needs to change, the degree drive has been a huge mistake and has actively stopped people training because of the cost implications, it needs to return to vocational training where students learn that little things are important in overall care

Complaining to the right people when you receive poor quality care is absolutely the right thing to do. Managers keep an eye on complaint rates and if they drop, it’s assumed all is well and staffing issues aren’t addressed.

But as well as formal complaints, there is an emotional and often traumatic component to receiving substandard care when you are in pain, in danger and/or at your most vulnerable. I think you are being unreasonable to suggest people shouldn’t be venting that on forums such as this. It’s victim blaming. Get cross at the system, not the victims.

@Tomnooktoldmeto

You think all degrees in the nhs should be dropped?

Interesting idea to make the medical course more accessible!

@fannyfan you were giving CPR before or after you spoke to the parent to tell them about someone else getting the water?

I could’ve written your post. I’m a nurse of 12 years hanging on by the tiniest of threads, I left to do agency after TWICE being signed off with burn out, ptsd and severe anxiety! I work agency shifts now and do the bare minimum I need to pay my bills, I’d leave tomorrow but no idea what I’d do and I can’t afford a lower paid job.

I’m not surprised with the attitude towards staff, when they were all clapping us myself and my colleagues all said it wouldn’t last and they’ll be back to hating us soon.

The NHS has crumbled, the staff are broken and if something isn’t done asap we won’t have a healthcare system.

Just some facts here. My surgery in London serves 7000 people. The practice team includes:
4 doctors
3 nurses
2 managers
5 care navigators (receptionists that is)
2 administrators

If you want an appointment (phone or f2f), you need to fill a form online, and within 2 working days they will get back to you. Otherwise, you may try to call, but "Our care navigators are very busy"

What is it in your area, I wonder?

@Louise0701 I was on the way to take over from a colleague. I had walked away to direct the crash team to the room (as per policy) so I was in my way back to the room when he literally jumped out of his room and screamed at me that his child needed water immediately and he didn't want to walk to the parents room to do that himself. There was a hca coming out of his next doors room and I said 'ok, xxx can you get xxx some water please? I'm going to go back to help the crash team'

All of this was extremely fast. Drs running around, it's very obvious that there was an emergency going on. The alarm was sounding. I was the nurse in charge.

Why would you need a degree to be a nurse? I don't get it. I am not undermining their roles at all, I think they do a great job. However, since when has their job been to diagnose and treat major issues? Surely they are a facilitator of the course of treatment made by a doctor/ Consultant. It is also very much a caring role.

Surely it is a major barrier to having lots of nurses on the ground doing their job? Of course, some specialist nurses need more training and to go on courses, but why a degree?

A lot of people see anonymous forums as a cathartic way of really letting rip, stuff they wouldn't dream of saying in real life, inflating their concerns and anxieties and being really hell for metal. I definitely swear a lot more on here than RL. No NHS thread is going to go well on here because people talk about the one time that wasn't perfect, not the 9 times that they and their family's lives were saved. I would.not recommend any NHS staff reading online forums like this. You are amazing.

@fannyfan

Just highlighting how folk are totally ignorant of what it's actually like working in these kinds of environments.

Being unable to fathom how you could simultaneously be having to deal with a difficult relative and a cardiac arrest situation.

@MarchMolasses

You are undermining the role and are clearly completely ignorant of what it entails

There are loads of roles that provide care and don't need a degree if that's where your talent lies.

Do you want to scrap physio, ot and dietetic degrees too?

every sympathy with you OP.
I am also an advanced nurse practitioner. I would like to say to the person upthread who said the "lasses"
who went into nursing were academically incapable of doing anything else- many of us have studied at masters level and can prescribe independently oh and (mind blown ) there are also male nurses!!!
I stopped work this year as I just felt so worn out by lots of different things. Some was the endless amount of time spent on pointless mandatory training.
Some was dealing with staff shortages.
Some was dealing with difficult staff.- absenteeism, poor attitude etc.
Some was dealing with individuals patient and carers unrealistic/ unachievable expectations.
Some was the unachievable directions from managers who had no experience of working in an acute setting and honestly seemed to despise the staff.
Some was the literally hundreds of extra unpaid hours I worked to just try and keep the ball rolling.
As a team manager I was never really off duty or do it felt.
There definitely is waste for example people don't like what their gp has said so they go to ED for second opinions or to get a medication they feel has been denied them.This is extremely common.
I have been in houses where people have black bags full of medications dressings etc where they have kept being ordered prescribed delivered with no review.
I am very fortunate in that I have a lovely husband who said enough was enough so i was able to stop.
I fully intended to return as I still feel I have a lot to give but as the time goes by I just feel relieved to be able to have a choice.
it does make me feel very sad to hear the stories of frankly abusive staff. And I do think some places do have some harsh cultures.
I was so proud to be a nurse but towards the end last 5 -10 years people were qualifying as nurses and the really bright good ones were off to work abroad or had changed their minds about nursing as a career.
A lot of care is directly delivered by unqualified staff now and whilst some do a good job I just think the-expectations of them with out enough resource to adequately supervise and train them is a recipe for disaster.
So OP i'm
with you another one bites the dust!!!

Can you tell us what you do now? Nhs nurse here with a sense of dread anxiety before every shift. Not going to lie looking for a way out

I was a healthcare assistant in A&E. I start med school this week. Unfortunately wait times can be horrific even for people who really do need to be seen. They might not be at death's door or an immediate emergency, but they still need care.

That said, it is impossible for someone who is sitting in the waiting room to know that there are "loads of nurses" who aren't busy at all and "just twiddling their thumbs". Treatment isn't taking place in the waiting room and unless the person complaining can see through walls they don't know what's going on in the rest of the department. That's a perception born out of frustration, not reality. I used to dread walking through our waiting room because on really frenetic days all staff would become the target of angry shouting. All those patients could see was that they'd been waiting hours and so they thought we must be doing nothing. What they didn't see was the overflowing ambulance handover bay, the ambulances that were queuing outside, the resus patients, the fully occupied bays. On some days ambulances would be on divert because there wasn't a single bed available in the hospital, meaning no one who needed inpatient treatment could be admitted to the wards from A&E, meaning there was a traffic jam of patients waiting to be seen. But some patients in the waiting room will just assume that what they see is all there is. Staff do this too to an extent - I would sometimes catch myself feeling resentful towards colleagues on the surgical admissions ward when they were less than helpful to me, because I imagined them sitting around having this lovely peaceful existence while I was run ragged in ED. But unlike some of the patients, I was able to recognise that this was my stress talking, and it wasn't a fair judgement.

I think hospitals should employ carers as well as nurses.

When I was in hospital the nurses were lovely and did their jobs well, there just wasn't enough to go around to help everyone with everything e.g. I needed a shower but had severely limited mobility, I needed help. However this was during covid so I had no visitors there who could help me and the nurses didn't have time to spend 40 mins with just me, not when they had obs to do and medicine to dish out.

I didn't really need a qualified medical practitioner just someone who could hand me things in the shower, help me dress/put the gown back on, fetch me food and water, help me sit up and get in the wheelchair, change bedsheets, help people fill out forms, contact relatives etc. Basically stop things getting worse and stop it becoming a medical problem (eg dehydration or infection). Normally family members etc would do this stuff, but if they can't visit or you have no one then having general "carers" would help and ease the burden on nurses.

the GP told family to do a dosette box, they wouldn't sort one with the pharmacy.

Is there any reason why you can't do a dosette box for him? Pharmacies no longer get the same funding to do dosette boxes, so they cannot commit the manpower required for them so its reasonable for the GP to say this. Why can't we all take a bit more responsibility for our health and that of our families? The medication will come with instructions on when to take and how many, and the plastic boxes are a few quid. Surely once his medication is picked up one of you can spend a bit of time sorting it? Why should pharmacy staff do it for what will now be free and mean they have to stay late?

I think we no longer have a functional health care system. Health care staff are becoming burnt out and demoralised, the time it takes for ambulances to arrive on scene in emergencies, is well in excess of the seven minutes target; waiting times in A and E are (n average) hours; it can be difficult and complicated to get an appointment with a GP, and waiting times for routine tests can be weeks, month or years.
Currently, I am waiting for a diagnostic assessment which may confirm or rule out a serious illness. I have been waiting for four months and know people who have waited for nearly a year. I cannot ask for reasonable adjustments at work because I do not know for sure that I have the condition. I was told to call the police, rather then the mental health crisis team, if I was seriously concerned about my adult son's MH issues, because it was unlikely that the crisis team would be able to respond.

I will bring dentistry into the equation as well. In my locality, no dentists are taking NHS patients and because dental treatment can be expensive, I try to avoid it as much as possible.

So, patients can be rude and disgruntled. Some may have waited for weeks or months for treatment; some may have spent hours in A and E and some may have spent days trying to get an appointment. I should imagine when worried and frustrated patients meet overworked and frustrated staff, there may well be some negative reaction.

I had a really bad experience that has left me with PTSD however when I complained to PALS I did say it was the systems and processes not the staff. Most of the staff where lovely and a few were less desirable but that’s like any work place.

I don’t envy the staff but when people get emotional they tend to take it out on the people treating them which isn’t fair.