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.

When I first started we did early, late, nights.

You could do a run of 10 nights in a row.

Be lates on to earlies

Completely inefficient in terms of continuity of care /hand over times too

There are limitations to 12 hour shifts but if there's a better solution without equal drawbacks then I'd love to hear it.

(Especially given the current recruitment and retention crisis)

12.5 shifts or longer have been the norm in every healthcare setting I've worked in. 12.5 hours in the NHS, incorporating thirty minutes' unpaid break. 13.5 hours in an NHS-commissioned private mental health care provider, incorporating one hour's unpaid break. 14 hours with a major learning disability charity, supposedly incorporating one hour's unpaid break (a break no one ever took because doing so would have involved leaving vulnerable residents with inadequate support). I wonder if people with no experience of healthcare generally believe that we do eight-hour days?

12 hour shifts are better there's less handovers so things don't get missed and less rotation of shifts . The old early / late / night system was awful. You also get more days off I don't want to go back to early/Lates

You can’t have been ‘dying’ because here you are posting ( unless you are a revenant).

I am only too aware of the stress of being a patient, and the even worse stress of being the close relative/ responsible next of kin for someone who is seriously ill , but a little courtesy and consideration towards the staff goes a long way to making the wheels go round more smoothly - or so I have found.

Frankly, the way that some ‘im’patients speak to stuff at all levels makes me surprised that there is anyone left in the Health Service.

I only had one child becuase of the awful cafe I received while giving birth and the complications becuase of it.

I've lost any faith in the NHS over the years due to numerous experiences in different hospitals where staff where just sat about on wards doing little all day and night apart from being rude to patients. I sat with my dying father day in, day out and watched them chattering away for hours at the nurses station then sighing heavily if anybody dared interrupt them. Im always bemused to see nurses here saying they don't have time to go to the bathroom as certainly not what I have witnessed in my own experience and that's all I have to go on.

My DH is on blood thinners, during his ten hour stint in A&E he was under observation because of this. he had a fractured rib with tissue damage after a fall on bus, the driver went too fast on a bend causing him to fall into the aisle, he fell onto a raised plinth. Blood was also showing in his urine. The blood thinners are a factor in blood loss after an injury. They wouldn’t let him go until they were sure there was no internal bleeding.

Places that deliver good customer service don't need signs saying please don't abuse staff etc. Usually places that rely on Computer Says No and people who can't be fucked to go even 0.01% off the one size fits none approach in order to make it fit have these signs and they are almost all public services. People are used to a much higher level of service from everything now but with healthcare they are often over a barrel.

Maybe GPs and more specifically the GP nurses need to read my sign saying 'don't give out incorrect advice, don't talk to the patient as if they are their medical condition and don't make throwaway disparaging comments to people raising genuine concerns because they don't affect you the same way'. I have quite severe PTSD and phobias regarding accessing healthcare and it is all because of poor treatment, lies and comments made by healthcare staff.

Or more simply treat people how you'd want your child to be treated.

You can tell a lot about a person and organisation with how they deal with when they've made a mistake, and the NHS is shockingly shite at it.

@lampygirl

That kind of reads like you think nhs staff deserve abuse?

I'm great at my job. I routinely go above and beyond.

That has not stopped me routinely being physically and verbally abused by relatives and pts.

I don’t get this. The NHS just needs more funding and it’s failing because it doesn’t have enough funding. The tories have deliberately not given it sufficient finding so that it will fail and people will be desperate for private health care. That was always the plan so why is everyone squabbling amongst themselves about individual issues?

I know there are staffing issues but if there was more funding these would improve. They don’t pay student nurses anymore so there isn’t much incentive to train. The staff shortages due to Brexit will still exist but privatisation won’t affect that.

All that said, I think a small charge to see a GP would maybe be appropriate to prevent time wasters. Why are we all sleepwalking into an American system?

That last paragraph contradicts itself I know.

I don’t think it does. There’s a massive gap between ‘free at the point of delivery’ and ‘fully private healthcare’ with lots of sensible stops along the way.

@itsonthestairs I'm sorry you feel this way, my mum passed away last week, she was in A&E for two days as no beds for her. The A&E staff were amazing, she was extremely poorly and they did their very best for her. Same on the acute medical ward, the staff were so so lovely despite being run ragged. I was with her on my own when she passed, I was a hysterical mess, those nurses comforted me, made me tea and they spent what little time they had with me. The NHS is in crisis but anyone who thinks it's your or the staffs fault are so so wrong. Here's some for you x

Personally, I have had excellent care over the last 12 months during breast cancer diagnosis and treatment: so surgery, radiotherapy, oncology and an immune reaction that had me in dermatology twice a week. And every nurse and doctor was kind, patient and efficient. The NHS at it's best can do this. It was as good as French healthcare. However, all the negative posts here suggest that my experience is too rare.

For that reason, I am in favour of adopting something similar to the social-mutual employer-employee insurance model used in France, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands and Israel. The state funds the very poor and children are covered via the state or their parents' entitlement. Age and pre-existing conditions are not considered grounds for an insurer to decline any patient. So there is more money to pay for what's needed, but also a wider range of patient choices -- including the freedom to self-refer to a private physio or dermatologist or for an MRI scan without needing a GP to be involved.

As I can afford it, I also think I should pay an element of the cost of my treatment to kickstart the process.

However, all the negative posts here suggest that my experience is too rare.

I'm not sure that follows.

People are far more likely to remember and discuss negative experiences than positive or even neutral ones.

That doesn't mean negative ones are more common

@lampygirl nice to see that you think nhs staff are deserving of abuse.

It’s such a mixed bag.., fantastic at times and honestly murderous in its negligence at other times. I think medicine attracts really caring people and also psychopaths who enjoy the power. I’ve seen both on wards. Thankfully you get more caring ones.

While you were "dying in their care"? Well good job the staff did their jobs properly then and you didn't die. Or did they just leave you there to die while "feeding cops sandwiches" and "twidling their thumbs" and you are actually communicating from beyond the grave?

And maternity care - personally I received wonderful, person centred care from my midwives. Emergency care - I've only had to use it once in my life with my mother, fairly recently and again, exceptional care.

@Topgub I don’t think they deserve abuse in that nobody should be abusing anyone because it’s ultimately a human being, but believe me I can see why some people with less restraint can become ‘abusive’, shouty, obstructive etc. Treating people better would do more to solve abusive patients than putting a sign up and hiding behind a Perspex shield. I’ve had to leave GP’s surgeries without care before getting angry because I’ve had specific instructions and letters to see specific members of staff there and them just saying that they don’t do that go back to the other service, then this in reverse at the other end, like a ping pong ball but at the cost to my time, parking charges, fuel and annual leave. The difference is as a reasonable human I could recognise this was going to make me angry and leave, but if I was scared and in pain, and desperate for someone to see me would I deal outwardly so reasonably despite being inwardly fuming? I don’t know. Also with most things in the NHS the squeaky wheel gets seen first so you have to make a bit of a nuisance of yourself. Then you are on a very fine tightrope!

@lampygirl

You think reasonable humans react with abuse if they're angry at an inconvenience?

Or that staff doing their jobs should prevent every possible upset and inconvenience or otherwise face abuse?

@XingMing We may not agree on Cornwall but couldn’t agree more on healthcare.

@ItsJustLittleOlMe I agree with you. On the 'just privatise the nhs' thread that poster says the reason she was in a&e was because she had an abscess on her genitals

How were you “tortured” ?

@Badgirlriri on the 17th august she posted this

• just spent 13h in A&E in incredible pain (abscess on my privates ). I was made to sit on a hard plastic chair for the duration (sitting on my infection! ), no pain-relief offered, no triage (I could have been in the throes of sepsis for all they know). I finally collapsed from the shock of pain (I attempted a walk to the loo). At that point I dialled 999 for an ambulance (from the waiting room of ASE!!) I was preparing to call the police too, as the rules in custody compel the officers to provide a doctor within an hour to sick inmates. Anyway, after me getting on the phone the most immediate needs got catered for straight away : the morphine appeared (I asked for Ibuprofen before but didn't even get any) , offers of a hot drink and even a side-room with a mini sofa for me to able NOT to sit on my injury. All the things the department had the ability to provide but chose not to for 13 hours!! The people at the nurse's station barely deserve to be called people. They're some humanoid-creatures devoid of empathy and care. It's not funding that denied me a reading of oxygen/blood pressure/ temperature and a few pills of Ibuprofen. It's the human factor in the NHS. In the time it took them to stand there cracking jokes, doing Corona-tests on all and sundry, clicking their necks and knuckles, they could have given me some pain-relief as I asked for (already in tears)*

It's on the just privatise the nhs thread I'm not a stalker

Almost all the nurses and midwives and NHS staff I've come into contact with are fabulous - doing a demanding job on rubbish pay in an under-resourced department.

There have been one or two over the years that have been less than wonderful, but everyone has less than wonderful days.

The NHS won't be improved by privatisation, far from it. Hasn't anyone learned from the privatisation of energy, water, rail...
All that will happen is that the private company will take a profit margin and cut the expenditure even further in order to increase profit margins for its shareholders.