Unqualified NHS staff

A 1st year student nurse would never be expected to care 1.1 in ITU.

@GiggleWhale

Yes I know.

This is the ongoing debate on the ward….

The Band 5/6’s say they shouldn’t be held accountable as they have nothing to do with the Band 4 or her patients so if the Band 4 does something wrong why is it another member of staff’s fault?

It’s a really difficult issue on our ward.

Some of the Band 4’s say they don’t feel it’s right they have their own patients with no nurse overseeing them and that they don’t want to write in patient’s notes without it being read and countersigned by a nurse, but as far as our Training and Development Team are concerned, Band 4s do not need overseeing by Band 5’s and they are responsible for their own patient’s care.

Yes they do in every trust I’ve worked in HCAs do all of this and more and often very well. You do not need to be a doctor or nurse to insert a cannula take blood even gases or do an ECG. You do need proper training not a see one do one teach one type training.

As a student nurse in the 80s (in hospitals) we were allocated patients every shift, basically we were a huge part of the nursing workforce. When I look back, it was far too much responsibility too soon, we were thrown in at the deep end. However, we were very experienced and competent by the end of training. Since students became supernumerary it was frustrating for them and us in terms of what they could do. I work in the community and often students are allocated with little to do apart from shadowing. This can be a 6-8 week placement. When I’ve asked why they can’t be allocated to hospitals I’ve been told there aren’t enough mentors and there is now more emphasis on primary care. The introduction of the digital age, whilst necessary, means that there is far too much computer admin for nurses. I’ve also witnessed nurses sitting at the nurses station whilst my Dad was in desperate need of attention. It’s all very frustrating. I actually dread getting ill and needing hospital care.

I work as a band 3 hca linked to a&e and do cannulation, take bloods, do ecg's as part of my role. I had to take extra training to learn and be deemed competent through assessments.

How very sad and very little knowledge of the health system you clearly have! Many can prescribe and support many doctors. My mum had an IV infusion prescribed by a junior doctor which was wrongly prescribed and it was a nurse who spotted it not the junior doctor or the SHO!
A GP failed my family member by continuing to prescribe high dose blood pressure medication despite the fact he was going dizzy on standing. Again it was a nurse who spotted this and took the time to investigate!
I wonder whether you will be refusing morphine to be administered when you come to need it for pain relief or end of life care. A doctor won't be giving it to you!

An HCA is basically a nurse anyway, the actual nurses just do the slightly more complicated things. I think nurse apprenticeships are fab and hope more places continue to support them.

Nurses or doctors.

And before anyone asks why, it's because of bitter experience.

The only way I'm going near a hospital again is if I'm unconscious.

I think perhaps we should consider some of the terms frequently mentioned here. 'Qualified' doesn't necessarily mean 'trained' and 'trained' doesn't necessarily mean experienced. If I was unwell/required treatment I would take the most experienced person available to me.

Healthcare has such an incredible variety of specialties that it is impossible to be an expert in all. But it is possible to train somebody who can then become experienced at particular procedures and the pay grade should reflect that.

Band 4's are becoming the old band 5 in my trust. It is simply an erosion of the pay grade.

Most Nurses are incompetent? Bit of a generalised statement for the 700000 nurses working in the UK unless of course you have been nursed by most of them.

Well said @FreakOfNature

HCAs really are not. Not to take away from the wonderful jobs many HCAs do but they are not the same thing.

@FreakOfNature This is so true. I am currently applying for a new nursing post where they are advertising for 15 RNs at grade 7 & 8 (a brand new service being rolled out by NHS England). Whilst bums on seats may well be adequate in many roles for a niche role it is experience that counts.

My mum was a nurse for her whole career, and towards the end (also NW) they were so short staffed they were taking her from her ward (surgical) that she'd been in her whole career, and putting her in other, specialist wards, sometimes even placing her in charge, with patients she hadn't had experience with since her training 40 years previously. She was only band 5 through choice as she neither liked nor wanted the extra responsibility (though she had been a sister in a previous role). Not safe, and not fair. That is entirely why she left.

You’re back are you? With another variation of my username?

Do you mean they don't hold a nursing degree? Because they may have a degree and other qualifications.....

Also to be a HCA there is training involved and most apprenticeships for this role is at A level studying its quite intense with all the assignments that have to be done alongside working full time on the wards. You also need a maths qual and English too... tests are involved it's a lengthy process tbh

I came out permanently injured the last time.

Not to mention the psychological damage.

The Band 4 role should never have been invented.... they have been sold a false sense of hierarchy but in actual fact they have done a deserving to the HCA (band 3) and the band 5. Too many cooks and all that.......

Year 1 student nurses being expected to look after ITU patie

When I was having daily IV infusions I attended a day unit each day for a week. . First thing in the morning the IV technician would go round siting everybody's cannula. That person wasn't a nurse, but expert at what they did. The nurses dealt with checking the drugs etc. I think there are many practical tasks that can be done by people who are not nurses. The challenge is with who decides which tasks and whether they have the knowledge to make those decisions.
At the moment I think it is too muddled and there are situations where unqualified staff being asked to do things they are not qualified to do.
The most unsafe person is the one who doesn't know what they don't know, gives advice they are not informed enough to give, doesn't report things that they don't realise are important. There is a lot of that in the NHS atm because of staff shortages.

Whoops posted before I'd finished. Year 1 student nurses being expected to look after ITU patients independently? I've never heard anything so ridiculous! As an ITU nurse I can tell you that 1st years aren't even allowed placements on ITU in my trust.

@Xenoobitch I’m sorry that you have had a bad experience. Please don’t judge us all by the actions of a few though.

They are ,my friend did her nursing associate course which is two years of training ,these are essentially a similar role to the enrolled nurse that they phased out 20+ years ago
Enrolled nurses still did training they just l didn't have the same level of responsibility as registered nurse, s similar to nurse associate, s/ registered nurse