NHS in crises - the patient

[HospitalStayNHS]

I’m experiencing a very mixed bag of services this week due to being very ill and ending up in two a&e departments (I live in two areas) and being admitted in one.
I’m writing at 1.24am as the very full ward has an 84 yr old patient possibly suffering some form a dementia, obviously I am sympathetic but having suffered almost fatal sepsis (first a&e didn’t pick this up), I could do with some rest and she is constantly pressing her buzzer and yelling out. Could she not be moved to a private room?
The NHS is clearly in total crises. The service I’ve received from second hospital has been wonderful but 8hrs in recovery, due to lack of beds then onto this noisy ward won’t make anyone better.

MyKid,sAreTooNoisy, viperish comment coming up . You're alive aren't you!!!

It’s awful, OP. 20 years ago, I had a horrendous time after a caesarean because they didn’t have enough room and I was kept awake all night by nurses noisily trying to help other first time mums to breastfeed all night.

I was so desperate I considered discharging myself, but couldn’t as I still had tubes coming out of various parts of me and had no baby car seat, even if It’d managed to get myself out.

It is awful getting no sleep and I know it’s getting more and more common for wards to be filled with geriatric patients who aren’t getting proper care. I hope you can get earplugs and sleeping tablets. I know those have helped me in hospital. And you will probably feel much better very quickly when you do get some sleep.

Hope you feel better soon.

My mum was recently in hospital for a perforated gallbladder, she's 84, disabled with rheumatoid arthritis and was on a ward with people who were alcoholics with liver issues who were noisy and aggressive. One even slept on the floor beside her bed. She was terrified. A lovely lady in the opposite bed sadly died while a patient was shouting and swearing constantly, it was hellish.
The staff did what they could, but too few of them and too many patients.

My poor mum has vowed never to go into hospital again, I can't say I blame her.

This if she has dementia she's likely to be a fall risk so not suitable for a single room. Even if they could move her the chances are she will be replaced by someone else who is loud/shouting. It is in crisis and part of the problem/the main problem is that a significant number of such elderly patients need nursing home care rather than be in a hospital. Yes, there will be some who have a medical issue going on and need to be in a hospital but there aren't dementia wards. Even on a geriatric ward not everyone has dementia so the non dementia patients will be affected. Noise cancelling headphones are needed for hospital stays sadly.

I have family that are all NHS workers - one is coming up to retirement and cant wait to get away. He's always been proud to work for them - now he's ashamed - it's a shambles. The other two are thinking of going to better paid jobs at Aldi, also after many, many years working there. All they ever see is crisis management. After a serious incident at one of the hospitals recently, a meeting was held to discuss - not the possible consequences, and how/why did happen, but it musn't reflect badly on the hospital concerned. There is little care in huge parts of the nhs for the patients they serve.

Wrong - they do have dementia training. Obviously, if they specialise in dementia care, this is more in-depth, but this is part of general training

That was going to be my question - everyone I have seen with sepsis is not capable of very much at all!

Dear god, where do you get such ideas from?
One of the most ridiculous postings ever.

It's very common sadly to be near an elderly person in distress. The private rooms will be allocated to people with serious infections, or sometimes people with the police with them.
Definitely order some decent ear plugs. It's horrible, I know. You could ask for some sleeping meds if that might help?

Not just dementia, delirium is a common problem in hospital patients particularly when they are older.

At every hospital I’ve ever worked in,
private rooms have been for patients with infectious symptoms like diarrhoea, those with known multi-resistant organisms on their skin, or patients who are palliated and have their family with them.

It was not viperish - maybe poster has cared for patients with sepsis who are unable to post thoughts on the NHS...
Poster wasn't the only one to think this - and it is not viperish to ask a genuine question

Even patients with septic shock requiring ICU admission can turn around very quickly with appropriate antibiotics.

Monstersunderthesea, ignorant.

Hi, nurse here!
I have worked on an acute medical ward for the last 10 years.

I understand that patients with dementia can be loud and disruptive, however to isolate them due to dementia would not be fair on them either. Generally if someone so disorientated and shouting out they need to be in an observable bay. Obviously this disrupts other patients but we unfortunately have to prioritise safety over comfort at times - this being one of them.

Side rooms are a rare gem. I work on a ward with isolation and we have a lot of single rooms however these are always full or people needing isolation for infection reasons - or those on chemotherapy who need protecting from other patients.

We do also have dementia training - it's standard and everyone receives it. You can then go on to do more in depth dementia training. However, to implement some of the things to benefit a patient with dementia we would need more staff than we have.

There are currently too many managers in hospitals being paid a lot of money to make decisions, which means the ward staff don't have the budget to employ hands on people.

I think hospitals should not been seen as a place to relax and rest. They are a place to be medically treated, then you get discharged home to rest and recover.

Hope some of this helps explain things

I think you should turn things round and express gratitude that you live in a country where you have been provided with medical care that has saved your life, not dependent on your ability to pay.

I don't think this is a failure of the NHS, just the reality of healthcare.

I'm in Sweden and was recently in hospital. We don't have open wards like I experienced in the UK. It's all rooms off a corridor with capacity for 2 beds. The staffing level was excellent. But there was a lady with dementia, on her own, in a room further down the corridor. She still managed to keep the entire ward awake throughout the night. Staff were constantly responding to her and closing doors to all the other rooms to try and keep the noise out. But she was so loud.

I was so tired and in so much pain, but all I could do was sympathise as she was in a similar situation but was obviously very, very frightened.

@Womblingmerrily I am grateful for the care I have and continue to receive.

This enables me to write on MN from my bed with canulas full of IV targeted AB going into my arms.

Those who think this would be impossible are being ignorant.

I agree with PP that the money in the NHS goes on overpaid managers protecting their Trusts and shareholders, and patient care is further down the priority list.

If I had buckets of money to go private firstly I wouldn’t be in this position as it would have been caught earlier and secondly the hospital environment would be a quieter more restful place.

My DM died recently. Her last few hours were her screaming in pain on a ward as there was no available side room.

On the ward were several awake patients in bed with visitors and one lady perched on the end of her bed waiting for her discharge medication. We pulled the curtain, but I could see their discomfort- like they were intruding, while I did what I could to get her moved. Those were her last moments of consciousness and I feel really frightened for any other family members that need to igo in. I’ve had several close family die and can see a big change in the NHS in the ten years since previous family members went into hospital .

Our hospital does have dementia wards as well as geriatric wards (I work on complex geriatric).

However if the main reason the dementia patient is in is due to another medical reason - surgery/cardiac/renal then they need to be on that specialist unit.

We have a lot of patients that are medically optimised for discharge, it can be a long wait for a suitable placement. Social care is broken tbh, more so than the NHS IMO. And a long wait for care results in a long wait for inpatient beds on wards that are more suited to dementia/delirium etc. Fixing social care would go a long way towards sorting the NHS.

Speak to the nurse in charge, put white noise/radio through earphones on a night and ask for your curtains to be kept closed.

Hope you feel better soon.

I often say to patients that hospital is the best place to be because you are ill, but it's also the worst place!

Seriously? In what way? I’m in bed immobile with very serious, life changing injuries and the woman in the bed opposite was very distressed, wondering what she was doing there, and every hour or so would get up, rip out her cannula and state she was off to find her (long dead) husband. It was only me witnessing this. It was me endlessly buzzing the nurses in the hope that someone would come and address the situation,

would the staff be allowed to leave such a patient alone in a ward? I would hope not. It was very distressing for both me and the elderly patient.

I wouldn’t call them vipers - they’re simply pointing out that you say that the NHS is in crisis yet in the same breath want them to magically find a private room for this woman. It makes no sense and is hypocritical

I’ve been the patient beside the upset, elderly, confused patient with dementia and it is awful, especially in terms of your rest & recovery but there’s nothing that you can do about it. Hospitals are just like that

It's bloody awful being stuck in a ward with someone like that. My grandad was next to a guy who had dementia and was really quite aggressive. I found him very scary indeed. If I'd been on a ward with someone like that guy I'd have been scared to go to sleep in case he attacked me. Surely this shouldn't be happening

Fortunately I had a better experience.

I was in an and e a few weeks ago and treated well. I did have to wait, but understood the stroke and heart patients around took priority.

I then had an op the next day and already have had follow up appointments arranged including physio.

So it can work and I was thankful for the service I got from ambulance onwards.

It sounds like you have received excellent life saving (and expensive) care which very few people in the world are privileged to receive!

Yet you are complaining it's not restful & relaxing & the lesser patients with dementia are allowed in.

Hospital treatment is there to save your life not for quiet rest & relaxation. You can do that when you get home.