Should I complain about this nurse

[AprilF00L]

or just let it go?

My very vulnerable, very elderly neighbour fell in his house recently and was treated in his home by paramedics.

Today as I was rushing out to an appointment a district nurse approached me and said that she was there to visit my neighbour but he wasn't in/ This really alarmed me due to his vulnerabilities and physical state. I asked if she'd looked in all the rooms and she said she had. I got her phone number to contact her after my appt.

On my return an hour later I came across her again. She told me that she had returned to see if my neighbour had returned home.

He'd never been out. He was sleeping in bed. She lied. She hadn't looked in every room. He could have been dead for all she knew.7

I'm so annoyed at her lying. So unprofessional. AIBU to report her.

Definitely report this! Not to say if she did something wrong or not but just so that what happened is logged to avoid anything similar happening in future.

It could have been totally innocent but it's a pretty major safeguarding concern when someone vulnerable might not get the care they need because someone didn't do a thorough check to make sure they were in.

Carers will have the key box number a district nurse probably not.
She must have been concerned if she approached you and she came back, I don't understand your issue with the actions taken by the district nurse.

Flipping heck yes! I'd definitely be asking questions.

Who are all these people saying it's none of your business?
I hope they never find themselves in the same vulnerable position of needing help.

You don't have to 'report' anyone but you definitely need to highlight the fact that more could have / can be done - there are so many weaknesses in a system where people are vulnerable and don't have relatives to step in and help.

We do the same for an elderly neighbour who has no family - they're not going to get the help and support they need if we don't speak up for them. Of course it's our business! - it's called caring.

Nurses / doctors / the NHS can apparently do no wrong in MN's eyes ............ but we know that's not always true in real life.

Well done @AprilF00L for caring about your neighbour - I'm of the generation where we do keep an eye on the people in our street / neighbourhood. Surely it's a good thing?

• but today it seems to be construed as 'interfering' ...................

So keep interfering! (but maybe not in a 'reporting' way, but more in a querying way?)

@DBD1975 a district nurse should have the key code - it's a major failure of the system if they don't
.................. as highlighted by @AprilF00L

But nobody’s saying that she shouldn’t care- it was actually a pretty notable drip-feed that OP had been so involved, patient confidentiality is a thing so the nurse would have absolutely been in the wrong if she had discussed her patient with someone that presumably she doesn’t know. And if OP had been so involved, does she not have the key safe number? Could she not have checked if it was so shocking to hear he wasn’t seen in the house?
The nurse didn’t really do anything wrong, she went back to the house. That’s a pretty major detail that some posters seem determined to ignore.

As someone who does home visits...we don't always get the key safe number, we have other patients and it's highly likely she had to see another patient within a time frame possibly meeting up with another health professional. She would have phoned in to notify she couldn't get access and probably advised to see next patient and return whilst someone is trying next of kin to get the key safe number.

I mean she has attended the appointment so obviously intended to carry out her duties. Despite having a key safe many patients who have district nurses come out do still go out in the community.

DNs are almost always lone workers, exploring someones home that you are not familiar with can put you in a very vulnerable and awkward position. Not all patients will be happy with you doing that, despite having a key safe. She has made effort to locate the patient but either not found the bedroom or perhaps felt uncomfortable to keep looking around for whatever reason.

sounds like she lied

Personally, I would approach this District Nurse myself if I saw her again and inform her that you had concerns regarding why she told you she checked every room when indeed she hadn’t and had just shouted up the stairs.

Whatever, the truth is on this occasion the nurse reflected and came back so if she was caught out in a lie by you she did at least come back to ensure her duty of care to her patient was fulfilled. This at least shows she put the patient care first in the end.

You are not wrong in how you are feeling, and if this ever happened again challenge the nurse more or any HCW more at the time and gauge if their reaction to your valid questioning warrants a formal complaint.

You sound like a lovely neighbor.

I'm also concerned now about this bed bound man living upstairs in a townhouse. If he's so unwell he is bed bound, and didn't hear the nurse enter his property and call out should he be at home?
How is he managing continence care, activities daily living, such as shopping, cooking laundry?!
Maybe the nurse herself will be raising an adult concern?...

Sometimes the person will have a key code and yes they will let themselves in. Carers also will do this

I used to be a home carer and one of my service users was basically stuck in her small upstairs bedroom with a commode and a small fridge. They were unable to fit a stairs lift and she was waiting for an actual lift to be installed. I looked after her for a year and it hadn't happened. She did have a dh who refused to do anything for her citing a bad knee - he had his bedroom downstairs. He insisted all carers and nurses used the keysafe. When he went into hospital for a knee replacement social services decided she could remain at home as they had a ds who spent the night.

I was being facetious!

The Op is clearly nonsense .
He's barely able to make it to the door yet had gone to bed in his townhouse upstairs.

All this neighbourly concern yet you knew him not being there was unlikely yet went around your day without making effort to check on him yourself?

But you carried on to your own appointment despite your neighbour being potentially “missing” and now want to report the nurse. Weird.

This is not true, as a community health care worker we often do not know there is a keysafe until we get to the door, different agencies use different systems to record this information and it is not always passed on, so often we have to go and make calls to get the number in order to make a return visit

Why would the nurse create extra work by driving away and coming back less than an hour later to do the job? They are so time pressed, this doesn’t make sense.

If you were that worried you would have checked there and then

How do you know she has access to the property or the key safe

She clearly cared as she was there an hour later when you came back so i personally think you are been out of order

the op had an appointment herself

What time of day was this?
From your description of this neighbour's disabilities, does he have carers coming in the morning to get him ready? If so, why on earth was he still upstairs in bed?

Of course I know some nurses are neglectful, but I don’t think this nurse appears neglectful. It’s much more hassle to dodge a visit with the resultant paperwork etc than it is to complete the visit. She came back, she saw the patient and he was fine. And actually, it doesn’t even sound like she left particularly quickly- he was in his bed, fair enough, he doesn’t need to get up and he’s old and probably pretty fatigued a lot of the time. It might even be that the key safe is only there in the event of a fall, and he prefers to answer the door himself most of the time- frail people can have autonomy to make these decisions. To me practically bed bound means “in bed apart from short periods sitting in a chair”, not “takes 5 mins to answer a door”.
I suppose I’m a bit flummoxed why you’re so convinced she’s neglectful when she completed the job and the patient was unharmed. District nursing is quite a difficult and isolated job, you have to juggle so many different priorities, usually with no one to discuss it with. It was the hardest area of nursing I’ve ever worked in, pound for pound.

Only if they’ve been given it - when a key safe is installed the number isn’t given to every man and his dog. There used to be no joined up computer/notes system between key safe installers/family/care agencies/social work/emergency services

I’ve know paramedics call police to gain entry as no one including the patients knows the key safe numbers

District nurses don’t have access to medical records - they’re often not even based in a surgery to go and ask someone to access them. District nurses have a totally separate notes/care system

the only way they’d have a key safe number is if they actually been given it

Not protective enough that you went off to your appointment without checking yourself

.