To think this nurse was unprofessional?

[ThisCoolOP]

So I went for an appointment at my GP surgery to try and verify the accuracy of two home blood pressure monitors we have in our house. The two monitors give virtually identical readings to each other for everyone in our family - but for my sister one reads 10 - 15 points lower than the other on thr systolic number.

During the appointment, my sister attempted to explain the situation and that she wanted to compare both machines against a manual reading. The nurse immediately told her to "just bin" one of the machines without any attempt to even compare it

The nurse then proceeded to only check one of the machines (the one that reads lower). When the machine displayed a reading of 150/100, she then performed a "manual check" and literally immediately stated "yeah 150/100". Might be just me, but this rapid confirmation seems like the nurse was simply just re-stating the reading she had seen on the machines screen (literally told me her reading was the exact same number) rather than conducting a genuine, independent manual verification. Her pre-judgement of which machine was correct was evident from the beginning, as she refused to consider checking the second machine, despite my clear explanation of the discrepancy of both machines for me, but identical readings for the rest of the family

As a result, I was left in the exact same position I was in before the appointment. I actually suffer from anxiety and came back in tears at how sharp and unhelpful she had been, and because it seemed she had made her mind up there and then she was only checking one machine and that was the correct one (despite them giving the same readings for everyone else), i don't trust what she told me at all

I take blood pressure medication and I've been told more than once by staff at my GP surgery to 'just go to the pharmacy and have it done'.
Fair enough, l thought.

But when l tried to book an pharmacy appointment on the NHS website, it states very clearly that 'You cannot get a free blood pressure check if you
a) already have high blood pressure
or
b) have had your blood pressure checked by a healthcare professional in the past 6 months.

When l brought that up at my GP surgery, no one was aware of it.
I actually saved a screenshot of it on my phone for the next time l was told to go to the pharmacy, and produced it next time l was told that.
Since then l've shown it to three healthcare professionals at the surgery, and they all said "Oh.... I didn't know that...."

To be honest it would make life easier if you could have it done at the pharmacy, rather than making an appointment at the surgery.

Do you not know what a pharmacy is?

Sorry to say : but this is a very good example of patients becoming harder work ...

They face face the appointment to check the BP, tell you what it wax’s in their machine and confirm to you if it was high or not. That’s their job.

you could’ve then gone home and compared that on your two machines, then decided which was most accurate and only used that one.

You didn’t, you tried to make a nurse make that decision.

Ridiculous

But the machines you own are not nhs machines given to you. You must bought them so if they don't work etc you need to bin them or return as faulty but not expect nhs to check and compare them for you!!

Unconspicable of me? Would unconspicable not be phoning up the surgery and clogging the lines for people who need same day or urgent appointments???
Using the online portal to explain the issue with one machine giving very high readings and the other low, was hardly unconspicable! Didn't ask for an appointment! It was someone from the surgery who traiged and gave the appointment! If it was so unconspicable they would not have given the appointment

Again...............
Patients becoming harder work? We weren't phoning up clogging phonelines to try and get a same day appointment or anything like that!

If you get stressed your rate can go far higher

If you do some breathing and relax it can go lower

If all of you get similar rates and your sister is that far off she is doing one of the above.

If you only had one monitor - would you test it twice - in quick succession?

I don’t understand why you bothered the GP at all to be honest, online or otherwise.

They’re not your personal tech support & you had other ways to sort this out.

You also don’t believe what they said anyway, so you really have just wasted time!

When they gave you the appointment, I imagine they were expecting that the nurse would take your / your sister's blood pressure and check whether it's ok, to take away all confusion about two monitors. They weren't expecting to check the monitors - that's not the nurse's job.

You obviously don't understand whitecoat hypertension then? The nurse could have told me it was 150/100. But to know which machine is correct you'd have to compare both there and then

In a more relaxed environment at home, it wont be the same as the nurse got so you can't compare home readings against 1 reading in the surgery, they have to be taken at the same time to compare

@ThisCoolOP I’m really surprised at the grief you’re getting.

Our GP’s frequently book patients in with us and leave a booking note saying to take measurements with home bp monitor and manual reading.

It is a PITA tbh, just because of the level of faff, and it’s even more of a PITA when the patients take it upon themselves to bring theirs monitor AND two weeks of a.m & p.m readings for us to review/compare.

HOWEVER, if it’s good enough for actual Drs to want us to do, I don’t understand nurses, and random joe blogs with no medical qualifications, on here saying you wasted that nurses time.

It really isn't the job of a nurse to check if your home blood machines are working properly. Buy a new one and stop wasting folks time,

Actually not correct, the appointment was triaged and I was told to bring both machines in by the lady who triaged!

That’s actually an incorrect (though commonly used) technique. I’m a clinical educator and teach staff and students how to correctly take a manual BP. Most people including my gp last time he took it manually do it wrong.

Are those insisting that calibrating BP machines isn't the nurse's job health care professionals? Because our GP surgery offers the exact service the OP is describing to enable more patients to do home heart care and (AFAIK) get more accurate readings due to the flexibility of taking them yourself.

I could understand it it was a case of saying they were only allowed to do one machine per appt or similar, but if they offered to test a machine why not test two - there are plenty of reasons having two could be necessary (two homes, one upstairs one downstairs for eg) so it seems mad to insist that the same one is always used for the sake of a 2.minute check that the OP had been offered for exactly that purpose.

And to those claiming they cannot imagine a situation where someone needs a relative/carer with them for medical appointments, you are coming across as either quite cruel or quite naive.

Yes I do

Did the nurse take yours/your sister’s blood pressure on the machine in the surgery? If so if it was the same or very similar to one of your own that you use indoors then that one is accurate. You can discard the other one. Or have I completely missed something?

OP the white coat bit is home vs practice readings, not home vs practice machine. If the machine she checked in clinic correlated with hers then it is fine to use that one. Ditch the other one. The difference between home and clinic readings is taken into account when interpreting the results.

What the hell does that have to do with you?

I hear you, OP. Blood pressure is a strange and imprecise science.

I have to have mine read manually. Several doctors have noted that electronic readings tend to be inaccurate for me. This was first observed in pregnancy (manual readings are supposed to be done in pregnancy - not electronic), but it has been the same since. The difference can be up to thirty points on both systolic and diastolic, the electronic readings being higher. Nobody is quite clear why.

Luckily my practice nurse is more patient than yours. She always does a manual reading for me. I have been told time and again that manual readings are more accurate - there are a lot of variables with the machines. But they are quicker, easier, and ultimately cheaper.

Perhaps something like this is going on with your sister. Or you, whichever it is!

The machines are both correct! Do you not understand how blood pressure works??? Your bp will be different 5 mins later and the more you take it the more stressed you get and the higher your bp will be

If they are reading correctly for everyone else it might just be that your SIL suffers from anxiety around her BP and as soon as her BP has been taken there is an increase which the other machine records. There is something called white coat syndrome and hat this means is that for some people as soon as they find themselves in the GPs or their BP is taken it automatically rises.

Hey, they don't use automatic machines in our surgery. They use manual

What a waste of NHS time, you are being VERY unreasonable