Student nurse using phone during procedure

[MikeRafone]

On a children’s ward

curtains closed and nurses is taken blood from child, student nurse is standing behind nurse but further down the bed. Student gets phone out and not sure what she is doing - she then sees me looking and quickly puts it away. The phone being out was certainly not to do with the patient

im comforting child during the blood being taken

are nurses allowed phones out whilst working and working around children?

not sure m if there are rules,

thats the phone of the average person, not a phone used as a medical device on a ward where it will be alcohol wiped frequently.

even if there is bacteria on it a nurse should decontaminate her hands before and after patient contact so there would be no risk to the patient because the nurses hands would be clean.

That's not what the nurse said on here. She said there's no protocols and the phones 'live in our pockets' and I assume it's just their normal phone too.

I can’t remember the last time I saw a paper copy of the BNF. The app is on my phone.

Children have been abused and photographed by workers . That is why mobiles are not permitted in any job I have ever worked in whilst I am directly working with that child. It protects the child AND the worker. Are you that stupid ?

God aren't you clever. Well, look it up later when the child isn't there.

I don’t think anyone is stupid. They’re just saying this rule is not universal. I’ve worked on children’s wards and in maternity and never come across this rule.

Not talking about the infection risk.

It’s still protocol to decontaminate hands before and after patient contact. That’s the most basic principle of infection control.

The harm: that the student nurse is there to learn, and if they're looking at their phone not at what the qualified nurse is doing with the patient, they aren't paying attention and learning properly?

It's not that it affects the child having their blood taken right then. It's that this nurse could then be not clear enough on that procedure when they have to perform it in future on another child. That's why they shouldn't be looking at their phone.

Oh bore off.

Why the fuck would I be looking in the bnf at a patient’s bedside.

Every enquiry into poor children's and maternity services says, poor communication, lack of communication, lack of attention, the focus not being on the patient, not properly listening to the patient/carers, not properly listening to each staff member, has contributed to the poor care and even deaths. I wouldn't say "never coming across a rule" means best practice has been followed. It's why we have awards, best infection control etc within hospitals, to hope other wards/departments/hospital trusts follow. Our death and disability rate within children and maternity care, because of hospital neglect should be shocking to us all. Except for work reasons, we've got to cut phone use. It's having a massive effect on all of us.

So many assumptions on this thread. It’s a good job a lot of posters don’t work in law.

You don’t know what they were looking at on their phone, so it’s impossible to say whether or not it was relevant. It may have been medical, it may have been an emergency.

As far as l know, nobody for certain knows this particular hospital rules about phones either.

What on earth are you on about ? OP is concerned as a student nurse was accessing her phone in front of the patient(her DS)? You sound so entitled and I am concerned you actually have access to patient's at all.

It was a boring old Blood Test, that both of them will have done dozens of times. She wasn’t actually involved in doing it, so not sure of the issues.

Student Nurses, getting themselves into debt, for the honour of crappy hours, crappy pay, and distressing situations … but let’s get one in trouble for checking a phone.

I completely agree that apart from work reasons phone use shouldn’t be happening. However the points I’d being replying to were saying that even for work purposes such as taking observations work phones shouldn’t be used.

People saying that staff need to disregard work provided devices and use paper BNFs and write on scraps of paper because of a safeguarding risk. Whereas actually for best care and outcomes we need to use the devices provided.

And if you bothered to read any of my previous replies you would see that I would not tolerate a student being on their phone at a patients bedside. However we don’t know that’s what she was doing as we also have hand held devices that we use to record observations, look at patient's charts, count resp rates etc. She could have been doing that, we won’t know as the OP has said she isn’t going to say anything. And it’s not her child. But I think you actually have no idea what you’re talking about.

Exactly. The nurse had her back to her, and the student was some distance away. Whatever procedure was going on, it sounds like it was not a learning experience.
Also, the fact she was on placement on October suggests that she is a not a first year student. First years would still be in lectures/practical classes in uni right now.

I was a student ODP, and most days there was a student nurse in tears in the changing rooms. The course is tough, and some mentors and qualified staff are absolutely awful to students.
But yes, report this student for doing nothing on her phone.

As an assessor for student nurses that’s definitely NOT acceptable

Id be mortified if one of my students did this.

We have 1st years in October. Remember there is a March intake at lots of universities. We are having 1st years from September 25 cohort starting this week

Ah yes, I forgot about that.
Good luck to them.

Because student nurses are not there just to watch! She could have spoken to the mum or the child or shown an interest in why the child was having bloods - it’s NEVER acceptable for a student nurse to show disinterest or be scrolling their phone whilst on duty

They absolutely did when my son was in hospital. All of the time, not just exceptional circumstances.

Not just for medical reasons either. I can also think of many examples when it was something like showing a picture of their new puppy.

Children have been abused and photographed by workers . That is why mobiles are not permitted in any job I have ever worked in whilst I am directly working with that child. It protects the child AND the worker. Are you that stupid ?

Sure, yeah. The student will not be alone with any patient at any point. As a n this situation, there was a nurse there and at least one child parent/guardian. A very different scenario from a HCP who may see a patient in isolation. Is it great, no, absolutely not. Is it what you are making out, no, absolutely not.

Yep if browsing/texting on the ward that's not a good look - more for their mentor/staff to pick up on I think not sure if comment myself.

There are some work based reasons to have phone out though - Students in our area have all their portfolios accessed on their phones and need to get signed off etc on them - so they would need to have their phone on them. I.e. prepared cannulation kit - witnessed X10. They all have their phones on and constantly chase signatures/comments to get signed off.

Our trust guidelines/policies/drug details & pgds are also on phone apps so you'd be using the phone to check any of those during the shift. So you'd regularly see staff in my region using phones during the shift.

MN can be so bonkers sometimes. I was in hospital recently and I distinctly recall that there were lots of things in there. Many of which got touched on a regular basis. Beds. Drips. Pens. Desks. Computers. Plates. Clipboards. Cups. Switches. Handles. I could go on for a long time. But apparently mobile phones are a thing unique in their propensity to unstoppaby spew forth bacteria and thus are a cause for great concern from a hygiene point of view. I don't think that's right.