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,

I have a work mobile that has apps for photos to send securely. I use it daily - there are definitely times when photos are required………

GPs for example take photos of wounds or skin conditions to send to experts

Similar to pens then?!

Well I hope the phones are very secure...

and drip stands
door handles
hospital lifts
visitors
other children
playrooms/toys

honestly, hospitals are full of germs. Phones were the least of my worries when my son was in there and immunocompromised.

my work phone is managed by nhs and is secure - nothing can be added or deleted unless done by the UHB

Which nurses have to bring in from home!

No work phones for nurses at the hospital my son was at. They would either take a picture with my permission using their own phones or I would take a picture and send it to them via their work email address depending on how concerned they were about the issue.

It’s a big no no to take pictures of patients on your personal phone - we could be disciplined for this.

Every trust/department does their own rules. We can use personal mobiles to take pictures of patients when required - there's an app called 'consultant connect' which you login to on your phone, take the pictures, add pt's NHS number, it uploads in to their records and emails a copy to your NHS email.

Didn't seem to be the case at my son's hospital. I'm assuming because they didn't have work phones.

They always asked first and once it was uploaded to wherever it needed to be uploaded to they would always delete it afterwards.

I would expect that

I was more wondering about personal phones (as not all staff are given work phones)

Consult connect is loaded to our work phones and we have secure log in using work credentials

Not all hospitals give nurses work phones. It wasn't the case at the hospital my son was at.

And provide your own stethoscope and until recently thermometer because the ward didn’t have any. 😀. If hospitals were really fussed about infection control at this level they’d provide that level of stuff and also launder staff uniform.

Oh yeah, there was a huge shortage of thermometers when my son was in. At one point I believe they had 3 for 4 bays full of children on an oncology ward.

My son's heart rate was always 130 at that point so he was on hourly obs which always made things fun with everyone running around looking for a prized thermometer every hour.

Sadly they get stolen. And then you tell the ward manager you can’t do obs and she just shrugs and says there’s a spending freeze and there’s no budget! 🙈. I can remember periods of weeks/months where we were sellotaping bits of paper together as we’d run out of staples and no money to buy any.

Not all nurses work in hospitals - district nurses have all these issues and have to Lauder their own uniforms - only allowed new ones every 3 years. I’ve known nurses to self purchase uniforms from the employer as they’ve had their quota. Even use their own cars and aren’t reimbursed any wear and tear

It doesn't surprise me at all. My son was an inpatient for 10 months up until the start of this year and it was certainly eye opening in many ways practically living in a hospital for that long.

This child has their own thermometer, so no hunting around for a thermometer. Parents take the thermometer with them to hospital, they e learnt it was better to purchase their own

Blood pressure cuffs would also be an issue when my son was in. They found that his arm was too big for the pediatric one but too small for the adult one but found this white one that seemed to work pretty well for him but always went walkabout!

Honestly, I never bothered buying my own thermometer because I knew that it would just get taken as they'd think it was a hospital one and we'd then never see it again. He had 2 cellular blankets that I had to save from the cleaners taking them away thinking they belonged to the hospital on many occasions. 😂

This 100%! I feel so sorry for student nurses having to navigate the toxic environment on some wards. There are staff nurses that are just brutal and I can spot them a mile away. Bullies dressed in a nurses uniform.

Yes, any nurse who comes across a student who can’t make a bed simply needs to show them what to do. Not rocket science 🤷🏻‍♀️

I trained in the dark days. We all had an A4 book we had to lug around on placement to make our notes in, get our competencies signed off, do reflections, get our written feedback from mentors and visiting lecturers and have our attendance signed off. They got lost, fell apart, got filthy, things were spilled on them. They were checked and signed off periodically but if they went missing you could lose months of proof that you had done the work you were supposed to do. If someone was falling behind the university might not be aware for weeks. Our current students use an app. If they refused and said they simply must write everything on paper then they’d be told to catch themselves on. The system has evolved, students are expected to catch up.

Kirbert2

the parents don’t let the staff use use their thermometer 🤒 so it doesn’t get taken away. The reading can be used by the staff if they want. But the thermometer isn’t left out but put away.

It's a good idea. Especially if they are often in hospital.

Touch wood, we've had one long hospital stay but since he's been home in January we've been able to manage at home. He'll likely need surgery in the future but I think that's a good while away yet considering we don't even have a set date.

I may bring my own thermometer and blood pressure cuff next time. 😂