Is there anyone who works for the NHS

[Stressed21]

Who isn't chronically stressed in an understaffed ward/department?

If so, how has your department managed it?

My own workload is often unmanageable, as is that of the majority of the staff I manage and others I speak to. It was bad before COVID, but obviously worse now. I try to ensure the staff below me are coping and OK, but there's only so much I can do when the fact is, we don't have enough staff.

Just interested to hear if anyone doesn't feel this way. Have name changed for obvious reasons

I’m in primary care and we’re maxed out. Staff sickness meaning shortages, luckily no serious illness or any deaths but lots of enforced isolation (less recently) and massive workload.

Hospitals rejecting/holding referrals left right and centre, so we’re looking after everyone waiting indefinitely to be seen. Doing secondary care’s bloods, dressings, pain management etc. No blame, I know they’re drowning but so are we.

Mental health cases through the roof. Continuing care as well as playing catch up. Staffing Covid vaccine clinics on top of, not instead of, normal workload. Now entering flu season so thousands of flu jabs to give.

We’re knackered.

It's awful. More than half of my wards staff off sick....only one covid related (long covid ). No sign of any coming back soon.
Start the day short staffed and they still take staff from you to cover other wards.
We're working our asses off every shift. My feet have never hurt so much and i'm exhausted.
I have never thought of leaving, i do love my job but it's extremely hard just now.

Reading this I feel so guilty. I've got long covid. Resumed in mid feb then had awful relapse/bad reaction to the vaccine. Only worked for 4 weeks and had to go back off sick again. We've had loads of experienced staff leave over the last year. Logistically it's also a nightmare having red and green ICUs and we also seem constantly to have around 8 or 9 very ill covid patients. Daily messages on group whatsap asking people to do extras but many people are just running on empty. I want to return but physically can't see it the moment. Still waiting for further tests etc which have been cancelled so many times due to equipment malfunctioning. I'm probably going to have to retire a few years earlier than I hoped tbh.

@Sidge

I’m in primary care and we’re maxed out. Staff sickness meaning shortages, luckily no serious illness or any deaths but lots of enforced isolation (less recently) and massive workload.

Hospitals rejecting/holding referrals left right and centre, so we’re looking after everyone waiting indefinitely to be seen. Doing secondary care’s bloods, dressings, pain management etc. No blame, I know they’re drowning but so are we.

Mental health cases through the roof. Continuing care as well as playing catch up. Staffing Covid vaccine clinics on top of, not instead of, normal workload. Now entering flu season so thousands of flu jabs to give.

We’re knackered.

As someone who works in A&E I feel bad for those working on primary care, they are all getting a real bashing by the general public, mostly GPs. Can I ask if there has been guidance from PHE for GPs to remain with a telephone based system? Personally I have had a lot of difficultly accessing a GP for my mum who is 88 and has dementia, it's not been great. I think many people in the general public are genuinely confused why the doors remain closed at a lot if GP surgeries when everything else is opening up. I know it's very variable as some practices are now open as before the pandemic but many are not. I am not bashing them at all, just curious as if there has been guidance given to GPs about how to see patients?

Totally bloody knackered. We are running on 40% of our substantive staff. Have some amazing bank and agency nurses who are holding us together.
Don't know if I can do this anymore. My new definition of a good day is one where I don't cry.
Was in hospital myself a few months ago and the standards of care where appalling. Dread needing to go back in.
The situation has been building up for years and covid has just speed up the decline.
Senior managers totally disengaged from reality. Would leave tomorrow if I knew what else to do.
Hugs to everyone who feels worn out

It’s awful. I’m frontline MH and staffing is beyond horrendous.

We have been a team of 2 nurses for most of covid on a busy ward, relying on agency and bank nurses. Now we have one newly recruited nurse but staff sickness means they have just been dropped in at the deep end.

I’m at breaking point, suffering frequent migraines and simply can’t have the time off I need. I’m working 50+ hours a week, every week. It’s not sustainable.

Things are looking a bit brighter going forward with staff coming but we need support now, before we fall apart completely.

This is appalling in that the Health Service is breaking the health of those that work in it.

@marmaladehound I’m only a NP not a GP so not exactly sure, but I think the guidance is to maintain telephone triage and see F2F those that need it, not those that want it.

In my practice it’s working really well, the GPs are amazing and share out urgent and routine call lists, which they then have allocated blocks in the day to bring patients down that need F2F. It means everyone is getting a call on the same day of urgent or within 48-72 hours if routine, and will be seen the same day if needed. Far superior to the preCovid service!

Nurse appointments are full and booked up to 4 weeks in advance but only by us, GPs or reception staff, no online patient booking system allowed currently.

Having said that, it is surgery dependent. My own surgery are shockingly bad, I’ve got a 3 week wait for a call back from a nurse. Last time I needed antibiotics urgently I didn’t even speak to anyone, it was all done by text and picture messaging. Which is fine by me as I knew what I needed and why, but no good for 99% of people.

I do think our doors need to remain restricted in terms of access, we are generally seeing the sickest and most vulnerable people in person, most others can be dealt with by phone. We are protecting them, as well as staff, and keeping them out of hospital! Locally we have a Covid at home scheme which the GPs created, manage and run in an attempt to reduce admissions. We also staff a Hot Hub for suspected Covid cases to reduce ambulance and ED pressures, and obviously are still visiting care and nursing homes as well as the local hospice. Restricting access to the surgery is a sensible thing to do IMO.

I coordinate a labour ward. I’m totally burnt out and don’t know how much longer I can continue. My last shift, I was meant to coordinate a busy labour ward…. With only one midwife on duty. How the fuck can anyone do the maths on that and decide it’s safe. Tried to close, rang all the other local units and they said they were also chronically understaffed and absolutely rammed so they couldn’t help, so we had to just keep struggling on. I cried the whole way home.

I don't work for the NHS, but I have seen close at hand recently what pressure at least A&E and general wards are under, as a patient with some insight.
I had covid, and then a secondary chest infection and could not get an appointment (even telephone consultation) with my GP practice for over a week. That led to obviously me getting worse and 111 sending an ambulance, they were concerned about my breathing, pain and sats, and I was admitted after an 8 hour wait in A&E.
From the ambulance crew (that took 90 mins - no judgement on the crew here though) to the ward staff, the care given to me by each individual was exemplary, despite the obvious pressure they were under with patients shouting and being abusive, running around answering bells, all they seemed to say was "I'll be back in a minute" because they were usually half way through dealing with someone else, and they would rush back, they truly put their patients first, I honestly felt like I was in a better state than some of them who looked more knackered than I was!
But, their attitude didn't waver, they were all, every single one, polite, caring and thorough and didn't make me feel like a burden.
I don't know how long this goodwill is going to last, because that's what the NHS is running on right now, after my experience I can see that clear as day. It's appalling that they're treated like this and feel forced into giving what some have said they feel is dangerous care to patients. I don't feel I received that btw, but it was very clear the supply of staff didn't meet the demands of patients, they never stopped and it still wasn't enough.
The last time I was in hospital on my own account was around 10 years ago, admitted through A&E and onto a ward - completely different experience to a couple of months ago, I guess that's the effects of budget cut upon budget cut and not enough resources to meet demand.
I hope it's realised that people like me see and appreciate what is done for and on our behalf, even if there's little we can do practically to ease the burden.

Now, where can I get one of these 'Fuck the Tories' bags? 🤣

Thing is NHS staff won't do it because they care too much but I often think that if they all walked out for just five minutes at a set time nationwide then those in power would wake up.

Heartbreaking reading. I'm one of those rats who escaped the sinking ship. Agency work much less stressful than my senior nursing post.

General practice. Three staff with over 100 years experience all retired (early) this month. One replaced so far.
So short today, one nurse practitioner still unwell after Covid and actually signed off sick this week, came in to triage as no one else available. She took over sixty calls.
We're all being asked to do overtime. None of us want it.

Currently serving my notice as a HV, which is a real sinking ship in our local area, about 60% vacancy rate staffing wise. Is pretty much down to safeguarding only, a mash up of agency staff doing new birth visits, everything else pushed to support workers. Complete lack of community resources to refer families to, endless waiting lists for paediatricians, SALT. Completely demoralising as you feel you are fire fighting the whole time. HV has become a very lonely, isolating job as they still have restrictions on staff meeting face to face due to covid.

Leaving to do agency nursing working at home with people with medical needs and bank work at covid centre. Looking at it as long term preservation to keep my nursing career going, because I don't knowcwhat else I would do!

I'm a band 7 clinician. Our service is sinking, there are no staff. Patients are still coming in in droves. I have no staff to care for them.

Everyone is juggling balls and cutting corners to get just the bare minimum done. Things are getting missed and I have the horrible feeling something terrible is going to happen soon. It'll be no fault of the clinician as the workload is way and above what can be managed. I'm terrified it'll happen on my watch.

I work a 12.5 hr shift (which really is 13 hours as I always finish late) and do not stop once for a break.

I don't know anyone who isn't looking for another job. I'm angry that our health service has been allowed to get into this state.

My GP practice has met all my needs throughout the pandemic. I like telephone triage (but like a previous poster I do know what to say and what I need.) We also get same day call back and I've then had F2F on same day for myself or daughter several times. I just wanted to throw that in as GPs getting such a bashing at the moment.

I've considered using private healthcare as one DD is on a waiting list for surgery and it could take months/years. Another daughter having surgery today which she was referred for during pandemic and I just hope it goes ahead

It’s just broken. We are 9 qualified band 6 down, endless job adverts out and no agency worked to be had.

It’s beyond broken.

In maternity and don’t know what to do. Feel like we need to whistleblow but shifts are so mental it’s difficult to pin down and describe the actual teetering on the brink of disaster that’s happening most nights, certainly impossible to incident report everything and get home. Also, would absolutely terrify women. The NQ staff coming through have had their training so compromised that the support required is greater than ever more, basically unreasonable and also impossible to provide with staffing and work levels as they are. It’s a perfect storm.

Ever before not ever more

I'm not clinical, but still the past six months have been the closest to burnout I've ever been. I honestly don't know how my clinical colleagues cope. We've already had to add extra beds and several times had queues of ambulances at a&e, beds full. It's basically our worst winter pressures, in August. How can it get worse this winter?

"I've worked in the NHS for 36 years. It is the worse I have ever known it and late 80s was bad.
This is funding for the NHS as a % of GDP. Before the pandemic the NHS was on its knees. This is not just a covid issue"

This has been an obvious direction for a while, yet there were many here who felt that describing post-Covid NHS in the form we're seeing now was 'scaremongering'.

It should be a job like any other - you go in, leave on time, take your holiday and you're not expected to routinely go 'above and beyond'.

Hope all of the NHS-ers here get through ok. Look after yourselves 💐💐💐

GP trainee - I’m somewhat protected by virtue of being a trainee not a partner or salaried doctor, but it’s horribly busy and we’re all managing levels of demand and levels of risk what feel completely unsustainable. There’s too much to do, there’s not the staff, so many are understandably not being seen by secondary care or are on massive waiting lists and that’s making so much more work as we try to support people who in ‘normal’ times would be seeing a specialist, or would have had their hip op my now etc.
We recently changed out system so patients can call up and choose a face to face or telephone appointment instead of being triaged and honestly I hate it so far - I’m spending time cleaning my room, changing PPE between people who really don’t need to be seen in person, then will have a telephone call at 5pm with someone who clearly needs seeing F2F but had asked for telephone as they didn’t want to bother us. Previously everyone would have been called back by a doctor within an hour or so of calling us and triaged appropriately. There’s no perfect system though because nothing will fix the fact that there’s not enough appointments, not enough doctors or nurses, and there are lots of patients with lots of problems.
Several staff are off unwell or looking after poorly children but they’re logging in from home and doing what they can.
It’s scary that it is this bad when we’re just into autumn, I can’t imagine how winter is going to play out.

I find this very worrying, why are MSM not picking up on this, or are they and I haven't noticed. I am in Scotland and I don't think it's as bad here but I don't know for sure, I think the Central Belt might be. I wonder how it will be by the end of the year. I feel quite afraid. I was a Nurse and was considering doing a return to practice course but I don't know if I will atm.

Its a visious cycle for us. Difficulty accessing primary care means more patients coming through A&E, who have basically just had to get sicker in order to access help. More patients being admitted because they are sicker, no eds. Our clinics are heavily booked with 2ww who have had a telephone appointment only, therefore our waiting lists are longer for urgent/routine and patients are being pushed back to primary care for help, primary care has less time and do more telephone consultations. And on and on and on. Sadly we have had a couple of cases of cancer that were missed because they had a telephone appointment.

Our ward staff are run ragged and many off sick, this then adds a greater burden to the staff who are in and more burn out.

It's just a total mess. And patients are becoming less patient, which I completely understand but we are often stuck with nowhere to go to help them because their just isn't the capacity. No one is willingly withholding care but we cannot magic up extra capacity (and believe me everything has been done to magic it up)

I’m patient facing and have been throughout the pandemic. Last week I got a really nasty complaint from a patient saying I hadn’t bothered to engage in small talk with her. Even though I did. But she felt the need to write in a written complaint nonetheless.

I just think what’s the point in all the hard work